So a very windy and cold day for late May, wait make that early February, or so it seemed this morning in Highland Park Illinois. Temps were in the low 40's and winds were off the lake at 15-20 mph, plus the course was a wee bit hilly (Profile here). So everything was primed to have a crap day, well not so fast, why? Because I was startlingly fast, breaking my Madison Half Marathon PR of 2:50 by 19 minutes. I finished at 2:31:19 on my Garmin, and 2 seconds faster on the race timer from the timing people (cool video of the finish is here).So I got to the race site in plenty of time, and hid in my car until 15 minutes before the race started, which since they sent us off in waves, so in reality I stood in the cold for 30 minutes, which was miserable. Once I got started I went out pretty well, the first 5 miles passed quite easily, with no discomfort, as the blood returned to my extremities. I ran the first mile a little faster then I wanted to , but it was mostly downhill and I needed my body to heat up.
At mile 6 I had a 90 second pit stop in a porta-potty that was being buffeted by the wind, I was petrified that it was going over, with me in it. I had no contingency plan for that occurrence!
I deliberately did not pay much attention to my pace, I knew I was going well, but was unsure of where I stood, but when I hit the half way point I was at 1:15:52 and was very pleased with that. Knowing that I usually slow in the second half, I was still very happy with a potential finish in the 2:35 range, little did I know I would be accelerating to the finish. Which is exactly what I did finishing the second half in 1:14:27.
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