North Shore Half Marathon

This morning I ran the North Shore Half Marathon in Highland Park in a time of 1:37:39!  I had pretty much NO idea how it was going to go.  I hadn't done a half marathon since last May and June and neither of those went quite how I would've liked them to.  The Green Bay Half in May of 2012 was a lot of fun running with Rachel, wearing our matching Bears and Packers race outfits, but my time was not nearly as fast as I would've liked; I don't even remember what it was, but I know it was right under 2 hours.  Then in June of 2012, the Chicago Women's Half Marathon was a complete mental disaster for me.  My time would've been over 2 hours and I refused to even cross the finish line.  After that, I pretty much swore of racing ever again.  However, I obviously decided to get it back together and train for the Chicago Marathon this fall.

Aunt Bernadette convinced me to sign up for the North Shore Half Marathon and I thought it would be a good idea as an easy way to get a long run in, to see kind of where I'm at as I start training, and I was pretty sure I could at least go faster than a 1:49, which would be what I'd need to move up to Corral C for the CM.  I ended up being able to get into Corral B with my time!  Angela is also eligible for Corral B, so that works out perfectly and now I don't need to stress over doing (or pay for) another race to try to get into that one!  My best half marathon ever was the Columbus Half Marathon in the fall of 2008, when I was a junior in college and ran a 1:37:10.   I was so close to that time today, but I can't really be upset about not getting there because this is definitely the best I've ever ran since college.  So here's some details of the race morning:

Uncle Ron, always a strong supporter at all of our races, drove Aunt Bernadette and I (and Kelly, also a super race fan) to the start area.  There was a minor crisis for a few minutes when Aunt B realized she forgot her Garmin.  Joe woke up and came to the rescue!  The skies still looked clear and I checked my phone for the weather in Highland Park, IL and confirmed that it said 0% chance of precipitation for the entire morning.  The temperature was perfect in the 50s.  Unfortunately, about 5 minutes getting out of the car...rain.  It was light rain it first, but it made it so cold just standing in my tank and shorts!  We lined up for the start and the rain got heavier and lasted for the first mile or 2.  There was still drizzle/mist the entire race, but not as bad as the very beginning.

I started out the first mile in 7:11.  I thought "Uh oh, I definitely started too fast."  I was planning to go for a 7:45 pace and hold that pretty steadily as long as I could to hopefully end up under 1:45 total time.  But right at that first mile mark, I was with 3 older guys and decided to stick with them.  They were doing about a 7:00-7:05 pace very consistently so I figured I tried to stay with them, which last until just after the 10k mark.  During the 7th mile was a HUGE hill.  I almost stopped and walked when I got to the top, but managed to keep going... miles 8 and 9 were probably the toughest.  Once I got to mile 10, I knew I could break 1:40 without a problem.  And once I hit 11 and 12, I knew if I could really pick it up for the last 1-2 miles, I could possibly PR.  Aunt B finished in just over 1:51, so she also did very well for her age group!

I made an awesome playlist for the race.  Obviously I kicked off with Teenage Dream.  I didn't change the music the entire time, but once I knew I had about 4 minutes left, I put Teenage Dream on again.  Also, I had left my armband at my apartment in the city, so I put the iPod in my sports bra the whole time, which worked surprisingly well.

Here are my race splits:

5k - 22:08 - 7:08 pace

10k - 44:26 - 7:10 pace (7:11 pace for the 5k between)

15k - 1:08:12 - 7:20 pace (7:39 pace for the 5k between)

Finish - 1:37:39 - 7:27 pace (7:48 pace for the ~6k between)