Illinois Half Marathon 2011

By: Dennis Livesay

Running is a funny sport. A month ago I ran 1:24:40 at the Virginia Beach half marathon and I was beside myself happy. Today, I ran my fifth straight PR, but I’m kinda bummed. Funny. Perhaps not “Ha Ha” funny, yet funny nonetheless.¹ But I’m getting ahead of myself. Running blogs, like good dramas, require a narrative arc with proverbial hills to overcome.

¹ Okay, granted this actually wasn’t that funny. My initial plan was to use “funny” as a Leitmotif, but I’ll drop the bit here and now.

My wife Lauren is from Champaign, which is where we met. We both graduated from the University of Illinois. Lauren’s mom Mary still lives there, and Lauren’s sister Mikki is in Chicago. Plus it’s close enough for my parents to drive here from Indiana. As such, we wanted to spend Maxwell’s first birthday in Illinois so the whole family could celebrate together. As an afterthought, we also decided to run the third annual Illinois Half Marathon since we happen to be in town.²

² This is entirely a revisionist’s tale. As all runners know, we plan vacations around races, and never the other way around.

Since winter, the Illinois Half has been my “goal race,” and things had been progressing well. Unfortunately, I caught yet another bug from Max just after VB,³ which really put me behind the 8-ball. I was running blah at a time when I should have been getting sharp. And while I should know better, I started obsessing about it. Rationally, I know that training paces are meant to be soft targets, yet I was worrying about my fitness every time I had a less than stellar workout. I thought things were turning around leading into the RaceFest 10K, but then I ran poorly there too. Things slowly improved bit by bit, but my confidence was shaken, and stirred.

³ FYI, having an infant in daycare is not a good way to stay germ free.

A week out, t-storms were forecast for raceday, giving me even more to obsess about. Fortunately, as we got closer, the chance of rain progressively diminished. Raceday ended up being very nice. Slightly overcast and 50 degrees at the start, but no rain in sight. Pleasant spring weather in Champaign does equal wind though. Not as windy as VB, but sustained SE winds at 20 mph. Tough, but not impossible.⁴

⁴ Nor unexpected. I spent most of my graduate school years cycling in the windy cornfields around Champaign…just like Belgium, sans the frites and mayonnaise. Think corn dogs and pizza rolls.

I lined up at the front, but didn’t let myself get dragged out by the really fast guys. I immediately settled into 6:24 pace⁵ — the plan was to run 6:24’s through 10 miles, and then pick it up over the last 5K if I had anything left in the tank. Even if I didn’t, 6:24’s would get me to my goal of sub-1:24. Over the first 6 miles, I ran with a group of three where each rotated through to share the brunt of the wind. As we got to the outskirts of town, the course was completely windswept, and our group got split up.

⁵ Splits by Garmin = 6:25, 6:24, 6:20, 6:28, 6:23 and 6:29.

My biggest complaint about this race is that we started catching the marathoners at this point.⁶ They started 35 minutes ahead of us, and now they were everywhere. It’s not their fault, they have just as much right to the road as I, but I was getting severely POed because I couldn’t run the tangents and was constantly having to dart left and right to keep from running into them. Things were worst at mile 8 as we ran through Meadow Brook park — a narrow path with a marathon pace group spanning the full width. I had to temporarily slow to a jog, and then darted around them in the grass. Since we had been in and out of the wind while dodging marathoners, my pace was the most variable through the middle stretch of the race.⁷

⁶ This is a severe enough complaint that I’ll never do the race again if isn’t fixed. And it was even worse for the fast full marathoners, who had to wade through a sea of half runners over their finishing stretch. Chaos.

⁷ Splits by Garmin = 6:31, 6:23, 6:32 and 6:22.

I’m not sure what happened in mile 11, but I had a difficult time getting myself going.⁸ Lots of thoughts of quitting and “better luck next time”. Time to man-up and run. The marathoners split off at mile 12, and I was able to pick it up a bit. Mile 13 was back into the wind and included U-turn for a final kick in the gut. I had caught 3 or 4 half marathoners over this stretch, and there was one more just dangling in front of me. He was the only thing that kept me going hard in the last mile, and I did manage to catch him right on the line. The finish was the best part of the race. We finished in Memorial Stadium on the 50-yard line. Very cool.

⁸ Splits by Garmin = 6:32, 6:14, 6:21 and 5:56 (for the last 0.18 miles recorded by Garmin).

So, I guess I can’t complain too much because I did PR,⁹ but I really wanted to break 1:24. Going forward, I’m planning on racing shorter distances through the summer while continuing to follow Sifu Hadley’s expert advice. I haven’t decided on my plans for fall yet, but right now I’m leaning towards again focusing on the Richmond half, and then perhaps running my first full just for the experience.

⁹ Official time = 1:24:27, overall = 47^th (4^th age-graded).

The best part of the race for me was Lauren and Mikki. Both were very nervous leading up to raceday, and both wanted to avoid putting too much pressure on themself. Based on recent race times, the pace calculators suggested Lauren could run around 1:50, but her longest run was only 9.5 miles and her training was less than ideal. Mikki had more long runs in her legs, but was a bit banged up. A recent 10K suggested she could run 2:05. Both nailed these times. Lauren ran 1:50:27, and Mikki ran 2:04:10. Awesome! Breakfast afterwards was really fun as Lauren and Mikki were clearly basking in newfound glory. Seeing how much they enjoyed themselves and their pride in the accomplishment does help put things back into perspective.

The End.¹⁰

¹⁰ I was trying hard to finish with something pithy, but obviously failed miserably. I thought about using my favorite Vonnegut-ism, but I too often rely on it. So I went for something less heady. So it goes.