Saturday, August 21, 2010
Madison, WI
Last Saturday I ran my favorite half marathon - The Madison Mini Marathon.
I ran this last year as my first half and it was an awesome race, so I was excited to run it again. I can't say enough good things about this race - it's well organized, the tech shirt is great, course is beautiful with some various hills, and of course there's beer at the finish line like most Wisconsin races.
Friday night I picked up Saint Tigg and we headed to Noodles to meet Steve (ssmith1187), Tim (timmers), and Anne (murphnjaime). Anne was running a little late and I had a bet going that she wasn't going to show up. She'd never met us before and after a few questionable e-mails from the boys, I was worried that she was scared off. Thankfully Anne is fearless and did make it to dinner! Anne, you are far braver than I to meet up with a bunch of crazy people talking about shaving.
My cookies got passed around and there were few left at the end of dinner. Since no one has given a decent cookie report yet, I will say that they were quite tasty.
Tigg, Tim, and Steve.
Mandy, Tigg, Tim, Steve, Anne
Flashing gang symbols. Where did I go wrong with these children?
Race morning I met up with Steve, Timmers, and Madcow75. Madcow and I have run a few races together now, but this was the first time we got to meet in person. Bucky Badger was wandering around and we attempted to get a picture with him for Timmers (he's a HUGE Badgers fan), but the woman who took the picture somehow screwed it up, so sadly we have no evidence of Tim with Bucky. We split up after this - Tim and I went to find bathrooms and Steve went to his fancy preferred start corral.
I lined up in between the 2:10 and 2:20 pace corrals and waited for the race to begin. The sky was cloudy, but it was ridiculously humid. The air felt like soup. The dew point was above 70. Honestly, I didn't have a goal for this race at all. I figured I would run the first few miles and see how I was feeling. I do want to run a 2:15 HM this fall, but I wasn't planning on doing so during this race seeing that it is in the middle of August.
The race started right on time, but it took me a few minutes to get to the start. I crossed the mat, started my Garmin and we were off.
Mile 1 - 10:29 Running slightly uphill and toward the capitol. The capitol looked ominous is the distance and you couldn't even make out the top because it was covered in fog. Pass the farmer's market.
Mile 2 - 10:42 Down State Street and onto a bike path for a brief time. I notice drops on the ground and wonder if it has started to sprinkle. Nope, that's just the drops of sweat from the thousands of people ahead of me. Ewww. I'm sweating heavily at this point too. The humidity just won't let anything evaporate off you.
Mile 3 - 10:54 Heading towards the zoo.
Mile 4 - 10:42 Going though Vilas Park and the zoo. Pretty uneventful.
Mile 5 - 10:39 Just chugging along waiting for the hills to start.
Mile 6 - 11:10 And here come the hills through the Arboretum. I see many side trails off the road and want to go hang out on the trail instead of running this race!
Mile 7 - 11:12 More hills. Take a GU.
Mile 8 - 10:54 We're out of the Arb and it feels good. More crowd support.
Mile 9 - 11:20 Get a huge side stitch out of the blue. Where did that come from and why? I pressed on my side for a while and hoped it would go away. Eventually it did.
Mile 10 - 11:11 Heading onto the UW-Madison campus.
Mile 11 - 11:31 No idea why this mile was so slow. Waved to a few people that I knew as we were approaching the turn around point.
Mile 12 - 10:40 I notice that they've yellow flagged the race. Ugh. HUMID!
Mile 13 - 10:17 Time to pick up the pace and finish this thing.
Last .1 - 8:14 pace The end of this race is great. You basically come screaming down a decently sized hill.
Official time 2:23:24
Not my best half by any means, but certainly not my worst. I have been feeling very 'meh' about my running lately. Hoping to get my mojo back once cooler weather hits.
I chugged some chocolate milk and ate a banana in the finishing chute. I hadn't seen Timmy during the race at all, so I waited for him to finish. Steve and Madcow found me and we all waited for Timmy together. He rolled in a little later telling us that he bonked hardcore around mile 8. It was just not a good day for running. We all looked like we had gone swimming in our running clothes at the end.
I had to sit down for a while after the race because I started feeling light headed. Does this happen to anyone else? It's happened to me a few times now recently and it's quite unpleasant. I don't know if it's just the heat getting to me or what.
It was absolutely fantastic to get to meet Timmy, Anne and Madcow and of course fun to hang out with Steve and Tigg again. We certainly have a good time when we're together! I hear that I missed an awesome dinner later that night filled with falafel and Steve trying to ruin people's weddings. (You're going to have to ask him about that one.)
