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Duluth, MN - half marathon

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Another PR in Duluth, MN

What a weekend! Marshall and I headed north to our beloved Grandma's Marathon. This was the fourth year in a row for us to participate in this event, and it seems like every time I race there I come home with a new PR :)

Having run a marathon in February, I opted to run the half marathon this year. I've been wanting to roll a fast half for quite some time, but with the trials (and a marathon last June) I had been doing more marathon training and less speed work. So it felt good to start working on some foot speed again.

2 mile w/u
Goal: 13.1 at sub 1:16:00
Actual: 13.1 @ 1:15:43
1 mile c/d

I was up before 4:00 am race day, as my race started at 6:15 am! I was going to be finished with my entire race before Marshall and the others even started the full marathon. One good thing about starting so early was that we beat the heat. It was quite humid, but at least temps were still in the 60's when I started. But what a beautiful sight it was to watch the sun rise over Lake Superior.

Well, I must admit it was a bit unexpected to finish 3rd at this large of a race. I knew I was in shape to run a sizable PR and thought I had a good shot at top 10, and maybe top 5 on a good day. The funny thing was, I didn't even realize I was in the top three until 10 miles in when a spectator informed me that I was 3rd female. At first I thought I heard wrong and he said 13th, but low and behold another spectator confirmed 3rd place about a half mile later.

Around the boat
Around 5k to go
There were so many elite men in the race, that I couldn't figure out how many elite women took off and were actually in front of me. I quickly found a group that was running low 5:40's mile splits and settled in with them for about 4 miles. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe we came through 5k in 17:35-40ish. I was in the back, really just trying to hold on. At one point before the 5k, the group had started to pull a few strides a head, but I fought through and caught back up. Shortly after 5k, my pack had picked off one of the Kenyan ladies. Still not realizing how close we were to the leaders, we kept trucking along. By mile 5, the group was starting to string out a little bit, and I happened to be setting pace for another mile or so.

Mile to go!
Home stretch
Lucky for me, as the pack started to thin out, I could spot another female maybe about 10 seconds up. I slowly gained on her for 2 miles, and by mile 7 we were stride for stride, but I could tell she was laboring harder than myself. I slowly pulled away, willing myself to be patient until 5k to go. I didn't want to crash and burn when I knew I was for sure on pace to PR. Somehow I accidentally slipped up to a 5:54 for mile 8 or 9 and had just a little bit of panic because I knew that if I maintained this pace, my hopes for breaking 1:16 would not happen. At this point, I had been running behind the same guy for the past 1-2 miles and probably just got content, so I made a conscious effort to push pace.

I finally got to 10 miles (57:40ish), found out I was in 3rd, and then started to get an adrenaline rush. I didn't want to look behind me to see how close the next female was, so I ran scared thinking she could come back on me at any moment. Eventually, I could tell by the crowds reaction that I had a sizable gap, so I let the excitement of breaking 1:16 pull me through to the finish. It was a fairly lonely last 1.5 miles, but there was some crowd support to bring the runners home.

Finish with a new PR
Finisher




















Overall, it was a great trip! Now that it's four weeks post race, I'm looking forward to the fall racing season. Next up. . . trying to get some foot speed for a possible PR in the 10k on the roads. Then back to Minnesota for a fast 10 miler. Let's keep our fingers crossed that Marshall gets in as well (he had to do the lottery)!!