Lake County Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

Came out of the gate intentionally slow in order to see how I felt and let the course and my body determine how fast I wanted to run. The temp was really quite perfect for this race. Even though there was also a solid wind, there were only a couple of times I really felt it.

First handful of miles went by quickly and the first time I felt uncomfortable was in a subdivision I believe between miles 5 and 6. There was a pretty steep hill at that point so I just slowed my pace down a bit and I magically became comfortable again. Brilliant.

At about mile 7.5, I passed in front of my running idol/mentor's house (Leslie). She had the whole crew outside including Colleen and they were cranking tunes and cheering me on like crazy. This was very motivating to me, so I gave everyone a nice Arnold Schwarzeneger pose and they went even more wild. Good stuff!

Miles 8-10 were pretty uneventful and very quiet as people no longer seemed to have the energy or desire to monkey around. I was still willing to monkey around, but I thought it best to hold back. You could hear a pin drop in some areas at that point.

I grabbed water or gatorade at every aid station, but only had one gel at about 1hr. Probably could have used a 2nd around 1:45, but skipped it.

With one mile to go I realized I had a good chance of breaking 2 hours, so I high-tailed it up that finishing hill which definitely got the heart-a-pumping. I finished mile 13 at 8:38 which I was happy about and I also ended up finishing sub 2:00 which also made me feel good.

I consider this race a win for me because I did a large chunk of the training while recovering from my super-annoying fractured elbow. All said and done I am happy with the result.

Not fracture my elbow 6 weeks before the Lake Country Half.

Walked around and chatted with people & then grabbed some food. They had a nice mix of items that went down smoothly with some water.


My general running skills.


I had never done the original/normal Lake Country race so I don't really have anything to compare it to. The only real negative that I saw was having us run on the boardwalk where they also put a water station. People throwing down their cups right along the lake isn't a good idea. In addition it also created a nice wooden version of the slip 'n' slide that could catapult you into Lake Fowler. I cautiously ran over that area and hopefully others did the same without injury.

Overall this race was well organized and well run with plenty of nice volunteers who did a great job. I am glad I ran it and perhaps will do it again next year.