IMT Des Moines Half-Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

My goal for this race was between 2:20 and 2:30. I started too fast. I should have known it as I was passing lots of people in the first 2 miles. I got to the 5k mark and was at 30:13, or 9:45s. Too fast for a race I was planning for 10:40s to 11:25s.
I decided to slow down to the 10:45 pace and just take the first 3 miloes as a bonus to my final time.
Had to take a pee break just after mile 4 and by mile 5 I was starting to slow down, got bored with the scenery and basically lost my mental focus. I lost a good amount of ground to time by the 10k mark and dropped to 1:11:15, or 11:28 pace. I was disappointed in the time because I felt like I was going to need some time at the end for fading possibilities. Went through the mile 7 water station and started talking to a couple of guys that were just out having a good time. They weren't even registered runners, they were just running the 5 miles in the Water Works area trying to help people get through it. I told them I could use a sense of humor and they started to run with me.
Those guys really picked me up for the next two miles and I was feeling pretty good at mile 9.
In between mile 9 and 10 I hear a siren and I look over my shoulder to see a motorcycle with the lead marathoner behind him. He came by me at about 9.25 and he looked like he wasn't even working.
I got to the 15k mark at 1:51:36 (11:16) and felt pretty positive about it. I was looking at another 5k in under 40 minutes to get under 2:30.
Just after the 10.5 mark I started to get really tight in my lower back. I kind of changed the way I was running to relieve it but I was much less efficient and a bit slower. I just kept plugging though, and trying to find someone that wanted to chat.
The change in running gait started to cause another problem and I started to feel it in my hip abductors and inner thighs. It was so bad that I had to change back to my regular gait, but that caused some real pain in my back. Overall it took me almost 50 minutes to run the last 3.2 (16:10). That was very disappointing to me, but I was severely hurting when I crossed the line. Total time of 2:46:38 or 16 minutes and change longer than I wanted. Pace was 12:44.

I guess I need to work on my core strength and back strength a little more (or a lot more). I feel like if my back would have held out I could have made the goal time.
I might have also taken an ipod with me. I don't usually run with music and I have never raced with music, but this course has a lot of area where you are really "on your own" and much of that is where you really need it. The trip through Water Works Park and the lap around Gray's Lake had very few spectators and it covered some 7 miles of the course and most of it in the middle area where you really need to keep your motivation up.
I was told that there were bands all around the course, but that was not true for most of these 7 miles.

Walked around, panted, ate, repeat.


More miles. I need to run more miles. I need to run more miles for more years to get faster. It's not rocket surgery.


It's a well run race that had a record number of participants. They include the section in Water Works park to eliminate hills, but I would rather run hills than the flood barren area of that park.