Crystal Lake Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

Went out taking this as a training run. It rained steadily all run, but wasn't bad until about mile 11 or so when I started to feel just WET. Kept an easy pace, never let my RPE get out of hand at all. Around mile 4 was feeling REALLY bad (the Clif shot before the race didn't settle well with the hangover I had going) and I got sick. That didn't seem to hurt my time too much though, if you can believe it - felt much better afterwards. At about 7-8 miles, I realized that I had a shot at a PR, so I decided to try just a little. At 10 miles, I had to turn in just a decent 5k time to PR, so I decided to try a little more, even. Then, went all out after mile 11. According to the Garmin, my average pace for 3 mile splits got faster by .2 mph every 3 miles. Not too shabby!

Without meaning to, I managed this race pretty well. Because I was expecting something over 2 hours, I just ran at a nice, relaxed pace, not worrying at all about times. I don't know that I'd do anything differently.

Waited for everyone to cross the finish line, changed into some dry clothes, took a picture (which I need to figure out how to upload) and then went our separate ways since it was too cold and miserable outside to be standing around.


Maybe the rain, but I don't think so. This race was much better than I expected it to be.


Nice local race. The mile markers didn't start until 4 miles, and then were a little short, I think. The last .1 of a mile was really more like .3. It all came out to 13.1 miles, but it was a little misleading earlier in the race when my pace looked to be beyond what I thought I was doing.

In the end, this was a great race for me. I didn't want to do it, but caved to peer pressure and showed up. And so, thanks to those BT'ers I got myself a new PR by about 2 minutes. Whodda thunk it. :) Oh, and apparently 4 days of drinking and no sleep makes for a good training program. :)