Illinois Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

Since the marathon and 1/2 marathon started at the same time and ran together through the first 11 miles, I took advantage of the 3:10 pace group and lined up with them at the start. I wanted to try to knock off a sub-1:35 so I pushed a little bit ahead of them and from there on just tried to keep them about 15-30 seconds back. I did this pretty well. They caught me back at one point at an aid stop when I fumbled a water bottle handup while trying to get down a gel. I throw down a minute of faster pace and got back out in front.

Running with the pace group chasing definitely propelled me to my goal. When I turned off at the 11 mile mark though, I no longer had other people around to pace off, so my pace slipped a teeny bit. Still plugged away, though I was starting to hurt at this point. 2 miles to go and I was at about 1:19 race time. Awesome, that's right about where I wanted to be.

Coming down the last stretch to the stadium it was pretty packed with spectators and people cheering. It was great. The crowd helped me motivate myself to put in a good finish kick, clocking my fastest split of the race. It hurt, but it hurt so good, and I was already starting to ride the endorphin rush of achieving a solid PR of several minutes. We came down the little ramp into the stadium and I was flying. I passed a few people in the last stretch here coming into the stadium and along the edge of the field. I was on a mission to finish as hard as I could. Rounded the last corner and put my head down and gave it all I had for the 50 yards.

Crossed the line moving pretty good, and was okay for a few seconds, then the race caught up with me, and I was feeling it. Ooof!

My first goal was to knock off my 1:38 1/2 PR. I was pretty sure that was doable. My other goal was run the half at or slightly under the pace I need to run to BQ. I succeeded on both accounts. :)

Hmmm, find a way to keep pushing harder for that 15 seconds, and get under 1:35.

Walked around the field quite a bit, eventually lined up by the tunnel exit to look for other people I knew coming into the finish and cheer for them. :)


Nothing, maybe a bit of mental toughness to push a teeny bit harder.


This was very well run for the innagural edition.

Only a few minor things that could have been better, but all the big important stuff was extremely well done. And the volunteer support was amazing! What a turnout all along the course, not just in the parts that passed through campus, but all along the neighborhoods we ran through were people out lining the streets and cheering.

Definitely a Class A race and one that I want to come back and race again!