Believe me when I say I can write a novel about this race. And, also believe me when I tell you that it's not something anyone wants to actually read. :)

Story of the day was probably the wind. Tough wind that against us for the first 5 miles or so. I expended a LOT of energy fighting that and the inclines for the first part of the race -- too much energy, probably -- but I did it with the knowledge that almost the entire last 6 miles would be with a big tailwind to help me out.

And that's where my assumptions proved faulty: I was going along, ticked miles 6-9.5 off in decent fashion. I was hurting and stumbling along, but making it okay. And then, in a very cruel twist of fate, the wind shifted. All of a sudden I'm running into that same wind. Again. Honestly, it broke my spirit. I kept going, but stopped looking at my garmin because I knew I was going too slow, but couldn't do anything about it.

Around mile 12, I had enough. I stopped. Walked. Wasted about a minute. I was SO CLOSE. But it didn't matter. I was exhausted, close to tears, just DONE. Finally told myself to HTFU and start running again, but the damage was done. When I crossed the finish line a minute slower than my PR, that's where I did myself in.

The HR/pace details....
Lap 1 08m 41s Max HR 164 Avg HR 156
Lap 2 08m 43s Max HR 169 Avg HR 166
Lap 3 08m 33s Max HR 173 Avg HR 169
Lap 4 08m 35s Max HR 174 Avg HR 171
Lap 5 08m 48s Max HR 175 Avg HR 170
Lap 6 08m 23s Max HR 177 Avg HR 173
Lap 7 08m 36s Max HR 178 Avg HR 174
Lap 8 08m 18s Max HR 176 Avg HR 174
Lap 9 08m 25s Max HR 177 Avg HR 174
Lap 10 08m 52s Max HR 177 Avg HR 173
Lap 11 08m 58s Max HR 176 Avg HR 172
Lap 12 08m 38s Max HR 179 Avg HR 177
Lap 13 10m 19s Max HR 178 Avg HR 171

My z4 starts at 167. I ran 80% of this race in z4/z5 -- and that's not something I can pull off. Looking back, my PR was probably lost around mile 3 when I was already averaging z4, though I don't think I could have slowed down too much more than I already was.

The plan was this:
Miles 1-3: 8:30-8:45
Miles 4-9: 8:15-8:30
Miles 10-12: 8:00-8:15
Last mile: sub 8m/m.

Hit the mark at the beginning, but after that, had slowed it down because of the wind, but maybe not enough. Hard to tell. I still think that if the wind hadn't become an issue again the last 3 miles of the race, that I could have held that 8:20-8:30 pace and brought it under 1:52.

Walked around trying to find my sister -- she was my only supporter out there. My parents backed out at the last minute, and my nephew decided that "he didn't want to walk around". Disappointing, but Julie did a great job seeing me a couple of times on the course.


Wind. Training. Better mental fortitude.


This is the first year for this race (or, at least, the first time in over 20 years that they put it on) and they did an OUTSTANDING job. The course was well-marked, had tons of water stops and lots of volunteers everywhere. The goody bag had a ton of stuff in it, and the post-race food was abundant. They had a live band playing -- and they were dang good! -- but it was a little cold for me to stick around. Oh - and they also had 2 different groups set up for stretching/massages, which meant that the line wasn't 20 people deep.

Perhaps the only thing I would change (though it didn't affect me), is that they did not offer race day packet pickup. With the field only being around 1000, they probably could have supported that.

Nicely done, Rockford! I'll come back for this one. Though I didn't, it's a good PR course, too.