Lola's Lake Waconia Half Marathon - June 7, 2014

Today was Lola's Lake Waconia Half Marathon.  The third race in this year's Minnesota Running Series.  A new race for me, but one I was expecting to be similar to the Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon I ran last month, with rolling hills throughout the course.  This race course starts with a three mile jaunt through the town of Waconia, followed by a counterclockwise loop around Lake Waconia, before finishing back where we started in downtown Waconia.  Race morning greeted us with thunderstorms which lingered throughout the morning hours.  Lightning in the area forced race officials to delay the start of the race for 30 minutes.  It was an unpleasant morning generally speaking, with air temps in the mid 50's and a strong north wind.  Mid 50's is warmer than many of my races, but the strong winds and wet conditions made it very unpleasant. 

I arrived early as usual and gained a prime parking spot just one block from the starting line.  I stayed in the car to keep dry, waiting for word on the start of the race.  I reluctantly decided to forgo my pre-race warm-up routine to stay dry and warm.  Reluctant because I was sacrificing the chance to run my normal race pace from the start.  My warm-up would now be the first coupe miles of the race at a slower than normal pace.  I also brought a cheap rain slicker to keep me as dry as possible once called to the starting line.  You can see me in a few of the pictures below.  I'm the one wearing the fashionable red hooded slicker.  My plan was to keep it on for a mile or two and then toss it once my body began to perspire.  With no warm-up and weather conditions as they were, I realized this was not going to be one of my better half marathon times.  I have a bigger race just two weeks away and I didn't want to injure myself going out too fast and cold.  

The heavy thunderstorm passed by the time the race began, but it was still raining as I waited for the start.  The rain persisted throughout the race.  I didn't like wearing the slicker in the early going, but it did help warm my body faster than if I were wet, cold, and exposed to the wind.  I tossed it in the second mile.  My early race pace was about 40-45 seconds/mile slower than normal as we wound through the small town of Waconia.  I was hoping to ease into a faster pace over the last half of the race.  What I wasn't expecting though, were several stretches that took us off-road onto soft dirt trails.  The first one in mile four was only a few hundred yards, but the second one in mile five was over a half mile long.  The heavy rain turned the off-road sections into a muddy mess.  I could feel the ground trying to suck the shoes off my feet with each stride.  When we hit the paved road again in mile six, my legs were a bit "spaghetti like."  Way too early in the race for that.      

I said earlier that I was expecting the course to have some rolling hills, similar to the Lake Minnetonka course.  I was partially right.  There were hills, but these hills were much longer than Minnetonka's.  As the race went on I realized this course was the most difficult half marathon course I've run so far.  Yes, the weather made it even more difficult in the off-road sections, but weather conditions or not, some of these hills were killers.  As we began making our way around the lake, I became aware of a young female runner nearby.  She would pass me, then I would pass her.  I also noticed the local spectators were all cheering her by name, even the firemen on the rescue vehicles.  I later learned she was a local runner from Waconia.  Runner traffic thinned out as we got deeper into the race, but we continued to run side by side.  Then it happened.  Her friends began noticing we were side by side each time they saw us and started cheering against me, or so it felt.  "Don't let that older guy beat you!"  That did it.  My competitive juices were now ignited and the race was officially on in my mind.            

After running the first nine miles around a 7:15 pace, I began to push the pace.  I improved to a 6:45/mile pace in miles 10, 11 and 12.  I was in front of her, but just barely in miles 10 and 11, then in mile 12 I thought I lost her.  I could no longer hear her footsteps behind me.  There was just one mile to go, but it was a tough mile.  The town of Waconia greeted us with a nice hill coming back into town where the race finished.  My legs were burning as I struggled up the last hill.  Suddenly and much to my chagrin, she passed me once again!  Now there were only about six blocks to go.  I caught her again on one of the final turns and managed to cross the finish line about one second ahead of her.  The race was chip timed of course and although I crossed the finish line ahead of her, I also crossed the starting line five seconds ahead of her.  So my net time was four seconds slower than hers, meaning she did officially beat me.  But it was a moral victory just crossing the finish line ahead of her!  We congratulated each other after the race and she thanked me for pacing her the whole way.  I thought, great, so when I retire I can become a pacer for younger runners!  

Anyway, my race time was 1:31:38, finishing 26th among 908 finishers and 2nd in my age group of 30.  Jim Boatman (who I got to know at a race two years ago) finished one minute ahead of me.  I didn't notice him at the race, or would have sought him out afterward.  This was a "middle of the road" time for me.  My 9th fastest half marathon among the 17 I've run.  However, I am leading my age group in the Minnesota Running Series standings with 2,301 points after three races.  The next race on my calendar is June 21st.  The Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon in Duluth - one of the feature races on Grandma's Marathon weekend.  Entrance into this race is by lottery only, so I was fortunate to get in.  The Duluth race will be a tough field on what can be a fast course, if the weather cooperates on the 21st.

Race results:
http://results.chronotrack.com/event/results/event/event-8786?lc=en

Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon - May 4, 2014

This is race number two in the Minnesota Running Series, the Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon.  I ran this race three years ago in horrific weather conditions.  It was 32 degrees, with a 30 mph wind that never let up the entire race.  But today, conditions are almost perfect - 39 degrees with a light breeze from the north.  The sun was shinning at the start and finish as the pictures below show, but it was overcast during the middle miles of the race.

This half marathon is a challenging one, with rolling hills throughout the course as it winds west from the start in Wayzata and then heads south to the finish in Excelsior.  This race is also the first of four half marathons I plan to run over the next three months.  With the cool spring following a bitter cold winter, I still haven't fully transitioned from indoor treadmill running, to outdoor pavement running.  All but two runs over the past 10 days have still been indoors.  This won't affect my time today, but it will be a factor in my post race recovery.  The steady pounding on the hard pavement will likely keep me stiff and sore for much of the upcoming week and forcing me to cut my training mileage way back to avoid delaying the recovery process further.  Once I'm back to 100% outdoor training (hopefully after this race), the post race recovery process will be much less of an issue.
  

I felt good from the start today, although I always seem to have an extra jump in my step on good weather days.  Bad weather races can be just as difficult mentally as they are physically.  Particularly races of this distance when you are out in the elements for 90 minutes or more.  But when weather conditions are just right, it becomes your best friend.  An opportunity to perform well and you want to take full advantage of the situation.

    

With the very late spring, the trees are still bare, but the grass is greening up nicely.  This would be a much prettier run around the lake a few weeks from now, but we are here to race today, not enjoy the scenery.  I took it a bit easy in the first mile (6:55), which includes the longest hill on the course.  I remember being a bit intimidated by this course three years ago, because I didn't realize it had so many rolling hills throughout the course.  After the first mile I settled into a (6:45) mile pace and maintained it for most of the race.

By the nine mile mark I was entering gut check time as fatigue became a factor.  This is about the time in every half marathon when I begin to realize I need to let my mind take over my body and "will" me to the finish without fading off my pace.  This worked for the next three miles, but then I felt things slip ever so slightly, as I ran mile twelve in (6:50).  The wheels were coming off over the last mile as I tried to keep it together mentally.  I faded a bit more, but not as badly as I thought it was going to be, running mile thirteen in (6:57).  Now the finish line was in site and it would be over in less than a minute.   

I finished the race with a surprisingly good time of 1:28:53.  My second fastest half marathon among the sixteen I've completed.  My best time was two years ago when I ran 51 seconds faster.  But that course was predominantly downhill.  This course was much more challenging.  I finished 52nd overall among 2,267 finishers and 1st among 75 in my age group.  But what I was most excited about was achieving my first "national class" half marathon age group time for 57 year old men.  I beat the national class age group qualifying time by just 7 seconds.  I now have national class age group qualifiers in four distances (7k,10k, 10 mile and half marathon).  My next race is Lola's Lake Waconia Half Marathon on June 7th.

Race Results:
http://results.chronotrack.com/event/results/event/event-8384?lc=en

Goldy's 10 Mile Run - April 12, 2014

In planning my 2014 race calendar this past winter, I decided to enter another race series, where runners accumulate points in each race based upon your finish, with cumulative race points from the complete series determining overall age group winners.  Much like a decathlon.  The only previous race series I participated in, was the Minnesota Distance Runners Association (MDRA) event in 2010.  The MDRA series consists of 12-13 races ranging from 1 mile to full marathon and literally goes from January to November.  It's a good series, but if you run it, you have little wiggle-room to run other races outside of the series.  The Minnesota Running Series is only 4 races (a 10 mile and 3 half marathons) that span April to August.  I've run two of the four races in this series previously (Goldy's 10 and the Minnetonka Half Marathon).  Goldy's is the first race in the series.

Of the 10 mile races I've run, Goldy's is easily the toughest 10 mile course among them.  What makes this course tough, are the location of the hills.  The longest hill climb is in mile 8, followed by a short but steep hill climb in mile 9.  The rest of the course is manageable, but your legs turn to spaghetti after the short steep climb in mile 9.  The race begins outside TCF Bank Stadium heading NW on University Avenue. It winds through the East Bank Campus of the U of M, then down along the East bank of the Mississippi River.  Then it crosses over the Lake St. Bridge and up the West side on river, before crossing back to the U's East Bank again, where it follows University back to TCF Stadium for finish inside the stadium on the 50 yard line.

It was a cool, wet and breezy 45 degree morning.  Overnight rain showers hung on long enough to make it difficult to warm up without getting soaked.  I sacrificed some warm-up time, to stay as dry as possible.  Radar indicated the showers were going to end any minute, but were lingering long enough to make the start of the race uncomfortably wet and cold.  The showers persisted through the national anthem and increased briefly during the first mile of the race.  The streets were puddle filled and by the end of the first mile, my shoes were thoroughly soaked.  My goal was to maintain a 6:45 pace throughout this race, but I never really got on track.  The short warm-up, coupled with cool, wet, windy conditions left me tighter than normal and ran the first four miles 10 seconds higher than my target pace.  Three of the first four miles were into the wind which also didn't help.  Once I crossed the Lake St. Bridge to the West side of the river, the wind was more to my back, which helped me run three consecutive 6:45 miles, but not good enough to climb back to my target pace.  Familiar with the course from two years ago, the upcoming hills in miles 8/9 were starting to fester in the back of my mind no matter how hard I tried to suppress them.  I knew the hills were not going to help me make up lost ground, so my mind flipped to more of a damage control mode, to avoid losing more ground to my current pace.

The two hills late in the race were as tough as I remembered them and the last mile back to TCF Bank Stadium was directly into the wind, but I was able to hold it together, finishing the race in 1:08:44 (6:52 pace).  My time was 16 seconds slower than in 2012, but running conditions were much better back in 2012.  I finished 37th overall among 1,993 finishers and 2nd in my age group of 59.  The below results show me 3rd in my age group, as my age group was won by a wheelchair participant.  There was only one wheelchair participant in the race, so I guess they elected not to isolate him in a separate category.

An interesting side-note is that Bobby Paxton, who won my age group as a runner, is one of the top runners in the state in my age class.  Six years ago he was a member of a 4 x 1600 meter relay team of Minnesotans who set a "grand masters" world record in this relay at the time.  Not sure if the record still stands, but here's a link to that article: http://downthebackstretch.blogspot.com/2008/03/grand-masters-set-world-best.html

Among the six 10 mile races I've participated in, this was just my 4th fastest time and was a full 3 minutes off my personal best which I achieved last fall.  But considering the tough course and weather conditions, I'll take it.  My next race is the second race in the Minnesota Running Series.  The Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon on May 4th.

Race Results:
https://results.chronotrack.com/event/results/event/event-7939