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