Jeff Winter City of Lakes Half Marathon - September 11, 2016

This was going to be my 7th race of the season today.  But it's not been a good race season for me so far.  As a result, today's City of Lakes Half Marathon is only the 4th race I've actually finished this year.  Last month I dropped out of the Urban Wildland Half Marathon at the 8 mile mark due to severe tightness in both calf muscles, representing just the second time I've dropped out of a race in my life.  The other was the 2012 Twin Cities Marathon.  That year I was coming back from a month long injury and simply wasn't ready to run a full marathon.  I ran the first 16 miles as a solid training run and then dropped out at a pre-determined location to hook up with my family. But I had every intention of finishing last month's race, but my calf muscles brought me to my knees again.

So today is another opportunity to start and hopefully finish a race.  I'm also directly at the height of my high mileage week's in preparation for next month's Twin Cities Marathon.  I've successfully completed 3 - 20 mile training runs over the last 3 weeks, with one more scheduled for Saturday.  My training has gone very well this summer.  In fact it has gone so well, that my race performance issues have been very disappointing.  Still not sure why my calf muscles have been causing me so many problems when running uptempo race pace.  I've tried kinesiology tape, compression socks and other magic potions that supposedly minimize cramping issues, but nothing has worked so far.  I fear that on the eve of my 60th birthday, age is likely the main factor.  With no changes or issues with my training program, diet, or health otherwise, it seems like the age may be the only logical explanation remaining.  I just don't want to accept that reason yet.  

This half marathon is a two lap race around Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet as outlined on the map below.  I've run this race twice before as a 25k (15 miles).  A few years ago they changed the race to a standard half marathon.  It was a sunny, 60 degree morning, buy strong winds were in the forecast.  For the most part, the winds were not a factor until I reached the 10 mile mark.  By then, the wind was starting to pick up from the south with intensity.  I wanted to maintain a 7 minute mile pace in this race.  But just couldn't hang onto that pace over the last few miles.  But I did finish the race with no major issues.  So the way this year has gone, I'm happy about that.

I finished with a chip time of 1:33:30.  I ran about 30 seconds faster than my July half marathon, but still 2-4 minute slower than my top 10 half marathon times.  My race pace was 7:09/mile vs. my 7:00 minute mile target.  Over I finished 136th among 1,024 finishers and 8th among 45 in my age group.  Today's race also doubled as the Minnesota Half Marathon Championship for 2016 and one of the USATF Minnesota Team Circuit events.  So a very strong field of runners from all age groups turned out for today's race, which featured 5 new Minnesota age group records.
 
The next race on my calendar is the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon on October 9th.  I feel good about my training mileage and training plan overall.  Just not sure how my body will respond to the full marathon distance this year, considering my slower race times so far.  Guess I will find out one way or the other, 4 weeks from today.

Results:
http://www.raceberryjam.com/2016/colmen.html