Gopher to Badger 1/2 Marathon

I'll get to the good stuff right away and then explain in detail how it all went down.

• Personal Best time for a 1/2 marathon!
• Rainy and overcast > sunny and humid
• Cool t-shirt and medal
• Nice route
• Overall feeling of confidence and still has some gas to burn at the end

Here's how it all went down. Conversations about this race I found typically go like this:

ME: I'm running the Gopher to Badger Half"

OTHER PERSON: "Have you ever run that one before?"

ME: "No. But it's on my birthday so I signed up"

OTHER PERSON: "Ooooh. It's a hot one. Good luck. Be prepared for the heat. It's just cornfields and a highway and you. But have fun!"

Even the weather man predicted 94 degrees and 99.9999999% humidity. So I was prepared. I wore a hat and my lightest colored outfit which happened to be my MDRA race singlet to represent. I had elecrolyte tablets and I kept telling myself that it would be hot but I would be ready.

Race day: Overcast. Lightning. Cool. I mean how can you be so WRONG? It wasn't even CLOSE to hot and humid. But that was all good because everyone knows that rainy and cool > hot and humid any day. It ended up raining the first 2 miles and then just being a regular overcast cool day. Besides from running with wet shoes it was great! It was a route with a lot of highway running, but I liked it. I ran with some girls from my group. We stuck together up to about mile 8 and then we started to fan out.I ran this race just right. It was exactly what I needed. When you do the right thing in training and then can run a race like this where it just feels so good your confidence skyrockets and you just want to keep working at it the way you have been. Maybe even a little more. I'm going to be so well prepared for this marathon it's not even going to be funny. So if you thought you were going to laugh at my preparations - sorry folks - it just won't be funny :)

We ran up the hills because we've been training for hills. I kept on passing people miles 9-12. Just look at my splits between those miles. Crazy how good I felt.

Mile 1: 10:49

Mile 2: 11:16

Mile 3: 10:51

Mile 4: 11:24

Mile 5: 11:20

Mile 6: 11:11

Mile 7: 11:18

Mile 8: 11:52 (stopped for a bite to eat and water)

Mile 9: 10:52

Mile 10: 10:19 (WOAH NELLY! Rock star mentality! I was jumpin into crowds just to see if they would carry me!)

Mile 11: 10:48

Mile 12: 10:21

Mile 13: 11:27 (includes the .1)

Mile 12-13 I had to talk myself into keeping it up. I did slow down but for the most part I had a great 2nd half. I ended up doing a gel at mile11 which I think helped for the last push. And I also took an Aleve before the run to help with the knee pain.

One of the girls I was running with left us about mile 8 and just kept on truckin! She finished about 5-6 minutes before us. I tried catching the second girl I was with; got close, but then she must have dropped the hammer because she sped up and I never caught her. She finished about 30 seconds before me. My official time was 2:24:14, but given that we were behind the start line and it wasn't chip timed, my watch time put me at 2:23:57. Not a big difference, but at a quick glance you only notice the 24 and the 23. Either way, it was an awesome PR - from 2:29 in the Vegas 1/2 and I feel well on my way to breaking the 2:20 marker.