The Tale of Two Halves

If you follow my blog, you know that I raced two half marathons in April (if not, you can read more than you ever wanted to know about my races at the Rock the Parkway Half Marathon here and the Illinois Half Marathon here).  Running two of them two weeks apart really allowed me to compare the races.

First, I am happy to report that both races went well!  They were not PRs, but they were some of my top half performances.  I'm at the point where I need everything to align in order to PR, which means a very fast course, ideal weather, a taper, and competition to run with (I hope I can someday get fit enough to PR under bad conditions, but I am not there now).  For each of these races I only had one of these factors in my favor, but having people around me in both events certainly helped me get the best outcomes I could!

Finishing photos that didn't show how much fun I had racing were a common factor

The Courses:
Rock the Parkway

• Out and back with a loop around a residential area and park, kind of a big P shape.
• Hilly, with over 500 feet of gain.  
• The most difficult uphills are in miles 2, 3, and 8. 
• The most noticeable downhills are in miles 4 and 13. 
• You cannot/should not run even splits because of the elevation.
•  I think you can run fast on it, but it is not the fastest course you could find.  

Illinois

• Loop with some long straights but a lot of turns.
• 215 elevation gain, but nearly all of that gain is unnoticeable incline.  There are no hills.
• Winding residential roads and even more winding park path from miles 5-10.  Then mile 12 had a circle drive thing in it that I really disliked and might have run the wrong way on had I not been following someone closely.  On my post-race survey I suggested they remove that and move the starting line backward to make up the distance!
• You can run pretty even splits since the elevation changes are minor.
• Like RtP, I think you can run fast on this course, but I have definitely run much faster courses (most notably White River, Rock 'n' Roll Arizona, and the second half of the Phoenix Marathon, which is their half course).  However, these two are among the best spring races in the Midwest.

The Weather:

• The weather was very similar for both races.  The starting temperatures were around 40* with wind chills around 30*.  The wind was over 20 mph at both events.
• The temperature was perfect for me, and while obviously that strong of wind steals time from everyone's finishing time, I know the wind hurt me far less than a temperature of 70* with 100% humidity would have!

My Strategy:
Rock the Parkway

• My plan for this one was to place as high as I could, ideally in the top 5 female positions.  I wanted to make sure I started conservatively, especially with the uphill in miles 2-3, but then I wanted to race, however strategically that played out.  I hoped this would get me a time I was happy with, but I didn't have much confidence at this point in my season.

Illinois

• I again planned to start conservatively, which is pretty much always my strategy so could probably go without saying.  I secretly hoped to beat my RtP time, but I also knew that it could be difficult since I'd run nearly all of RtP side-by-side with Janell, and running with someone always makes for a better performance.  I again wanted to place high in the field, but based on past results I knew it would take a PR for me to get into the top 3, and this year ended up being far more competitive, with the top 3 running 1:14-1:16 and 8 women breaking 1:20.

My Splits:

• My Garmin splits are below for comparison purposes.  I ran more evenly at Illinois based on the terrain.
• Both courses are certified, so both courses are 13.1 miles, but my Garmin read pretty differently.  This is related to the number of turns on the courses, as Illinois had waaaaay more.  My Garmin usually reads a little short (I'm still bitter that because of that Strava didn't give me credit for a full marathon at CIM!), but if there are a ton of turns it may read a little long.
• I'd like to point out that although my Garmin split below has my RtP final mile at 5:53.0, my actual watch said it was 5:52.96, and I'm going with 5:52, haha!
• I'd also like to point out the random start times of the races, at 7:03 a.m. and 7:34 a.m.  Illinois was officially supposed to start at 7:03, but I think RtP was supposed to start at 7:30.
• I am pretty consistent with stopping my watch when I am 2 seconds through the finish, as both my official times were 2 seconds faster than I had on my Garmin.  Now if I could just remember to wait a little longer and to smile when I finish to get better photos!
• Both races had high winds, but at Illinois we didn't have very long stretches running into them, which was a benefit of many turns on the course.  The main portion into the wind that I remember (and that my splits show) was mile 10, although many people mentioned that the final 5K was all into the wind.  At RtP, we ran into a headwind for miles 8-13, which definitely wore on me more and slowed those mile splits (in my opinion, by 10-15 seconds/mile when there was no block, so I think we'd have had a nice negative split without the wind).

Factors that helped me in both races:

• Not looking at my watch.  I need to write a post just on this and how much it's changed my running this season!  At RtP I only looked at my mile 1 split (because I felt like we started slowly) and at Illinois I only looked at my 10K and 10 mile splits (because there were course clocks at those points and the 10K clock was wrong).
• Not having goal paces or times.  This seems counter-intuitive because how can you expect to achieve goals if you don't have them, right?  I recently read that it's difficult to gauge your fitness during marathon training because you are always running on tired legs.  I didn't have a good gauge on my fitness going into RtP particularly; prior to RtP I'd only had one really good workout this season, and it was 20 miles long and occurred 6 days prior to RtP (too close to the race to obtain any physical benefits from, and it actually probably hurt my race at RtP...but it did give me a mental boost!).  Then at Illinois I wasn't sure how my legs would respond being 2 weeks off RtP, with a 21 miler the weekend between the races.  I wasn't tied to any specific pace goals, but wanted to run consistently and finish strong, with what my body had to give on race days.  I'm good at gauging my pace and what I have (even in terrible workouts I do not start fast then fade, I am simply consistently slow on my splits), so this meant I wasn't nervous at all.

Random thoughts about both races:

• The higher mileage I'm running, the more 13.1 miles flies by!
• I am proud of myself for being brave enough to race these without tapering.  
• Before working with my coach, I never raced anything without at least taking the two days prior to the race off/light - generally for a Saturday race I would do Thursday off and Friday 2-3 miles, and for important races I'd do a short Wednesday also.  This meant that my weekly mileage was less consistent back then, which I now know held me back in my important races.  
• I only started running 70 mile weeks in September 2017, but this season I ran solid halves during them.    
• I run 7 days a week and my Fridays are always short, at 3-4 miles.  The Fridays before these races were no different, so although I don't count that as a taper since I run that every week, I do think it's worth noting that I had that short easy day in there so it was not as if I ran 8-10 miles the day before these races.

I'm glad I decided to run both of these races; I think they were just what I needed in April!

But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded. - 2 Chronicles 15:7