Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon: Pre-Race

My race summary, with several links, is here.

I selected the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon because of the race date, the relatively straight point-to-point mostly flat course (~600 ft gain), the historical race weather (average morning low of 44 degrees), and the likelihood that there would be a women's field that would challenge me but that I could place in.  My running buddy Christian chose to run this race for the same reasons, but unfortunately got injured about 2 weeks before and couldn't compete, but she is a phenomenal friend who still made the race trip with me!  We did so many vacation activities before and after the race, but that will be a separate post.

We loved the race jackets!

My training cycle for the race was comparable to what I did leading up to my PR marathon at Indy Monumental 2019, but for various reasons I had a hard time getting my head in the game during the final 3-4 weeks.  Every race I ran during my build up was in warm, humid weather, so I hadn't run any fantastic times, but for some reason that didn't bother me.  Maybe I'm finally learning to look at the big picture instead of analyzing every workout/race in isolation!

Every time I checked the race day forecast (which was too often), it seemed to get warmer.  At one point it also indicated that we were going to have a 15-20 mph headwind the entire race, so after they took that out I was more thankful for what we got:  70 degrees throughout the race (at least it didn't warm up!), 67 degree dew point (at least it wasn't 70!), cloudy for most of the race (much better than sun!), and possible rain for the first couple of hours (rain feels good at 70!).

I was in the elite field for the race, which got me bottles on the course, access to a VIP pre-race area, and a pre-race elite meeting.  I had to restrain myself from asking hundreds of questions during said meeting!  Christian attended with me to gain experience, and I met Amy who I'd talked to many times on Instagram over the past few years (read her race recap here - it's excellent!).  I dropped off my bottles decorated with hot pink duct tape, tired to scope out my competition, and race instinct began taking over.

The pink showed up really well!

On race morning, Christian drove me to the start.  We got lost due to road construction and a highway onramp that Apple maps didn't know was closed, so I switched my car's display screen to the compass and just had her drive north until we could again get on the highway again.  Once we arrived, we walked inside through the rain and hung out in the VIP area until it was time for me to begin warming up.  I did all of my usual race morning routines, and felt excited and ready to go.  I knew a PR wouldn't be happening in the conditions, but strangely enough I wasn't at all upset by that.  I switched my A goal to competing.  I thought winning the race would be amazing, although that all depends on who shows up.  I definitely wanted to win masters, which again depends on who shows up.  Really, in the words of Molly Seidel, I just wanted to stick my nose in it, and I went to the starting line prepared to do just that!  I really didn't overthink this one; in fact, I probably underthought it, which I imagine was good for typically-obsessive me.

Someday we will get to take expo
pics without masks again...

The story continues here...