Hoosier Half Marathon - Race Report

I planned to run the Hoosier Half as a training event building up to my PR goal race in Louisville 2 weeks later.  It was also one of the focus races for the Quaff ON! Race team as we celebrate the soon to open tap house, Quaff ON! Bloomington, QOB (on Grant St just north of Kirkwood) so we wanted as much representation as possible.  The promise of a party afterwards at the new QOB location was the icing on the cake!

This was my first time running the Hoosier Half Marathon in Bloomington.  I'd heard tell of the hilly course and most of my team mates at Quaff ON! ran the course in training whilst I was enjoying the warmer weather in Alabama over Spring Break.  This left me unprepared for the variations in pace over the course but since this was a training event for me, I decided to roll with team mate, Danny Webb, who had a master plan which went something like this:

• 6:15 average for the first 3 miles (18:45)...19:30 5k
• 6:05 average for the next 3 miles (18:15)...19:00 5k 38:30 10k
• 6:10 average for next 3 miles (18:30)...19:15 5k 1:01:40 @ the 10 mile split
• 6:05 average for the next 3 miles (18:15)....19:00 5k
• Finish with whatever is left in the tank

There was a great atmosphere at the start, the event was hosting the NIRCA national championships so lots of teams representing their clubs, everyone got pretty pumped up. The start of the Half Marathon was simultaneous with the 5k race start and it was downhill so we fully anticipated a lightning fast getaway from the gun. In an attempt to stick to Danny's pacing plan, about 5 of us had deliberately hung back from toeing the line and then had to cut through 30-40 slower runners in the first quarter mile.

The reality of the challenge in this race really came home in the 4th mile - just as we were supposed to be picking up the pace to 6:05 there was a serious hill climb which had me gasping for breath and legs hurting from the effort - I think Danny must have forgotten about that one when he put the plan together! We regrouped and made time back up on the downhill hitting our target time at the 10k mark.

I always feel some relief at the 10k mark in half marathons, it's not really half way, but psychologically it always seems to be OK to think "I've just got to do that over again and I'll be in the final mile..."

This course however had no respect for the false hope instilled by getting to halfway, miles 8 and 9 were really hilly forcing big variations in pace and effort which are much more tiring than just running steady on the flat. As we hit the biggest of the hills in this section of the course (leading up to mile 9) Danny started to fade and I was feeling pretty good so pushed on, opening up a gap as we climbed.

I passed the 10 mile mark at 1:01:35 - the 10 mile mark is another huge psychological moment for me in half's - it means there's "just" 5k left to go. I knew from our short warm up run that the final mile was pretty much all uphill. My original training plan had been to cruise the last 3 miles but the excitement of the race got the better of me and I pushed on. The course was still hilly but the fluctuations were much less, more steady grades, and I found I was able to settle into a pretty good rhythm, right up to the final hill around 12.5 miles. It felt like I was crawling up it - some spectators gave much needed encouragement and I was passing other people, but it didn't feel like I had any forward momentum.

My race time was 1:20:10, I won the 40-49 age group and was 43rd place overall. It was a really challenging race and this result gave me great confidence in my training & preparation for Louisville.

 After the race, we regrouped at QOB, with pulled pork from Big Woods in Nashville and Quaff ON! beer to enjoy on the deck. I got the chance to meet up with new Quaff ON! team mate Matt Flaherty who's the "real deal" - a professional runner, owning the US 50 mile road race championship course record and numerous Ultra Marathon running victories. He'd run the 5k race (winning in 14:59) with team mate Danny Fisher, who came home 2nd (15:27) - It's an honor to call great athletes like them my team mates.