Wisconsin Half marathon 2015

May 2, 2015

3rd Half Marathon - Wisconsin Half Marathon, Kenosha, WI

Time: 2:29:01; Pace 11:22

Place: 1361/1981 overall;122/203 Female 40-44

PR! PR! PR! My goal was to make it under 2 and a half hours and I did it with 58 seconds to spare! It was close. The hills got to me. My breathing got to me. It's all good. 

364 days earlier, on my birthday, I started half marathon training for my very first half and now the day before my birthday I completed my 3rd half. And on this day Millie was completing her 3rd in 6 weeks. My big deal was so amazing compared to hers! This qualifies her for half fanatics membership. I want in!

 I know Kenosha isn't that far from Chicago but I got a hotel room when I paid for the race earlier in the year. I got one of the last hotel rooms closest to the finish line. Millie wanted to join me so we drove up together and split the room cost.

 I was really excited to do this race because it was out of state...barely. I bought a Chicago Bears shirt to wear and cut out letters from flexible sports tape to spell out BIRTHDAY GIRL on the back of my shirt. It was nice to get wished a happy birthday along the race course and made the time go by quickly.

 We got to Kenosha about 3:30 and checked into the room. The "expo" was in the hotel and featured a whopping 4 or 5 vendors. Ha! We took some photos with the WI marathon backdrop and headed out to explore the town. Ok, explore is a big word. There is not much going on in downtown Kenosha; at least I think it was downtown. It wasn't even 5 o'clock and we found one store open - a new apothecary store. It was not Merz apothecary but I still managed to find a few goodies.

sunrise over Lake Michigan race morning

 Fish sounded good for dinner. Luckily there was a sort of seafood restaurant on the strip. The salmon was good but the veggie mix was previously frozen veggies. Eeeeew. And the fries were also previously frozen.

post race celebratory Italian sausage sammies at Tentuta's

 After dinner it was back to the hotel room to chill out in bed. Millie fell asleep about 8 and I around 9:30. I was actually up at 4 with Millie. She went downstairs to grab the early breakfast they were kind enough to put out for the runners. I stayed in bed and drifted in and out. I was up for real about 5. We watched the news and were probable the first Americans to learn about the new Royal Baby. Who cares?

 The walk to the start line was amazing. No one talks more about weather more than runners. It was a topic of discussion at least 15 times in the past 12 hours. Spring is such a crap shoot and Friday was a bit chilly. We got outside and it was unbelievably awesome out. It's been since last year to not be chilled to the bone before a race even begins.

When I looked at the video of the course I couldn't tell there were hills. Oh the hills! I really hate hills. These weren't that bad but hills combined with sun and and a sudden temperature change was a bit much.  Everything was great until about mile 9 or so. I added two minutes onto one of my walk breaks just to get up a hill and then around mile 12 I started getting a cramp in my side and felt a little tight in the chest. I took an extra break about mile 12.5 but was really antsy about keeping it under 2.5 hours.

could I look more burned out?

I tried this race without carrying water. Perhaps that helped my time. The first water stop was at mile 1.5 and the next one wasn't until mile 4! That was a long ass time in-between those miles. I put loose sports beans in my Roo sport pocket for thirst emergencies. They came in handy! The lack of water may have added to my cramping issue too so I don't think I'll do that again!

I think more people came out to watch than at the first 2 halfs. The last half was in January so thats totally understandable. My firs race was in the streets in a city of nearly 3 million people. WTF?  I loved running through downtown Kenosha. I saw a lot of great signs and some new silly phrases. I got a big kick out of the support. I saw two people with Packers shirts on so of course I yelled out, "go Packers" and got not response. Maybe they didn't hear me or maybe they saw my Bears shirts and didn't want to bother yelling back. I did get one "go Bears!"

I finished the race and stretched a little bit then got my free brat and local craft beer. There was no one to stretch me out, no vendors, nothing. I really take the scale of Chicago races for granted.
I waited for Millie and we hung out for a bit. She got her brat and gave me her beer.

When we checked into the hotel, we asked for late check out. No can do. Apparently they were all booked up for Saturday night. I have never been denied late checkout. Ever. Not even in a big city like NYC. As I see it, the customer friendly solution would be to hire some more housekeeping for the day to get more rooms cleaned later in the day to make the guests happy. The race started at 7. If it takes someone 5 hours to finish the marathon they would miss checkout. From what we calculated we'd also miss the check out or cut it really close as we run pretty slowly. Jus tot be safe we packed up in the morning and put everything in my trunk.

We were right too! We got back to the hotel at 10:55. The hotel was nice enough to give us our room back for 30 minutes. I ended up going home with wet hair. Oh well. I don't care about these things any more.

We both got a recommendation for the same place, Tenuta's. It's an Italian grocery store and grill. Thy have delicious homemade sausage sandwiches fresh grilled outside. Basking in the sun, still wearing our medals, I devoured a sandwich after walking in amazement through the tightly packed grocery store.

Stop number two was gas, then the outlet mall and the the Lake Forest Oasis for Starbucks.  I managed to stay up just past sunset and slept for the next 10 hours and 22 minutes (according to my FirBit).