Want a late race report from my half marathon two weekends ago? I thought so.
Back in February or maybe even January when I was planning out my season I had wanted to use the Hoosier Half in Bloomington as a good gauge of fitness for my Mohican 50 training. Then life kind of happened. I tweaked my Achilles, we sold the house, bought a new house so going into race week I had pretty much given up on running the race.
We had still been playing around with running it since we are in Bloomington a lot anyway to run hills and pawn Marshall off on people. Lindsey had decided to use it as part of her last Boston long run so I decided sure I’ll run it. This was Tuesday or race week I think. The plan was to just do Lindsey’s long run with her.
At this point, I had been back to running some decent milage after pulling back in late February/early March with the Achilles. The week prior to the race I had finally gotten back into the mid 60s for distance with some good hill work but hadn’t really been doing a ton of workouts so I was fine with just running with Lindsey as I had no real idea where I would be…plus I had plans to pace the 3:15 group at Carmel the following weekend. So my final answer was run long with Lindsey and just run it easy.
Friday rolls around and Lindsey does some packet pickup registration. $70 each, woof. That night we talked about it and thought if I’m going to pay the money maybe I will run it hard to gauge things. I had decided I’ll start with Lindsey and see how it goes. No going hard from the gun. In my head, I was thinking for the course and how I felt I’d probably run 1:24-1:25 or so. The course is hilly, I like hills, but still that means slower and I would be running on tired legs. I had tried to execute a tempo run on the treadmill on Thursday and failed pretty terribly. No rhythm, never got up to pace, struggled, shut it down early. You get the idea.
Saturday morning we drove over to the stadium for the race and our warmup. First thing we see is this: (Walt & Jesse?)
We had 20 miles to get in for the day so 3.5 before and 3.5 after. It was chilly and a decent wind for the warm up but a good day for running. After some selfie attempts by Lindsey and a last bathroom break by the tree it was time to run.
Pretty much by the time we hit Dunn St. (about .2 miles in) I had created separation from Lindsey… oops. It is a slight uphill so I assume that is how it happened. She wished my luck and I was on my way. My plan was to run comfortably hard. I wasn’t out to find glory. I was looking for a test for Mohican. Up and down the hills we go, west on Kirkwood, through campus, up the Arboretum, by the Kelley school, Mcnutt.
The first 5k split came in at 19:55 about 6:24. That was good. Felt controlled. The race had thinned at this point. The race attracts a lot of college running clubs so there was a decent amount of guys in front of me but everyone was pretty thinned out. I had one kid in front of me that I decided to keep my eye on and just follow him. If I kept touch with him…that would be good.
More running, up the Jordan Extension (slowest mile 6:40. It is uphill the entire time.) Down the Jordan extension (fasted mile. 6:00. It is downhill the entire time.) This puts me around mile 6 or so on the south side of campus and running through some rolling hill neighborhoods. I’m feeling pretty good and keeping the kid in sight that I want to gauge my effort from. I’m slowly moving up the rankings so that is always fun to do. I keep taking my hat off cause I’d get hot but then 5 minutes later I’d be cold. Did this for about 7 miles.
More running. Feeling pretty good surprisingly. Bomb another big downhill somewhere after the roundabout on Moores Pike and before Winslow. They stuck a waterstop on it which made no sense… who’s stopping for that? I’m running downhill at like 5:35 trying to grab a water. Okay. Looking at the splits it had to be around mile 8.
I make way to Winslow road and up THE hill. This was the only hill that seemed to be a struggle to get my ass up. I felt like I was moving in slow motion. Once up it though, it is essentially a straight shot north through town to the finish line.
We come past the mile 10 mat. I came over it in 1:03:26 about 6:20 pace. That’s good. Feeling good. Going to run the last 5K hard. Like I said it is essentially a straight run up Henderson/Indiana to the finish. The only annoying thing was the headwind. Oh well. I see some dudes up the road and just start running them down. Couple every mile or so. Oh one funny thing as I came through the intersection at Henderson and Hillside a lady about 4 cars back sticks her head out of the window and tells the cop that she really needs to get through. She’s late and has been waiting too long. Oh that’s a good idea. The cop is going to stop the runners and let you through. Wonder if she ever got where she needed to go?
Miles 11 and 12 tick and by now onto the hill at Indiana and the right turn at 17th to the finish. Try and pick off one last guy coming in but he held his pace better then I thought he would so I can’t get him. Cross the finish line. 1:22:30 Covering the last 5k in 19:05 about 6:08 pace. That was nice to see a little more effort left in the tank.
Finished the run by jogging back to find Lindsey, took some pics of her and then when she finished we did a 3.5 mile cool down. Total mileage for the day was around 21.
I was happy with the race effort. No PR or anything but wasn’t really racing for one anyway. To be honest I was a little surprised I ran 1:22:30. Guess the fitness is a little sharper then I thought. The race gives me a good pace guide to use for the rest of the Mohican cycle..which is quickly ramping up.
Here’s the elevation profile if you want to check it out. About 1,670 up and 1,600 down. A great proxy for Mohican. The Hoosier Half is a great race. Challenging fun course. Check it out if you can.
