Suellen and I had originally registered to do the Madison Marathon in 2009, but for various reasons, Suellen ended up doing the Green Bay marathon that year instead.
Luckily, we could roll over our registrations for Madison to the next year, and we decided to just do the Half. Suellen is having knee surgery in a couple weeks, so she couldn't race, but we still wanted to come up to see family and our granddaughter, Maeve.
It's my offseason, so I just wanted to do this race for fun. I figured I'd run it hard, but had no big expectations. I'd hoped to have a nice cool Wisconsin late Spring day, but the hot weather followed me from Texas. Race morning it was 68-70 degrees by 7am, and 80% humidity. The only good thing was that I'd been running in the heat in Austin, so it didn't feel as bad as it could have.
The only "goal" I had for the race was to see if I could average 7 minute miles or faster. The Madison course had two big hills and some rolling parts in between, and some flat sections along the lake. Not a crazy fast course like the 3M half in Austin, but not too bad.
The race started at the Capitol building, and there were about 4,500 runners doing the half. Surprisingly it wasn't too crowded at the start. I got in the very front of the corral, because I really didn't want to dodge people. The fastest pace group they had was 1:45, and I was hoping for a 1:30-1:35.
The start was quick and uneventful. A nice broad street that went straight on a downhill for a half mile or so before the first turn. I didn't want to go out too fast, so planned to run 7:05-7:10 the first 3-4 miles, then pick it up to 6:55 as long as I could hold it.
We ran by the Univ of Wisconsin football stadium, and up into campus. Even though it was humid, it didn't feel as hot as I thought it might. The first three miles went by at 7:03, 7:02, and 6:50 (a bit more downhill here and I got carried away).
Then we hit the first big hill, going up Observatory Drive. I definitely observed that it went up a big freakin hill! There was a gorgeous view from the top, out over one of the lakes. I kept a pretty good pace up the hill, then picked it up going down the other side, to still do mile 4 in 7:10.
Now we left the campus and hit some small rolling hills going north. When driving the course the previous day it seemed flat through here, but running it there were noticeable ups & downs. I still tried to increase the pace a little, according to plan. 6:56 for mile 5, and then I got to see Suellen cheering for me as we passed back by the Capitol.
6:55 and 6:50 the next couple miles, til we hit a park where we turned onto a bike path to head back towards downtown. This was were my granddaughter, Maeve (she's 2) was going to be with her parents, Josh (Suellen's son) and Aurora. Sure enough, after I turned the corner, there they were! I gave a shout out to Maeve, and waved.
We followed the bike path to some more residential streets, with a few more small rolling hills. I wasn't feeling too bad, but the humidity and rising heat were getting a bit uncomfortable. Miles 8 and 9 were 6:59 and 6:55.
Back on the bike path we ran by the convention center, and along the lake. Unfortunately there was no shade here, and the sun was bright and warm. I really hoped I could pick it up the last 3 miles but decided it was best to just try to hang on. 7:03 and 7:02 the next couple miles, and I was fading a bit.
Right around mile 11 we ran through the neighborhood Suellen's mom had a house in for several years, and her mom had come down there to cheer. This was one of the coolest parts of the race (literally!), with a bit of shade and 4 or 5 people with garden hoses spraying runners with water if they wanted as they ran by. I took advantage of every one of them!
7:02 for mile 12. By now, I wasn't thinking straight, I couldn't remember if I had 1 or 2 miles to go. Thank goodness the last water stop had a sign that said "1.25 miles to the finish", so I knew I didn't have far.
The last mile+ was one of the most cruel finishes I've ever seen. We were running back up the long straight street we'd start on the first mile. So you could see the Capitol from quite a ways away, and it was uphill the whole way. With a even steeper climb the last tenth of a mile. I poured it on as much as I could, and still could only hold a 7:06. Even after you made it up the last steep hill, you still had to take two more turns, with one more slight uphill, before the finish. I sprinted it in, glad to be done. It really had been hot those last few miles. I didn't envy anyone doing the full marathon today!
When I was done, I checked my watch, and I think the course was a little long. My GPS said 13.26 miles, meaning my final time of 1:32:40 was good for a 6:59 average. I was very happy with that in the heat. That time was my fastest half marathon (outside of 3M), by a couple minutes.
I found Suellen, had some gatorade and part of a bagel- plus some cheese (yep, it's Wisconsin, they had little packages of string cheese at the finish :) ), then we went to look for the results. I thought I'd done fairly well, and was a bit surprised to find they said I was 22nd overall, 3rd in my age group. Not that it was bad, but a little lower than I guessed. When I got back to the hotel and checked the web, I found out they'd had glitches in the results, and when the correct ones were posted, I ended up 7th woman overall, 2nd overall female masters! That was even better than I hoped! And afterwards we had a bbq with the kids, Maeve, and Suellen's mom. A perfect day in Madison.
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