Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon - The Unexpected New PR

This past Sunday was the Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon.   This is my third year running this event and I've come to like this course a lot.  Not super easy as there are a number of hills but it's got about 3,000 runners and this year was their 30th anniversary and were giving away finisher's medals.  Swag snob that I am, I couldn't NOT run....I wanted the medal :-P

Mark and I have been concentrating on our 5k speed so I haven't had much of a focus on the half marathon distance in terms of training.  The thought was to go and do this race for fun, get in some long distance training and enjoy the day.

Yeah..well that went out the window around mile 6, and in a good way.... Let me explain starting around mile 3...

Below is the downside of what I affectionately call "that damn hill". It's the hill that has kicked my butt every year right after crossing Hwy 15 I think and as usual I was dreading it again this year, but we rocked up it and I WASN'T dead. In my head I was like "Huh? Where did that come from? Oh well THAT went good but I'm sure this energy won't last, we haven't been training for this distance." We were on the downhill when Mark took this picture (you can see him in the shadow)

Then a little while later my body was still feeling pretty strong and Mark again took a photo of us while we were running.  How he does it so well I have no idea! :)

So on we went and for anyone that races and knows me pretty well, you know I despise knowing where I'm at time-wise in a race.   When I'm feeling good, I don't want to know how fast/slow I'm going because it subconsciously makes me want to change my pace.   BUT around Mile 6 I was still feeling really good and holding what felt like a good pace so I peeked at my watch...."what the?  That's a sub-9:00 pace.  That can't be right....wait (calculating....) yep.  Wow!  Crap.....now I have to push for a new PR...."

Little did Mark know I was continuing these thoughts for the rest of the race.  Trying to be casual and not get all worked up about what may or may not actually happen at the finish.  I just kept pushing a long a little faster than what felt comfortable and my body kept coming right along with me.   Granted it was a perfect temperature for running, sunny with a nice cool breeze so that likely helped me a lot.  I am not one to do well when I'm too hot or cold.

Around Mile 11 mentally I started to REALLY want the finish line but I was trying hard not to psych myself into feeling more tired or push too hard.   If you ask Mark I think this is about where I started to get pretty quiet as I zoned into my happy place.   In my head I was thinking "c'mon you could PR today, you don't know why, you don't know how but just keep moving!"  

We got on the trail with a little over a mile to go.   Here's a picture Mark took at the Mile 12 Marker.

I could hear the finish line more and more as we pushed through the last mile.   HR was in the low 180's starting that last mile and I was NOT prepared for the new finish.   Instead of going from the trail onto the road through downtown that was relatively flat, the last maybe quarter mile was on some pretty good rolling hills through the backside of town.   Once we got off the trail Mark started to pull me along and we took off just a bit faster.   I spotted my friend Jon near the finish.  Always a great distraction when you see a friendly face!  The last few blocks we fired up the calves, quads and heart rate and pushed into the finish holding our hands together in the air.   HR - 195.  

In my head I was thinking:
"ok catch your breath and THEN look at the watch....don't be disappointed....you may not have done as good as you thought....just know you felt good today....it was better than you expected"

Mark:
"Check it out, you just finished in 1:54:51"

Me:
"Say what?!?!?  That's 3 minutes off my old PR.  Where the frack did that come from?

In my head:
"Yippie skippie!  Holy crap!  Yippie skippie!"

So we grabbed a few quick snacks and a few finishing photos together.   This one below is my favorite

Unfortunately we didn't have time to stick around as we were headed to the Minneapolis 10 Years of Geocaching get together and were going to be cutting it close to get there in time.   That write up will be on our "Life More Complete" blog hopefully within a day or two.

So I was pleasantly surprised with this run and as usual, give a lot of credit to Mark for my success.   I don't think I would push as much without him being by my side.  Love you Handsome ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh and the afternoon we had a short conversation about what it would take for each of us to qualify for Boston.   Quite a bit faster than that pace but hey, on a good day you start to wonder what's possible....