Lincoln Presidential Half Marathon

Last Week’s Workouts:

Mon:       Walked 2 miles

Tue-Fri:   Nothing

Sat:          Lincoln Presidential Half Marathon

Sun:         Recovery

Last week was a tough one, schedule-wise.  We had a number of important things to take care of at home which took precedence over a workout.

On Friday, I traveled with a few of the Honey Badgers to Springfield IL (my home from 1995-2007) to participate in my 5^th installment of the Lincoln Presidential Half Marathon (18th overall) and to close out my offseason. 

If you haven’t run this race, you owe it to yourself to check it out!  It's a small race with 2,100 participants, and it features a moderately challenging course with tons of Lincoln history.  Runners travel by Abe's law office, home, tomb, and the Old State Capitol - site of Lincoln's "House Divided" speech.  The race is very organized thanks to the work of Brian Reardon (my former coworker) and his great team.

THB ready to roll

One of the highlights for me is the pre-race speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln (Michael Krebs).  I've heard a version of it five times now, but it's always great - featuring the line "things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle."  I found a video of this year's speech on Youtube:

As for my race, the plan was to settle into a groove and hold that pace throughout, with a goal time of 2:00-2:05.  After weaving through traffic in the first 2 miles, I settled into a nice place, averaging 8:57/mile through the first half of the race.  Around mile 6.5, I worked on changing the battery on my GoPro while running which for some reason took forever - a good quarter mile or so.  Then I ran into a Fleet Feet STL training friend and chatted for a few minutes, and then I saw one of the Honey Badgers and chatted for yet another minute.  When it was time to get back up to pace, I just could not make myself to run faster.  I have no idea why.  Miles 6.5-12 were at a fairly consistent 9:30-ish pace, and my last mile was 9:00 giving me a finish time of 2:04.

Regardless of how the race went, I am thankful any time I finish.

I mentioned that I had my GoPro with me.  Here are the "Paul's eye view" highlights of the race.

After cleaning up and checking out of the hotel, we continued our post-race tradition of a cold beer and a horseshoe.  We went to the Dublin Pub again this year, mostly because Darcy's is tough to get into on a Saturday afternoon.