Fargo Half Marathon Race Report

The Fargo Half Marathon on May 21, 2011 was my best athletic performance since I started racing four years ago.

That’s my race report. A little too short? Well, there is nothing I would love more than to relive the experience from the very beginning! First, a jump to the end of the story. I finished in 1:59:44 which bested my previous personal record by over 4 minutes. My family is getting tired of seeing me prance around with my fists in the air shouting, “1:59″ every hour or so. I’m not tired of it yet. One fifty nine!!! 1:59!! One hour and fifty nine minutes and forty four seconds! No, still not tired of it.

Back to the beginning. All week the forecast for Fargo was certain thunderstorms and high winds. Fargo is always windy, so that wasn’t surprising. The thunderstorm forecast did worry me a bit as a gentle rain is one thing, but running through a windy thunderstorm doesn’t make for good racing. I decided that if the weather was bad that I would use the race as a training run and not run hard. With a whole summer ahead, risking getting hurt or having to take time off to recover from the race didn’t make sense if it was going to be a miserable, slow day anyway.

We traveled to Fargo with our friends, Deb and Brad. Deb and Mike did the marathon and Brad and I did the half marathon. Here are the marathoners getting ready to head to the start line an hour before the half marathon start. As you can see, no rain.

Here I am with Deb, wearing the ugly shirt I received from the last Turkey Trot. I’ve been waiting for a chance to use it as a throw away shirt and I hope it is now finding happiness at the Fargo Salvation Army.

Although it never rained, conditions were not ideal. It was 60 degrees and very humid. I was thankful for the breeze which never felt like an impediment. If it had been an normal spring in Minnesota, the conditions probably wouldn’t have been an issue. It has been very cold here, though, and most people have not had a chance to run in either warm or humid weather. I was surprised at the number of half marathoners that I saw having serious medical issues, the kind you normally see at the marathon distance. Usually heat and humidity are a struggle for me, but I felt fine.

With dry weather, I went ahead and lined up behind the 2:05 pacer with plans to negative split and finish around my previous PR time of 2:03:51. I had finished in 2:04:14 at the Earth Day half marathon just six weeks ago and there is no flatter course than Fargo. If I had a good day, I thought I had a chance at coming in close to 2:03. The only negative about the Fargo course is that it has a lot of turns. Given that Fargo is always windy, the upside is that if you are running into the wind it won’t be long until you change direction. The downside is that it makes for a long course. The half marathon is pretty large at 6,000 people, so running every tangent efficiently is not possible. My PR time was from a point to point race with almost no turns. I would need to bank about a minute and a half to make up for the difference and then hold a 9:27 pace to match my PR.

After running the first mile right on target in 9:25, I knew that my legs felt fresh and that I needed to get around the 2:05 pace group. They were all running side by side and it was too difficult to maneuver being so close to them. The streets are closed and plenty wide, so there was no need to struggle. I worked my way around them and hoped to not see them again. Miles 2, 3 and 4 were all right at 9:00, so now all I had to do was hold on to 9:27 and I would hit my PR time.

When mile 7 came in at 8:53, I knew I was having The Day. The Day that all runners dream about, when the legs are fresh and everything feels great. My heart rate was a little high trying to keep up, but the legs would not be deterred. It occurred to me that I could finish close to 2:00, and then I spent the next couple of miles chastising myself for being so greedy. A PR would be more than I had hoped for and I didn’t want to bonk chasing some unrealistic time that was not part of my race plan. That is the discussion I had with my legs. They weren’t listening.

The next few miles were all at 9:00 and I decided there wasn’t enough time left to blow up. I knew I could finish under my PR time even if the worst happened, so I stopped trying to fight it and just ran. Mile 12 was 8:49 and Mile 13 was 8:32. I knew I was going to be close to 2:00 and just kept my head down and hoped the course wasn’t longer than I had expected. Finishing the last .28 miles at my maximum heart rate of 180, I crossed the line with 16 seconds to spare. I negative splitted by a minute and a half and ran my best race. Pure happiness. Followed by stomach upset and a rush to the restroom. Then once again pure happiness.

Mike also had a great race and finished just under his goal time of 3:45. Our teenage kids came to cheer us on and our photographer daughter took some pictures. Here is Mike looking good around Mile 22:

Here I am at Mile 9 still feeling good:

Having the kids and friends with us made the weekend a true vacation. Everyone in our group finished well and, after a nap, we were all ready to celebrate. The weather cooled and the sun came out, making walking around the quaint downtown area to shop and eat delightful. We also met up with Brian Flash and his wife Kathy. Brian ran the marathon and Kathy ran the half, checking off North Dakota from their list of 50 states. Hop over to Brian’s hilarious blog and he’ll tell you all about his race. It was great to see them in person and there is nothing better than to have two more people to help rehash every aspect of the race. Here we are having a drink in celebration:

I still have more to tell you about the race and what I learned from it, but I’ll save it for the next post. I need to resume my celebratory strutting around the house as I’m sure Mike and the kids wonder if I’ve forgotten that I ran one hour and fifty nine minutes and forty four seconds. Nope!