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Illinois 1/2 Marathon Race Recap (long)
Race took place on Saturday at University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. This was my first year running it and also only my 2nd 1/2 marathon. I don't have much to compare it to, but I really enjoyed it.
On Friday night there was a 5k around the school that we all did as well. It was fun but so cold and so, so crowded. Finished on the football field though and we got a medal for doing it so I think it was a win.
Husband and I stayed at a hotel about 10 minutes away from the race. Saturday morning we were parked and at the race line up with our friends by 6:30. Only had to wait maybe 5 mintues to use a port a potty before the race.
This was the first year they used corrals and it worked out well imo. My 2 friends that ran the full and I were in corral 7 out of 8 total corrals. It was about 12 minutes for us to cross the start.
Temp was a chilly 46F and so SO windy, but cloudy. It also never once rained on us which was totally awesome. I wore a running skirt, tank top and throw away ls cotton shirt to the start. Got rid of the over shirt about 1 mile in.
The race started at U of I and the first few miles went throug the town past the bars, sororities and frat houses. I was amazed/impressed/jealous of all the college kids that were out for crowd support (and drinking beer) at 7am. I found them rather enjoyable and their craziness was a nice stress relief at the beginning of the race.
After the town, we went to a residental area. There were no buildings or trees to block any wind so it was hard running through this area. Felt like we were running right into the wind most of the time. Nice thing about this part was that it felt like a normal "long run" to me so I was able to settle into a good pace for most of these miles.
Around mile 5 we hit a park. This was the only part of the race I can complain about. Through the park we ran on paved trail. The trail was too small for the amount of people running on it. It was really hard to pass people through this area and since I'm a slow runner, I was having problems with the amount of people that would just stop and walk- there really wasn't a place for them to "move over" to walk to. And this is where our hills were. I won't lie, I really struggled through here. I had to really pee and I realized I chaffing (couldn't tell if that was it or if my legs were just super cold) so I stopped for a few minutes to reapply body glide. The hills weren't bad (my 1st 1/2 was in St.Louis and they are AWFUL) but your legs could definitely feel them.
Miles 9-13 were back through the town towards the U of I football stadium. They had service men (Marines maybe?) that were gonging a gigantic bell about 1 mile from the end. Sweetest sound ever. Last bit of the run was through the college campus and ended on the 50 yard line in the stadium.
I was about 3 minutes slower than my run in October. I said going into this run that I wasn't going to put any expectations on myself. At almost 16 weeks pregnant, finishing was my only goal. I found out week 2 of training I was pregnant and din't miss a single training run. I wasn't going to push myself if it didn't feel right. I had done everything I could to prepare for this mentally and physically there wasn't anything else I could do.
My only issue was that I had to pee. OMG did I have to pee. Staying hydrated was important, but it came at a cost. I didn't ever stop, but it was a conversation I had with myself quite often.
I really liked this race and will be doing it again next year. Oh and a bonus to being so slow is that my husband and my best friend's husband and brother were all done running before so I had a nice cheering section as I crossed the finish line 
Re: Illinois 1/2 Marathon Race Recap (long)
GO! St. Louis Half Marathon-2:32:13
Omaha Half Marathon 9.23.12
Congrats to you!! I am going to look into that race (my family is in Illinois, and I love that campus).
Sam-mommy to Brady 11/6/06 & Riley 4/8/09
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Nice job!
It was pretty chilly here Saturday morning but at least the nasty storms held off! I really want to do this race sometime.