Chicago Rock-n-Roll 1/2 Marathon

Short and sweet version..

Spent 2 days (Friday/Saturday) working the EXPO with Fleet Feet Chicago (our retail partner for event).  Basically on my feet for 10+ hours each day, then dinners after, yada yada yada.  Boring I know!

Sitting at dinner Saturday night with Josh Cox having a beer and thinking "why do I want to do this race tomorrow morning", but since I could not fly out until 3pm I figured I would see where my fitness was.  Have not done any "structured" training since IMCDA,but  I have been doing some SBR. 

Up at 5am on Sunday.  1/2 banana, bottle of Cytomax (gave away at EXPO), some granola and coffee.  Walked down to race start and got into corral #2.  Race temp was 70 degrees and about 80% humidity.  Race started at 6:30am.  Listening to a couple speakers during EXPO put some thoughts in my head..

1.  Run on feel and no watch.......anarchy!  or 2. run on pace, etc,

Decided to wear watch (not garmin), but did not really look at it.  Figured since I had not done any testing since IMCDA that trying to use zones might not work out well.  Took off pretty quick and could feel it by 1.5 miles so backed down a bit and settled in.  Aid stations were every 1.5 miles with Cyto and Water and I took a bit of each at each stations.  Noticed by mile 4 that I was on about a 1:40:00 pace and could see the 1:35 pace group in front of me, but not sure which corral that 1:35 pace group started in.  Knew I was on that pace because of race clock on route, not by looking at watch.  Really cool course through downtown Chicago the down the waterfront past Soldier Field to turn around and back to Grant Park.  6 Official bands along route and several other bandit bands. 

Purposely did not look at anymore race clocks until mile 10 or 11 and realized I was still on same pace or just a bit better.  Previous PR in 1/2 marathon was 1:39:49, so figured I was doing okay. 

End result was 1:38:29 so a PR by about 1 minute.  Here is what I consider remarkable about this....

My EN training zones are still pretty spot on!  Training through EN and establishing zones plus workouts that put me in the different zones means I could feel how I was running in relation to zones.  Without having run multiple paces I would not know the "feeling".  The base of speed/endurance I built in the leadup to CDA is still intact and I was able to get to it on race day.  I probably could have pushed it more, but am happy with result considering I spent 2 days standing around pre-race.

Coolest thing about race.....POPSICLES at finish!