Fifth Third Half Marathon 2004
Got up real early and drove out west to St Charles (for about 45 minutes) for the 2004 Fifth Third Bank Half Marathon.
The race was, um, shall we say, different? I guess after living for more than
a decade somewhere along the great lakes, I don't get much exposure to
elevation. Real moutaineers will laugh themselves silly about this chart
but us flatlanders are struggling. At least I was. The other, um, interesting part was that they had a couple of rather randomly placed mile markers which made sticking to a pace--already challenging with the hills--even harder.
Anyway, I was hoping to finally break 1h 40min, and trying to stick to
7:30 min/miles which worked so-so until I got really tired after mile 10 and
more or less gave up on the idea. Only to then find that the last turn gave
rise to short stretch straight downhill, and with the clock in sight, and the
chance to make it, I finished as if I was chased by the devil himself. The
announcer saw me coming, looked up the bib number and tried to announce 'Dirk
Eddelbrrrrrgggh'. Not sure if then swallowed his tongue
And I didn't mean to gripe (other than about the useless mile
markers). It is a beautiful course all through the subdivision, starting with
the starter castles, and eventually settling down along the Fox river to
finish in 'downtown' St. Charles. I think I'll be back next year.
