Michelob Ultra 13.1 Recap

My double race weekend has come and gone! How did it go? First up...the half. I'm going to break these into two posts so it's not a super gigantic post!

Michelob Ultra 13.1 Half Marathon

On Saturday, I ran the Michelob Ultra 13.1 Half! I ran this race 2 years ago because I won the entry through a blogger giveaway.  This time, I was provided the race entry by the wonderful promoters of this event! I knew I had the triathlon (recap below), the following day but it's hard to turn down a free half marathon, and a lot of my friends would be there, so I decided I would give it a shot.

I woke up early (4:00 a.m.) and carpooled with my friends Jill, Melanie, and Meg. We parked at the Museum of Science and Industry and from there we got shuttled to the race start. I met up with my friend Kim from Ohio and hung around for a while until the race was going to start.

Gorgeous morning sunrise! (Photo credit: Jill)

As I stated in my previous post, my plan was to do a run/walk of 10 mins running/1 min walking in an attempt to save my legs for the next day's triathlon.  Well, I'm not great at following my race plans! I started the race and decided that I would just run until I wanted to walk. Um... that wasn't the plan. The sun came out bright and early and it was already getting warm in the starting corral.  I ran the first mile with my friend Kim from Ohio. I told her to go ahead if she felt good because I didn't want to race it and was already starting to feel a bit cranky.

I ran the first 30 mins (3 miles) right around a 10:00 minute pace but I was feeling very negative about this race from the beginning. Now, it wasn't the race itself that I was feeling cranky about. I actually quite enjoyed the race and the course. I was thinking to myself that I shouldn't be doing it.

I shouldn't be doing this race today.
I have a triathlon the next day that is my focus. This is going to make my legs tired.
It's hot out already and I still have [X amount] of miles left.
Whine, whine, whine.

When I hit 3 miles, I decided to stop my watch and reset it for the 10:1 interval that I had originally planned.  While I was setting my watch, Melanie came by and asked if I was ok. I decide that I probably walked a minute already so I started running with her. We chatted a bit and I felt a bit better.  When my watch beeped, I decided to walk (like I was supposed to) and let Melanie go ahead. While walking, Meg came by and asked if I was alright (lol). I told her I was fine and started running (my minute was up). We chatted a bit and my watch beeped to walk again. I let Meg go ahead. From here and for the next many miles, Meg and I leap-frogged each other. When I walked, Meg passed me. When I ran, I passed her. It was pretty funny but at least it gave me someone to say "hi" to every mile!

Once I had switched my watch to the run/walk interval, it helped tremendously. My watch only showed what interval I was on and how much time I had left in the interval. It didn't show me pace, time, or distance.  I was just out there running (and walking). Nothing else mattered. Mentally, I got myself in a better place not having to worry about pace. Of course, there are mile marker clocks so I did know I was running around 11 min miles due to the walking intervals but I tried not to care. I told myself that no one cares what my pace ends up being.

I did think it was hot. But it was much hotter in 2012 when I did it. I tried to keep it in perspective. I'm going to be running all summer with marathon training and it will be hot. When I'm not worried about pace, running in the heat isn't actually too bad. Luckily there was some shade on the course, although also long periods of no shade.

I got to the finish line and downed an entire water bottle and an entire gatorade. I found my friends, got some pizza and sat down for a while. 

Trying to find my sassy pose... needs work

Finisher photo!

We chatted for a while and then got on the shuttles to head back to my car. I was feeling anxious because I had to go to Naperville to attend the packet pickup for the triathlon.  When I got home, I took a short ice bath, showered, and put on some compression socks to help my legs recover for my triathlon.

Thank you Michelob Ultra 13.1 for allowing me to run the race this year! Love the medals we get from this race!

My weekend medals (spoiler: I finished the triathlon)