"You either got run over by a truck or ran a half marathon": Race report

I love half marathons. :-)

Even warm ones. Yep, I ran another warm race yesterday, the Prairie State half marathon. After running the toasty Omaha marathon three weeks ago I at first was jonesing to run another marathon in much cooler temps, to have a more enjoyable race that didn't include medical tents and barfing...

However, the forecast for this weekend, both for Prairie State's full marathon on Saturday and Chicago's marathon on Sunday, wasn't bad -- great 60s-ish and sunny fall weather, but on the warm side when it comes to me and running. After my friend Krista mentioned doing the half, I thought, why not?

Pic credit: Lake County

I'd run Prairie State two years ago and love, love, love this course. It's in the northern burbs but you'd never know you were in the suburbs of Chicago. Well, other than when you run under I-94 on the out-and-back course and the part where you can see Great America close to Mile 6.

In the first three miles of the race, we were in step with a Australian guy in a Superman-looking runner. When someone referred to him as Superman later in the race, he crisply corrected the guy to say "Marathon man." He was running the full marathon course AND running the Chicago marathon the following day. Most runners cannot fathom that -- it takes a very, very special kind of crazy to run back-to-back.

Turns out, it's this guy -- who's running more than 150 marathons in 2013. This guy is awesome. He's interviewing a woman below with his hand-held camera about how she quit eating crappy food and started running. Her name is Melissa.

Sometime in the next few miles I started to feel really warm but clouds mercifully overtook the sun, so it was pretty good. Though I hope to finish around my best half time (2:03) I really didn't have any major goals other than to enjoy the race and see what happened. The week had been tiring, I'd had a beer and a half the night before at a Sun-Times going-away and I was beat -- so I had no plans to set any new records on such a relatively warm day.

At the halfway point the course turns around and you run back if you're doing the half marathon or keep going for the full for another 2.5. By this time I was pretty warm and really relieved I didn't sign up for the full.

The course had an aid station every couple of miles or so, and good volunteer staffing. Unfortunately blue Gatorade and I don't mix. Smurf juice, as I call it in my head, makes my stomach jump, so I just took water at each -- a little Gatorade on a hot day is preferable, but after throwing up Gatorade three weeks ago I was taking no chances.

By Mile 8 the sun returned. I grumbled in my head, a lot. But I also kept forcing myself to enjoy the beauty around me and I slowed down, which helped a lot.

The next few miles were slogs and it reminded me that I wasn't running "just" a half as my crazy marathon friends and I like to refer to them -- this is hard! I popped in the earbuds and listened to a remix of Relax (yes, I have that on my iPhone, go ahead and laugh at the old lady with her 80s music), Flesh (1990s!) and Just like we break down by Hot Chip. It was super warm but I plugged ahead and despite a bit of nausea finished fine at 2:08:20.

Krista drove us back into the city and dropped me off at home, where I ate a ginormous amount of food (an egg sandwich, egg-and-cheese tortilla and my hubby's homemade pesto with pasta and fresh tomatoes) within two hours, and fell asleep hard. When I woke, my husband said I looked like I'd either gotten run over or I'd done a half. Good hubby for letting me sleep! :-)

Here's Krista and I. What a fun morning. If you're looking for a half next fall, do this one.