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DWD Devils Lake 50K
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1st
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3:43:55
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Cheese head half marathon
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1st
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1:09:42
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TNF ECSWI 50K
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1st
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3:24:21
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US Half marathon Trail Champs -
Birkie
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3rd
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1:13:02
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PNC Milwaukee Marathon
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1st
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2:20:53CR
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TNF ECSCA 50 Mile
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TBD
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TBD
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This was the first year that I ran the PNC Milwaukee marathon, it is in its 3rd year of existence. For only being in its 3rd year and with this year being ran by a new organization, the race was pretty well run.
The eve of the race the skies let loose and it rained the whole night and into the early hours of the morning. About an hour before the 6:30am start the rain let-up, the winds picked up (20mph) and temps were in the mid 50's. All in all, it was a pretty decent day for racing.
The race boast a 5k, 10k, half marathon and marathon with the 5k/10k starting at 7:30 and the half and full marathons starting at 6:30. The half and the full shared the same route for the first 11 miles before the half marathon route took a shortcut back to the start/finish area.
As the race got under way the elite half marathoners pulled away and I settled into 2nd/3rd place with Patrick Jenkins (was in the same college conference as me). We chit-chatted a bit and slowly reeled in the leader, Nicholas Kirui from Kenya. The three of us ran together through about 15 miles with the only excitement being a high speed police chase that went flying past us at mile 11 (Turns out a couple of teens stole a van, crashed in an intersection shortly after passing us and took off on foot but were shortly after apprehended.). At mile 15 Patrick started fading and Nicholas put in a surge to get a 50 meter lead.
Over the next 5 miles I held consistent effort, trying not to pushing it to hard (the goal for the day was to get a solid workout in and not push to hard and set back training for ECS CA). Nicholas remained about 50-100 meters ahead of me and I thought that he was running just hard enough to win so that he could race again in a week or so for more prize money... that is until mile 23.
Nicholas hit mile 23 and ran out of gas, shortly after I caught up to him and encouraged him on as much as I could before putting in a surge of my own to take the lead. I went on to hold the lead through the finish, picking up my 1st ever marathon victory, I've ran faster times in the past but never got the victory.
All in all I'm happy with how the race went. I got in a solid workout, ran a solid time and I still got my legs under me. The race was a good tester as to where my fitness is at and it re-assures me of my goal of being top 3 at ECSCA. The race also brought back the itch to try and hit the 2020 US Olympic marathon trials qualifier time of 2:19:00.... I'm thinking to give it a go at Cellcom Green Bay Marathon in 2018 because it'd be cool to do it on my home town course.
