steamed

i get a call from michael this morning with some news he heard on the radio about the lakeshore marathon. apparently, the crew had mismeasured and made it a mile longer than it should have been so people ended up running 27.2 miles instead of 26.2. ouch. seeing as how my time was a full two minutes slower than it was three weeks ago, i decided to check to on the half marathon distance as well. turns out, it was a half mile longer than it should have been. so in fact, i DID break 1:30 as i had wanted to (by roughly 4 seconds)...i just ran an extra half mile afterwards. now this should make me happy. it doesn't. becuase they screwed up, they've cost me my competitive start for the chicago marathon in fall. at least the weather was spectacular. check out how flat the water is in the background of these photos (sorry can't link directly to the image): use bib 2090 i've never seen lake michigan like that.

boom shakalaka

once again, i failed to meet my running goal. my official half marathon time was 1:33:30, two minutes slower than two weeks ago. sad. however, two really great things happened at this race that made that time not hurt so badly.

right at mile 12, some dude starts to pass me. he's loose, he's relaxed, he's fluid and has a really strong pace going. "screw that" i say to myself and force a quicker pace out of myself to stay with him. we chat as we finish up the last mile. it annoys me that he's not really even breathing hard and everything on me is starting to burn. we come around the last turn and there's about a tenth of a mile strait away on gravel to the finish line. i say to him "let's open it up" indicating that it's time to start our kick. i open up my stride and get that "i'm not losing to this dude" feeling. in that final 1/10th mile, i put 20 yards in between him and i. it felt awesome.

the second thing that happened, i didn't even know about until this morning. i'm looking at the championchip website to find out my time and i find this:
MALE AGE GROUP: 25 - 29
Place Oall No. Name Ag S 10k Finisht Pace
===== ==== ===== ====================== == = ============== ======= ======= =====
1 27 2090 Michael Simanek 25 M Palatine 43:02 1:33:30 7:09

i won my age group! what the hell!? i've never won anything in any race i've ever been in!