This was a tough race and definitely my worst of the year. I'm talking about the 37th annual Lincoln Douglas 8 Mile Run in Metamora today. Still, I'm glad I did the race, which was well organized and challenging. Boy was it challenging.
There were a few reasons why my time was down today. I have done almost no running since April, when I did the Illinois marathon, so running eight miles at this time poses more of a challenge than it should, not only physically but mentally as well. My mind isn't working the way it should be on a race course and for me a lot of running is mental. And, although temperatures this morning were better than they have been, it was still hot and muggy, especially as the day wore on.
The real deal breaker today though, was "the hill." That's all anyone calls it and anyone who has run this race knows what you are talking about.
I came into today hoping to run an 8:30 pace, translating into a time of 1:08 or maybe as bad as 1:10. At the start, I was doing very well. I was at 25:10 at the three mile mark and feeling pretty good at mile 4. The course had gone out in the country but had a lot of shade. It had hills, but many were downhill and the uphills were rolling and more than manageable.
But, just past mile 4 came "the" hill. It was huge for central Illinois. I am usually good on hills but my lack of training recently doomed me. The hill took it out of me and I didn't recover until mile 6, when a water stop reinvigorated me and I ran a respectable last two miles. My time was 1:14:30, about a 9:30 pace. Not good.
I was pretty discouraged as I neared the end of the race, knowing it hadn't gone well. But, I finished strong (I have to say that the 1:14 was better than I thought I had run) and, once I finished, my enthusiasm for running returned. I just have to train. I have a few halfs left in me, so I can't be intimidated by an eight mile race.
This was a nice race in a nice looking town. Registration is at the high school, which means the pre-race facilities are outstanding, even though the race actually starts and finishes three blocks away. The town looks nice (my first time in Metamora) but I didn't see too much of it and I didn't stay for the festival. The race ended at the historic Metamora Courthouse, a Lincoln site which was nice to see.
So with Woodford County, I've now run in 34 of Illinois' 102 counties. That means I am exactly one-third of the way through running in all of them.