Monument Half-Marathon Race Recap

I used to be able to hit sub-two hours in the half-marathon consistently, with just the occasional exception on an especially hilly course or a really hot, humid day, until 2019, at which point it became much more hit or miss.  I hit it most recently in October 2019 at the Evansville Half with a time of 1:55:56.  Though I'm sure age has something to do with the difference, I will also say that nine of my top twelve half times (I've run twenty-three road half-marathons) were at the Evansville Half, which is held in early October; the weather tends to be cool, and the course is mostly flat.  There was bound to be more variation once I started branching out more frequently to different courses, running them at different times of year, training for longer distances, and doing the occasional not-that-smart thing like running halfs on back-to-back weekends.

This past Saturday I ran the Monument Half-Marathon in Gering, Nebraska, and I knew a sub-two time was probably not in the cards when miles two and three were both up the same, seemingly endless hill.  The first mile was downhill; when my watch chimed and I had an 8:31 pace, I wasn't sure whether to think, "Oooh, you went out too fast," or, "It's fine, you have some time banked now," or just, "Well, that was downhill, who cares?" A woman running near me, who I will refer to as My Musical Friend because she was playing music over her phone, and throughout the race I would speed up when I heard the music coming behind me, scolded her husband for pacing them too fast during the first mile.  During the second mile, when we all started uphill, he said something to her like, "Look, I will stay with you until it doesn't make sense anymore."  My watch chimed at the end of the second mile: 9:39.  "Oooohhh," I said aloud, in a tone like, "That's not good."  My Musical Friend said, "It's okay.  It'll even out with the downhills."  That made sense at that point, since my first mile was about thirty seconds too fast and the second was about thirty seconds too slow for the pace I was trying to hit...but then mile three continued uphill.  "Just go!" My Musical Friend said to her husband.  Up ahead, another woman urged her friend to go on ahead of her; the hills were breaking up duos left and right.  Mile three was another 9:39.  The hill finally started to descend at mile four, but not quite at the same degree; mile four was 9:07, which was better and back on pace, though not enough faster to make up tons of ground.

A few things happened relatively simultaneously at mile five: the course turned onto a gravel road; the half-marathon relay, which started thirty minutes after the half-marathon, had its first exchange point, so there was a "Why are there so many people just standing around?" moment; and the course became just BEAUTIFUL.  If you've ever been to the Scottsbluff/Gering area, you know that it is beautiful in general, but at this point there were some Badlands-like formations that you don't normally see.  We were running on a gravel road around the back side of the Scottsbluff National Monument, which you don't normally have a reason to go to.  Also at this point, us runners spread out a bit more.  I passed an older man who had started alternating between running and walking.  Occasionally, I would hear My Musical Friend's music behind me, then the music would fade again.  One thing with the early uphill miles was that you started to see people struggling earlier in the race than you normally would.  I wouldn't say I was struggling, but I did consciously adjust my goal from sub-two to "just try to keep all your miles under ten minutes."

Things kind of became a blur around mile seven or eight.  My Musical Friend disappeared somewhere behind me (I wish I knew her real name so I could look up how she finished).  We got back on pavement as the course turned onto the paved bike/running trails near the monument.  My parents were cheering two different places.  The first, my dad called out that I was twenty-fourth out of the women.  The second, my mom called out, "Molly! Look who's here!  It's Kaitlyn!"; my cousin's daughter was volunteering with some fellow nursing students.  The course kind of zig-zagged through some neighborhoods, with arrows on the ground pointing our way and volunteers in the confusing spots.  We switched back to gravel to head back to the start/finish at Five Rocks Amphitheater, running past a cemetery.  There was another downhill, and a volunteer kept calling out to us to watch ourselves on the gravel.  Next thing I knew I was crossing the finish.  My time was 2:07:55, far off the goal (hope?), but sometimes you adjust as you go when the course is more challenging than expected.  Final results were 24/125 women and 61/218 overall.

It was a great race.  I really enjoyed the mixture of pavement and gravel, and the scenery was beautiful.    Since it was a smaller race, you spread out a bit more than you typically would in a road half-marathon; the person who finished before me was forty seconds ahead, while the person behind was more than twenty seconds back.  I think I'm going to go back for the full next year.  For the full, they bus you out to the Wildcat Hills, and the first five miles are downhill.  Their second half overlaps with the half-marathon course.  I imagine pacing would be challenging since the second half is the more difficult half.  At any rate, I'd like to try it.  I think I love smaller races.  

One of the sponsors was the Flyover Brewery, and they offered a free beer if you brought your race bib in before six p.m.  My parents and I went sometime between five and six, and there were lots of people there wearing their race shirts, and the race director was coming around talking to everyone and thanking us for being there.  The proceeds go to scholarships at Western Nebraska Community College, so she emphasized how much they have raised since they started doing the race.  The whole community was really supportive of the race.  I would definitely recommend.