Quad Cities Half Marathon
September 24, 2017
7:30 am
2:01:24
(My 15th race of the 2017 season)
Ever since my 5k PR of 20:20 at the Evergreen Lake 5k in August (I mention this simply because I have to keep reminding myself that, yes, I actually did get pretty close to my goal of breaking 20 in a 5k this year…though my current fitness level has certainly plummeted since that time) I haven’t done much in the way of racing. I am teaching my first college course this fall and that has kind of taken over more of my life than I would’ve liked. As we all know, life ebbs and flows…and the great thing about running is the fact that it isn’t going anywhere. It will still be there for me when I am able to come back to it (though I will need to work hard to get back to what my fitness level had become!).
Anyway, here is my race report from the only event I participated in during the month of September. This wasn’t a “race” for me - but I did run it, so I figured that warranted a report/story to share with anyone who is interested. This event has been a substantial one in the life of my family - I have participated in it in one way or the other (completed the half or full) five times and spectated it once, making six times in the past nine years that I have been a part of this event. If you’ve never trekked up 74 to the land of the Mississippi and John Deere for this event - I would truly highly recommend it. It boasts a 5k, half marathon, full marathon, marathon relay, a kids’ fun run, and some sort of “pump ’n run” nonsense. The course isn’t necessarily the greatest in the world or anything, but it is decent. The Mississippi provides some beautiful views and running over bridges, in my opinion, is novel and kinda fun. I will say - the course offers very little shade. Usually in September this isn’t a big deal…but if it is unseasonably hot WATCH OUT!!
I had promised my sister long ago that I would run the Quad Cities Half Marathon with her this September. She and I have a colorful history with this race, starting back in 2009. That fall, she ran her first full at the Quad Cities event while I ran the half and then ran my first full at Chicago a few weeks afterwards (I earned 1:52:09 in the half and she earned 3:52:19 in the full). The next year (2010) we both ran the full (I earned 3:53:31 in what was my 3rd marathon and she earned 3:57:37 in what was her 2nd marathon). The following year, 2011, I ran the full (in 3:49:46, which would be my PR for 4 years until September of 2015!) and she had registered to run the half but didn’t end up running….because she was pregnant. Instead of running, though, she played Spectator Extraordinaire for me. Sadly, Monday after the race she endured her first miscarriage. Naturally, I (irrationally) blamed myself for the fact that she was running around like a crazy person at the race watching me (if you know my sister, you do know that “crazy” only comes close to describing her zest for life ;)). I know that there is, of course, no blame to be placed in such a situation…but the “feels” were intense at that point. At the time I couldn’t even fathom really HOW intense those feelings were for her…but after having my own baby now I know that the loss of a pregnancy would be absolutely earth shattering. I do regret not being “there” for her more after that experience…but that fall also ushered in my own intensified personal drama/hell (if you know me well, you know what I am referring to), causing me to be rather emotionally compromised myself for quite some time.
I didn’t make it out to the Quad Cities Marathon in 2012 (I was in the Quad Cities the weekend prior to the event that year attending my dear brother and his amazing wife Laura’s wedding), but was back in 2013. Megan and I ran the race side by side as her first postpartum half marathon - she had welcomed Macy, her first daughter and my first niece, into the world in November of 2012. In 2014 - Meg was pregnant again! We didn’t run the race, but instead spectated Clint (my pretty-new-still “boyfriend” at that time!). We also spectated our friend Aaron Van Lauwe in the half (I believe it was Aaron’s first - Aaron is one of the people I can claim as someone I converted to running). It was a blast driving all over the place, doing our best to find Clint (and Aaron) at a few different places on the course. Clint had trained hard that summer and did really well at the race - he ran a 1:25:32 in the half…19th out of 1946 participants and 4th out of 91 in his age group. Seeing him do so well at this race is one of my favorite spectating memories.
The next summer (2015) brought our wedding and honeymoon…and pregnancy. I ran the Last Chance marathon in early Sept and basically took the rest of Sept off before the Chicago Marathon in early Oct that year. We also didn’t make it out to the QC Marathon in 2016. I am glad that we finally made it back out there this year! Megan had told me a few months back that she wanted to run this race - what would be her first half since 2013. Since the 2013 event, she had another little girl (Charlee, in May of 2015) and then had very sadly lost two more babies/pregnancies. In September of 2016 she lost a little boy, Caleb, at 26 weeks. This was a soul-crushing time for our entire family. This past September marked his one year birth/death day - what better way to commemorate his impact in our lives than by running?
As I mentioned, my own running has been sub par as of late. In September prior to the marathon weekend, my longest run was an 8 mile run I ran with Megan (and Gabe) over our Labor Day vacation in Michigan. I was legitimately nervous about being able to successfully pace her during the race. I did my best to keep my anxiety at bay and made plans and arrangements to run the race. Clint got the wild hair up his you-know-what to do the Quad Cities event as part of his 5-week ultra-extravaganza (this was, of course, after he had said a number of things including (but not limited to), “I will run the half too!” “I will run with you and Megan too!” “I am going to run the full but I will run the first part with you guys,” etc…etc.). So, one way or another, it was going to be a family affair!
Clint, Gabe, and I drove up to the Quad Cities Saturday afternoon. We hit the expo in Moline, IL where we gathered our packets, as well as packets for my sister, our friend Aaron (who was also doing the half), and Amber (who later ROCKED the 5k!). Then, we drove out to Geneseo, IL to my parents’ home where we had dinner with my parents and my sister and her family. It was so much fun, as usual, to watch Gabe interact with his cousins (he is 17 months and his cousins Macy and Charlee are almost 5 and 2 1/2, respectively). My mom had prepared a variety of grilled meats, including my FAVORITE “Hawaiian burgers” (ground pork and pineapple patties from a local butcher shop) and we enjoyed other pre-race staples such as sweet potatoes and fruit.
After eating and playing with the kiddos for a while, we got Gabe ready for bed and put him down to sleep at my parents’. We then headed to Davenport, Iowa where we slept at my sister’s home. Her house is just 15 minutes or so from the race start - totally ideal. The Quad Cities event isn’t stroller-friendly, so we made plans in advance for my parents to keep Gabe during the race. I really HATE leaving him on the weekends (the plight of a working mom - the guilt over spending non-work time AWAY from my kiddo is REAL), but we don’t do it often. It really is nice to have some carefree time away from him, knowing he is in the second-best place he can be (my mom is my second choice for caregiver after Clint/myself, with my sister at a close third).
We had offered to pick up our friend Aaron who lives not TOO far from my sister's in a neighboring town to bring him to the race. Unfortunately for us, this meant that our morning routine was a little earlier and a little more complicated. Big shout out to Clint who took one for the team (as he often does) by leaving a bit before 6 to go pick up Aaron…and then coming back to Megan’s house around 6:20 to pick up Megan and me to bring us all to the race start.
We arrived to the start in Moline, IL around 6:45 and got a totally rad parking spot on the street just two blocks away from the start/finish. I texted with Amber to coordinate finding her to deliver her race bib to her…she had arrived on site super early (she drove in from BloNo that morning, which means she had to have left around 4am! Rockstar status!) and had found a coffee shop to get some caffeinated action going. After finding Amber and delivering her bib, she set off on her 2-mile warmup and Megan, Clint and I jumped in a bathroom line at a Subway down the street from the start. Sure beat the long lines for the smelly Porta Potties! Clint took his sweet old time and Megan and I were about ready to leave him and set off on our warmup…but then he emerged from the depths of the bathroom just in time. We all set off on a warmup jog…just about 7/10 of a mile and called it “good.”
We scooted our way into the coral and I scowled at the extreme body heat radiating around us. I could tell it was going to be a steamy-gross day!! The humidity was just…yuck. I gave Clint a kiss and he slithered his way up closer to the front while I stayed back toward the middle of the starting corral with Megan. Meg’s rough plan was to try to average 8:45s. She wanted a finish in the 1:50-55 range. On a more temperate day, this would’ve definitely been a reasonable goal. We waited through the Star Spangled Banner and the starting signal…and endured a crowded first mile that was a bit slower than our goal, but still reasonable. I did my best to lead a path through the bodies. The first mile goes straight for a quarter mile or so and then takes a right-hand turn up a circular ramp up to the I-74 Bridge (bringing the racers from IL to IA within the first mile). This is typically one of my favorite parts of this race - running across this HUGE bridge. It’s kinda creepy (in a “good” way) being that HIGH above the Mississippi. To make things extra-creepy this year, to the right you could see cranes and barges in position in the beginning stages of building a new bridge. Apparently the current I-74 bridge is getting on the OLD and UNSTABLE side. YIKES. Spoiler alert - all the runners made it across without the bridge collapsing and our first mile clicked off in 9:03. One mile down. Twelve-point-one to go.
My only-slightly obsessive-compulsive brain was rather irritated by those “extra” 48 seconds. I take my “instructions” as a “pacer” very seriously, guys. I knew we needed to make these up, but carefully so as not to make Meg expend TOO much energy and waste her body. The course boasts a pretty significant DOWN hill as the runners make their way off of the I-74 bridge and turn to the left in Davenport. I “used” the downhill as an excuse to have us naturally gradually pick up the pace a bit. As the second mile clicked off in 8:37, I quickly calculated in my head that we were EIGHT seconds “under” the goal on that mile so when you subtract 8 from the 48 seconds we were OVER in our first mile, we were still at a 40-second deficit.
Mile 3 brings a turn to the left…and the second climb of the race. I did my best to keep us from dropping the pace TOO much, but mile 3 clicked off in 8:50. Poop. Now we were in a 45-second hole. Meg was doing pretty great - but it was obvious that the warmer-than-anticipated weather was not being kind to her. I did my best to keep offering her water from my hand-held bottle and reminded her to stay on top of her hydration so that she wouldn’t hit a wall. Mile 4 was over in 8:43…one of our few miles that was within the target pace.
During the 5th mile, I let Megan know that I would stop at the next water stop to refill my hand-held water bottle so that it would be at the ready for both of us. I pulled off at the water stop, filled up the bottle, and sprinted back to where Meg was. A guy that passed us a minute or so after I caught up to her commented to me, “Oh, you were just running up here to catch your friend? I thought you were going to go on and win the whole thing!” HA! Mile 5 clicked off in 8:52. I was pretty sure at this point that we wouldn’t be able to make up our “lost" seconds to achieve our 8:45/average pace goal - but I knew that sub-2 was well within grasp so I held that in my mind as my goal to help her achieve.
The sixth mile runs along the river front in Davenport. We had the privilege at this point of witnessing a giant inflatable T-Rex waterskiing. Seriously. Gotta love people with a sense of humor - this definitely brought a bit of lightness to the suffer-fest that this run was starting to be for many. Mile 6 was over in 8:25. What!? Thanks, T-Rex! Apparently you powered us on to smash our 8:45 goal pace. Maybe Meg’s goal would still be within reach…
The half- half marathon point featured the first relay exchange. It’s always a nice little mental break to see and hear the cheers of the people waiting in the relay exchange areas. Things were REALLY starting to heat up at this point. Mile 7 was over in 8:41- hooray!! However, the elation over our near-goal paces wasn’t to last...
Megan reported that her stomach was feeling sour sometime during our 8th mile. Turns out the sugary gels (she had taken just 1) and Tailwind (my first fill of the handheld I was holding had Tailwind in it) was not sitting well. UGH. The gel on the course was Boom, which is a fruit-based product, so Clint and I had both said it would probably sit well and I decided personally to take the gamble and try it. Megan did as well. For the record, I would never recommend that anyone try something new on race day…as we all know, sometimes it works out OK and sometimes it just DOESN’T!. Mile 8 clicked off in 8:59 as poor Megan did her best to fight through the external HEAT and internal gut rot.
Mile 9 brings the runners onto Centennial Bridge for a bit. We wrapped this one up in our slowest-yet 9:33. Regardless of the fact that we were not going to achieve the A-goal of an 8:45 average pace for the race, I was very pleased that I was able to stay with Megan in spite of not training much for the 6 weeks leading up to the race. I was proud of the residual fitness that my body had held on to.
We ran our way toward the third bridge of the course - the Arsenal bridge. This bridge is entirely metal grates and actually opens and closes to allow barges to travel through. Course officials roll out rugs down the center of the bridge so that runners have a flat surface to run on if they don’t wish to run on the metal grates. They also have volunteers stationed at the entrance to the bridge advising runners to watch their steps and not trip over the edges of rugs! We ran mostly single - file over the bridge and I did my best not to push TOO hard so as not to get too far ahead of Megan. Mile 10 clicked off in 10:04 right before our left turn onto Arsenal Island. Arsenal Island, which was actually called Rock Island in the past, is a current US Army base. It’s pretty neat to be able to run on the base. In the past, they have had individuals who are currently in the Army working water stops on the base. However, this year there weren’t any uniformed Army soldiers - I am not sure why. In fact, the base seemed pretty quiet and desolate. Mile 11 was over in a slightly-faster 9:51 as we soldiered on.
Mile 12, held steady with 11, was over in 9:52 after we passed an expanse of green with stark white military tombstones protruding in neat rows - talk about a somber scene to run past. As we neared the end of mile 13, we had to climb our final bridge. Megan asked for water from my handheld and slowed for a second before powering up and over the bridge. I won’t lie - I remember being SO SO SO hot at this point. I will take this opportunity to note that there is barely any shade on this course! The heat and sun felt literally oppressive at times. As we descended the bridge, we picked up our pace. Mile 13 clicked off in 9:53 (making the final 3 miles pretty even actually - I am proud of Megan for FIGHTING through the pain on these miles and holding steady!) and we make the final right-hand turn off the bridge and onto River Drive, back in Moline where we had started this thing.
With the finish line in our sights, we buckled down and ran hard to the finish. It was awesome seeing Amber and Tanya over my right shoulder as we turned off the bridge! THANKS for the cheers and support guys!! I slowed momentarily to allow Megan to cross right before I did…2:01:23 for her and the same +1 second for me. I had the course slightly long and had our final 0.24 in an average pace of 8:24. Megan can and did dig deep to finish it out! I was slightly disappointed for her sake that we were just barely over the 1:50’s…but my pride in her accomplishment did overshadow that emotion!
We collected our medals and some water…and a banana for Meg and some salty potato chips for me. Megan started to feel kinda light-headed, so I directed her over to a curb where she sat down to collect herself for a minute. Amber excitedly made her way over to us at this point to share her amazing news - she got fifth place in the 5k out of 705 women! INCREDIBLE!
I felt…good. I started toying with the idea in my mind of meeting Clint when he came off of the Arsenal Island bridge (where Tanya and Amber had been spectating) and running with him for a while during his final 10k (the full marathon runners exit the Arsenal Island bridge around mile 20). I wasn’t sure how long I could reasonably expect to run with him (seeing as I had already run 14 miles, 6 more than I had run at one time all month!)…but thought maybe I could keep him company for one mile out and then run a mile back to catch him at the finish.
Megan met up with her family who were there watching (Macy was all TOO proud and excited to see her Mommy! I just love that sweet girl.) and I wandered back over to the Arsenal Island bridge area with Tanya and Amber. We weren’t sure at this point when, exactly, to be expecting Clint. He’s kind of a wild card :). To review, he had run the Fox Valley Marathon the weekend prior AND the weekend prior to THAT he had run the 50k at Lake Evergreen. That paired with the big issue of the day’s heat and humidity…who KNEW?! We knew he had gotten to the half at 1:42:xx (7:46/mile pace)…but things significantly slowed down after that.
When we did see Clint making his way toward us, it was about 10:14 - so about 2:46 on the race clock. HIs pace at this point for the race was an 8:18 average…still clearly fighting the good fight. I jumped on to the course with him and offered him some water. I informed him that I would run with him for a while…”as long as I can,” I said.
This out and back section is just awful. Awful! I remembered it all too well from the two times I had run the full at this event - my two runnings were back in ’10 and ’11, but this is the kind of crap you don’t forget. Literally, you run off the Arsenal Island bridge at mile ~20 and you SEE the finish line 0.1 mile away to your right. However, instead of running to the beckoning finish line, you must force your body to turn to the left and run a full 5k OUT and a 5k BACK. It is seriously a straight out and back with ZERO. SHADE. So hot. So boring. I knew, if it were me, I would appreciate the company. So, after our first terrible, terrible mile (in 80 degree plus heat and some terrible humidity) clicked off in 11:08, I informed Clint that I was indeed in it for the long haul with him and would help him shut it down. It became somewhat of a proverbial death march...water station to water station. There were a few stations where volunteers offered cold wet washcloths that we could drape over our heads, across our necks, down our shirts, inside our hats…wherever! Those felt like slices of heaven for sure. Our second mile together clicked off in 11:43. I assure you, it wasn’t pretty. Clint is a maniac - how he kept pushing through, I am not really sure.
After the final turn-around of his race, we had 5k to go to get back to the car. We stopped somewhere shortly after the turn-around to pull off Clint’s sweaty calf sleeves. I balled them up and shoved them into the back pocket in my shorts (yup, that tiny little pocket in my Saucony shorts is roomier than it looks - totally functional and awesome!). We ran past a coffee shop and all I could think about was how great an iced mocha with almond milk would taste and feel in my mouth right at that moment…
After what felt like an eternity, the finish line was within grasp. I veered off to the left and “sprinted” down the sidewalk to try to catch Clint at the finish, while he powered on down toward the finish on his own. I joined him in the finish area once he crossed the line (official time 3:59:21- yeah, yeah sub-FOUR in awful conditions both body- and weather-wise! :)) and did my best to make sure he was still alive :). He was definitely rocky there for a bit…after we left the finish area, he hobbled from shop doorway to doorway along the few blocks back to the car.
Don’t you worry, our boy lived to fight another day. Two weeks post-QC Marathon he went on to finish the 50-miler at the Hennepin Hundred. That Clint!!
All in all, I am thankful for another great Quad Cities running experience. It’s no Bix (what is, really?!), but the QC Marathon is always a great event and will hold a special place in my heart forever. I got in an unexpected 20.2 miles in total that day - insane, really, when you think about the fact that my training in Sept in no way set me up for that kind of mileage. I don’t regret it, silly or not ;).
Summary of my QC Marathon Experiences:
2009 (half) - 1:52:09
2010 (full) - 3:53:31
2011 (full) - 3:49:46
2013 (half) 1:56:55 (identical time as Megan)
2014 - Spectated Clint in the half
2017 (half) - 2:01:24 (1 second behind Meg)
THANKS to Mitch for allowing me to be on the great Often Running Racing Team. Thanks to Saucony for the ever-amazing gear (can we talk for a second about the new “Chroma” color way?! I have the Rides in Chroma and I love them more than anyone should actually love inanimate objects). Thanks to the team for the camaraderie (I use this word all of the time, but it's true!) and support - it’s a privilege to have your friendship! And, thanks to Coach Clint who is ever-patient with me and gives me some sporadic “coaching” right now as I ask for it which fits my current state in life…but has also been gently reminding me that I need to probably get my rear in gear sometime s-o-o-n to start working toward Boston 2018 since I got that acceptance letter and everything...
Up next: I am traveling back to the land of the Mississippi and John Deere in October....Augustana College’s homecoming and I am running the 5k with Gabey. I graduated from Augie in ’05 but have never run the homecoming 5k (dubbed the Dome Dash - in reference to Old Main, a big old domed building on campus that is featured in most pictures of campus), so I am looking forward to it. It won’t be a 20:20, and it certainly won’t be sub-20…BUT it will give me a good idea of what my current fitness level (or lack thereof) is. Regardless - I hope to have a bit of fun! I might do the ISU homecoming 5k the next weekend after that as well…anyone want to join in that fun? I was the top female finisher last year and I don’t expect to repeat that, but it will be fun (and short - as you know if you’ve run that course!).
Happy Weekend to all, and Happy Racing to all who are racing!
Much love,
Rachel
