runjulesrun: Lincoln Presidential Half Marathon

This was a fun, quick, overnight trip down to Springfield, IL to run. There were quite a few running friends converging from all around the country to run this race and since it was somewhat local for me, and I was trained, I decided to join in on the fun.

I talked Kelly in to coming down with me. She doesn't enjoy running even a little bit but she didn't mind riding along and relaxing while I was running so it was a win for both of us. It was nice to spend the time with her catching up. We live 4 doors down from each other and have been friends since high school but our lives are so busy, we don't get all that much time together.

We left Friday after Kelly got off of work and drove down to Springfield. We checked in at the hotel and hit the expo right away. There wasn't much to the expo so it took all of 5 minutes and we were done. We were supposed to meet up with ROTE friends for dinner but there was a 2 hour wait at the place we were meeting at so that didn't end up working out. They grabbed food from a different restaurant and brought it back to the hotel to eat. Kelly and I decided to try our second choice place and ended up eating there.

After dinner, it was the normal routine of laying out clothes, making sure everything was ready for the morning and trying to get a decent amount of sleep before the race.

Morning came all too soon and I did my best to quietly get ready and slip out of the room without waking Kelly up. I made it down to the lobby where I met up with many of the ROTErs who were there to run.

When it was time to leave the warmth of the hotel, we all headed to the start line which was only a couple blocks from the hotel. I had no goals for this race other than to enjoy it. Most of the group running it were running a half the following day in St. Louis so they wanted to really take it easy for the race.

I ended up running with Janice & Scot since we all wanted to run about the same pace. Scot is normally faster than us but he was running the race on a fractured foot so that slowed him down. I am still in awe that he was able to complete this race on his foot. He was clearly in pain for much of the race but he never complained, he just kept going.

The course was nice, the company was nice. We probably could have done without the cobblestone stretch of street but I was enjoying the places the course brought us past so I can't complain too much.