I was a little worried about the weather for this year’s Monster Dash half marathon in Minneapolis – it was near blizzard conditions the night before – but it turned out to be a decent day for a race. Temperatures were in the upper 30s at the start, with winds in the 14-17 mph range. The sun made an appearance and a lot of the course was sheltered from the wind.

The half marathon course was changed for 2009, starting on the north side of Lake Harriet and running the Lake Calhoun loop first, before following the west side of Harriet and the six or so miles out and back along Minnehaha Creek. The last mile was on the east side of Harriet, finishing right where we started.

Team Ortho provided pacers that were spread out at many intervals and I decided to sit between the 1:40 (7:38 pace) and 1:45 (8:01) runners, hoping to keep up with the 1:40 group. I ended up passing the 1:40 pacer after a few miles and stayed in front of him the whole race. He caught up to me at mile 12, but I had a little energy left and finished with a new PR time of 1:39:15 (7:35 pace).

Here are my splits:

• 7:45
• 7:33
• 7:29
• 7:29
• 7:24
• 7:41
• 7:42
• 7:13
• 7:31
• 8:08
• 7:23
• 7:38
• 7:27

There were 2,644 finishers (1,536 women, 1,108 men) and the average time was 2:06:29. The race won by Joseph Radosevich in 1:14:15 (5:41). The women’s champion was Nancy Buselmeier, who finished in 1:27:28 (6:41).

I actually placed 178th overall (17th in my division) and qualified for corral 1 at next year’s TCM. This was also my first half marathon run at a Boston Qualifying pace, so I’m trying to decide what to do next to meet that goal.