Race Takeaway: Training isn’t required to have a good time.

I’ve written about this race over the years so I’m going to try to focus on aspects of the race that I may not have covered in previous posts in case you are reading this considering the Lincoln Presidential Half Marathon in the future.

The weather in the past has ranged from low 30s to mid-50s. Saturday (4/4) was low 30s, sunny, very light breeze, a nice day overall.

Similar to last year, we’ve battled the flu in our household for the last month. Therefore my “training” has been minimal. My expectations were to run easy and for as long as possible, hopefully not having to walk the hills. Which worked out great! I had an enjoyable run and while I was sore from not formally training, I was able to run the entire time.

This race will always be a favorite for us for the following reasons:

• Proximity – this race is about an hour drive away
• Parking/driving accessibility – Finding the race location and getting parked is very easy. There is on street and parking decks near the Hilton. We’ve never had an issue getting close to the start/finish due to race course closures.
• Packet pickup available race day – This was the first year that we picked up our packet race day. It was super easy that we will likely do that in the future since it’s an hour drive each way for us to get them the night before.
• Good/changing scenery – I’m not very familiar with Springfield, but the course takes you through enough neighborhoods and parks to keep it interesting. You run past historic locations related to Lincoln, including the old State Capitol Building. The course has hills starting at 10K and then every couple of miles to the finish.
• Easy going crowd/start corral – In previous years people casually line up with no corrals. This year they asked for people to line up to the pacers that aligned to their goal, but just an honor system. People seemed to respect that and I like that people don’t get all pushy to get one inch closer to the start corral like other larger races. Everyone is very chill
• Chip start/finish – sometimes a smaller race doesn’t have a chip start mat, this one does.
• Instant unofficial results – right after the finish look for a small tent, they will print you your chip results right then and there
• Penny Medals! Last year they had a $5 bill medal. We always love a unique medal. 🙂

Things that could be improved:

The race shirt – I’m not a fan of white tech running shirts personally. I just donate running shirts that I don’t use, so it’s no biggie.

The water stops could use more volunteers/tables, but again it’s manageable. They have enough stops for water, but they aren’t very big and can get congested. They consistently offer water on both sides of the street, which is beneficial.

Water and Gatorade bottles were passed out at the end, but I think the only food option was to attend a pub and purchase a meal at a discount. While that’s a nice after party I think they should offer some sort of fruit/bread for people that may have blood sugar or recovery fuel needs. Perhaps they have it and I just didn’t see where it was located. Since our car was so close it wasn’t an issue to bring our own things if we wanted.

Overall we plan to keep attending this race. It’s a fun way to kick off the running year and see a lot of our friends from the area.

Stats:

1:57:55

9:00 Pace

Past Performances:

2014 Lincoln Presidential Half Marathon – 2:07:07

2012 Lincoln Presidential Half Marathon – 1:41:39

2011 Lincoln Presidential Half Marathon – 1:40:15