Run the Bluegrass Half Marathon

This race, based on Lexington, Kentucky, is billed as one of America's prettiest half marathons.  This is absolutely an accurate description of the race.  It stars at Keeneland Thoroughbred Racing Assc. right outside of Lexington and winds through the (very) hilly back roads amid the local horse farms.  It is one of the toughest half marathons I've completed but also one of the prettiest.

I made the long trek to Lexington on Friday for packet pick up, which was also located at Keeneland.  It was a very cool race expo and, thankfully, I was able to get right in and right out.  I stayed pretty close to the race start and had no problem getting in on race day.  However, they capped the race at 5000 this year and I think that's as far as they should go.  Parking became an issue closer to race time and the race was actually delayed 15 minutes.  That was really the only negative for this year's race.  The weather was perfect, in the low-40s, so the delayed start wasn't a major deal.

We headed out from Keeneland and I immediately set into a nice nine minute pace.  I had heard several people say that the second half of the course was tougher than the first and, judging by the first few tough hills, I wanted to save plenty of gas for the second half.  The scenery was fantastic.  Nice rolling hills.  Horse farms on each side of the road.  Some of the gorgeous thoroughbreds came to the fence line to watch us.  That was quite the experience.  Race-wise I felt pretty good.  My 3 mile split was around 26:52, which is right where I wanted to be.  I did speed up some by the time I hit the halfway mark, which was in 58:20.

The second half started right in with tough, tough hills!  Up, down, up, down for miles 6-9.  There were a lot of rollers, but the downhills really started to kill my quads.  But I was still doing well and hit the 10 mile mark in 1:26:40.  My sub-2:00 streak was going to survive and I decided to just coast and enjoy the scenery.  This course certainly doesn't have much crowd support but it isn't needed at all.  The race actually leveled out a bit over the last few miles, so I wound up speeding up just a bit and hit the finish line in 1:52:18.  As I saw this race as a major challenge, I'm very happy with this time.

Next race: Run the Reservoir- Fostoria, OH