Lake Wobegon 2018

My first marathon of the year and what a great day. I went into the race with some inconsistent training after being sick in January and dealing with a nasty cough through the spring but my faith in the Galloway method paid off but first some background.

Lake Wobegon is a runners race (it's been put on by St. Cloud River Runners), not a large field and only the marathon, not a lot of fan support but an extremely well organized and supported race. This was to be my 3rd time at Lake Wobegon. The first attempt was a DNF when I was trying to run through a meniscus tear. The second attempt went far better all things considered as I had had the knee surgery the year before and had ruptured my plantar the year before so I had some residual issues going on.

The race starts at Holdingford High School and it takes us about a mile to pick up the Lake Wobegon Regional Trail where we head southwest for about 10 miles or so to Albany, from there we hang a left, head over to Avon and then on to St. Joseph. The trail is mostly flat with some gradual grades as you might expect on an old railway bed. The trail is asphalt and we had plenty of aid stations and volunteers.

As to my race, well it started out with a problem. We stayed at a hotel in St. Cloud and I forgot my race number, thankfully they provided me a new number as we didn't have time to go back and make the start time. After that things went fairly well, I had planned on using the Galloway method using 30-30 increments. It worked well up until the last 4 or 5 miles where I slowed down by a minute per mile. Part of the reason was the shoes I wore (Hoka Clayton 2) had started cutting into a toe around mile 5 and I tried to ignore it but as time went on, well it become harder so my mental energy took a hit dealing with that, along with that I messed a bit on fueling and well I hard run 20+ miles. Overall though I was pleased. My internal goal coming into the race was to be under 5 1/2 hrs, ideally beat my time from the Pig from the year before of 5:25, realistically though I had trained better for the Pig as the year before our winter was more runner friendly and I had not been sick like this year. My time was 5:33 and I was quite happy that they got it right considering my bib mistake.

A couple of other things, for this years race for signing up early we got a pullover and they also provided gloves and a mini back pack at packet pickup and the finisher shirt and medal at the finish. Along with plenty of pizza, water and pop.

Next up MedCity.