Loved this race, had been training in super hot humid Texas summer weather so alot of the workouts were effort based not necessarily time goal based. Wow was the difference in running in Chicago on race day so much easier having trained through the heat of the summer. Race went very well, it was to be my first BQ attempt which had a target of 3:12 ( to comfortably get in under my 3:15 BQ time). My previous PR had been ran that spring in Paris where I ran a 3:27. I set out in perfect weather in Wave 1 and hit the half way point a bit ahead of goal pace feeling amazing still. Then started to increase the pace a little bit pretty much every mile till 17/18 when I knew I had it and went.. closed hard the last few miles to bring it in at 3hrs 13seconds. This was pretty much course and crowd driven. Its the perfect negative split course in my opinion and the crowd support was massive and definitely spurred me on to try and attack that sub3.

The weather was perfect for Wave 1, but in 2015 the wave 2 finishers did get hit as the temp started to rise into the 70's for those on 3h 30+

Post race is good, easy to meet up with people, beer was greatly appreciated as was the live music. top notch race and I went back the following year on the back of that experience.