Fits Do Race Reviews: Lake Minnetonka 1/2 Marathon

By Jessie

The Lake Minnetonka 1/2 Marathon was held on Sunday, May 6, rain or shine (that last bit turned out to be pretty important!)

Packet pickup was held on Saturday, May 5 from 9 am- 6 pm at the Optum Health Performance center in Eden Prairie.

There was plenty of parking at packet pickup, but not much to see at the expo. We grabbed our bags and headed out.

Check out these cute light blue dri-fit shirts for participants!

The above pictures were taken during the only dry part of Saturday. The rest of the afternoon and evening were stormy and pouring rain.

And by Sunday morning when our alarm went off, the storms were still going crazy outside. Neither one of us wanted to drive out to Wayzata to stand in the rain, only to end up with a delay or cancellation! We checked the race website, which stated that "due to weather conditions, the status of the half marathon is pending." Pending???

Well, that isn't very helpful!
We stayed in bed for a few more minutes before we decided we had to get that long run in either way. The treadmill didn't sound very fun so we decided to toughen up and get up! We stumbled out of bed and started to get ready for the race. Thankfully, the rain did let up, and we headed out the door by 6:30 am.

There was ample parking in Wayzata, where the race started. Luckily our friend had dropped her car off at the finish in Excelsior, so we had a ride home afterwards. I know that last year there were a lot of complaints about the post-race shuttles, but we didn't have to deal with those.

The gear drop-off was just a small van on a side road...but the start line was organized, and everything started on time.

I didn't have my camera on the course due to the rain, but it really was quite pretty. It followed rolling hills along Lake Minnetonka, and then went through residential areas past beautiful homes, which made the miles pass by quickly.

Unfortunately, for me, the miles didn't pass quickly enough! My legs just weren't feeling very strong. I'm not sure if it was all the Pure Barre classes I had been doing (nearly every day) for the past two weeks, or just where we are in our marathon training, (i.e. a 20 miler last Saturday) but my finish time definitely displayed my weak legs. I was hoping for a time about five minutes faster. Five minutes in a half marathon is not an insignificant amount of time! (i.e it's not just a few slow water stops!)

So I was disappointed with my personal performance, but fortunately the D-man had a very strong race, and many of my run club friends also set PR's (Congrats runners!)

My friend Angela also ran the race, and she told me she was just behind me...I didn't realize just HOW close. She's the one in the blue!

I still enjoyed the race, and will probably do it again next year.  I give it a 7.5/10!

Pros:

Easy packet pickup

Plenty of parking

SWAG: nice medals and technical tees

Lovely post race party at a city park

Good pacers

Solid crowd support

Cons:

Potentially the shuttles, though I can't speak from experience

Several parts of the course are on the shoulder of country highways that are still open for traffic- not my favorite

Hills- be prepared (though not as tough as Goldy's Run)

Some congested parts to the course

Potential rain delays- I think the website could have added more information

Website: http://www.lakeminnetonkahalfmarathon.com/