These are my results for the half marathon races that I’ve taken part in. Until 2013, all of the half marathons I took part in were associated with a marathon race on the same day, so that’s why the names of some of the events may seem odd.

The Mad City Marathon was renamed the Madison Marathon sometime after 2004. I think this was a marketing decision – somehow “Mad City” does not seem family friendly or something. In 2013 the Madison Marathon events were split up – the marathon is held in November, along with a half marathon. In the spring, a half marathon and 10 K race are held. This was due to the weather in May – we had had several very warm Memorial Day weekends, and the marathon was halted a couple of times after the start due to heat. The final straw was in 2012 when the forecast was so hot that the marathon race was canceled two days before the start.

To reduce confusion, the  Madison spring half marathon was rebranded as “Run Madtown” in 2017.

I’ve done the Door County Half Marathon twice. This is the only “destination” race that I have done so far. It’s run completely within Peninsula State Park and is a very challenging course. I was really mentally unprepared for the course when I did it in 2017, but in 2018 I was able to run up Sven’s Bluff and did fairly well until I starting cramping up a little near mile 9. My strategy for the hills was to stick with the 2:20 pace group and they really helped me a lot.

The 2018 Run Madtown Half Marathon was held during a record breaking heat wave. The yellow caution flag was out for at least the last hour I was on the course – it was hot!

The Covid19 pandemic canceled almost all of my races in 2020. I had been planning on doing two or three half marathons, but the spring one was canceled and so was one of the fall half marathons I had planned on. The other fall race was the Bridges and Bluffs half marathon which is held in Ironwood Michigan. They decided to cancel the in person race but have a virtual race to continue to raise money to support the bike path on which the race is held. So I set up a course at home and ran just a little over 13.1 miles on a cool and cloudy  Saturday morning in October. It turned out pretty well, and other than some leg cramps in the last mile I felt pretty good.

The 2021 Madison Half Marathon was held in person, so it was nice to run the course with the other participants. However, it was very windy and we had snow flurries during most of the race!