I'm looking for some half marathons with reasonably competitive fields for the April/May time frame. I am located in the midwest (Chicago). I have run the Indy Mini Marathon each of the past two years, but I have a potential conflict with Indy this year. I have run low-1:08 and am hoping to run in the 1:07-mid range, so I'm looking for races that might have a group of guys in that range. Anyone have any good suggestions?
Ummm....ever heard of the Pine Line Half Marathon in WI?
Pittsburgh may be too far for your taste but 5th place was 1:08:10 and winner 1:05:13
Sunday May 15th 2011
2010 results
Check out the Dexter-Ann Arbor Half, in Ann Arbor, MI. Late May/early June.
http://www.dexterannarborrun.com/results.htm
1:08 would have placed 4th in 2010, and 5th in 2009.
Nice scenic course, with rolling hills, point to point, follows the Huron river most of the way.
It seems most years at least one Brooks-Hanson guy shows up, and many other top runners from the area do it. They do a nice job organizing it. It's very competitive (and large), but has more of a smaller race feel than that of a mega-sized race like the Indy Mini.
Forgot to mention about Dexter-Ann Arbor... You can find it on their website, but one plus about that race for you could be that not only will you have somebody to run with, but you'll be competing for the top spots. They paid top 3 as follows: $1000, $500, $250.
http://www.dexterannarborrun.com/awards.htm
And, you'd get a comp entry for being sub 1:12:
http://www.dexterannarborrun.com/elites.htm
Best of luck to you this spring wherever you end up racing!
Come and run Naples Daily News Half Marathon on 1/16/11. You may not be in shape but there will be plenty of people around 1:08-1:11. I'll be somewhere over 1:09, probably over 1:10, maybe even over 1:11.
I definitely will not be ready to run a competitive half in the next month or two, so Naples is out. However, the Ann Arbor race sounds very interesting. It's a bit later than I was thinking, but that could be to my advantage. I will take a closer look at that one, as well as the Pittsburgh race. Any others?
Just wanted to give you a bump and keep that pinhead from spamming the whole page.
Elite entry standards for Pittsburgh.
Males - recent race times
Marathon: 2:22 and below
Half Marathon: 1:03-1:05
10-miler: 50 minutes and below
10K: sub 29:30
I don't know what the perks are (hotel? gas$, maybe only entry fee)
You would at least get seeded status
http://www.pittsburghmarathon.com/Home.htm
Half Marathon:
1st - $2,500 2nd - $1,000 3rd - $500 4th - $350 5th - $250
New bedford
3M Austin (jan 30th)
Look out for KipLitton
How about this race:
http://germantownhalfmarathon.com/
It's not exactly all that far away from Chicago, I think about 8-9 hours. I heard about it from a friend and ran it last year and it was a great great race except for the fact it was poring down rain.
OK, not a Half, but 2 great spring races are the Cherry Blossom (Apr) and Broad Street Run (May); both highly competitive 10 milers.