Recap of my 24th Half Marathon – Lincoln Presidential Half Marathon in Springfield, IL

Well, I ran half marathon #24 on April 11th and I came away with my SECOND sub 2 half marathon time and a PR! Woohoo! I felt like the training cycle for this one went REALLY well, but I was still having all those pre-race jitters and doubts! However, it was NOT a cake walk…  AT ALL. The morning of the day before the race was when EVERYTHING fell apart.  I woke up with a headache and nausea. I was supposed to be on day 2 of carb loading, but I couldn’t even get myself to eat until noon. I was in tears, because I was so worried I had caught something and all my training for this race would be for nothing and it was out of my hands. The race was in Springfield, IL, so we left WAYYY later than we wanted (1 hour and 45 minute drive from St. Louis), because I just felt SO awful. I could hardly get myself off the couch to pack. If my race had been that morning, there was NO way I could have done it. Anyway, I had one good carb load day in me from the day before and then I had a light lunch, a snack and I had some noodles and bread for dinner. But, it was all I could muster. I went to bed at the hotel at 8:30 p.m. that night and slept like a ROCK. I woke up the next morning and I felt 100% better!!! Thank you, Jesus! Trust me, I was praying all day. It truly was a miracle. I have NO idea what happened the day before, but I may switch up my carb load next time. I just wonder if I had a bit too much sodium/sugar at once, even though I’ve done the exact same carb load for two other races. I was hydrated, so it wasn’t that. Nerves? I don’t know! Do I dare say hormones? Ugh! It was just a weird thing! Why do these weird things always happen before something important?!! Regardless, that morning I knew that this race would probably not be my best and all I could do was find JOY in running (my coach texted me that in the morning while I was getting ready) and to TRUST my training and let my body do what it’s been trained to do for 12 weeks. I was just thankful I could attempt it!! I felt ok, but I knew how 13.1 miles is a lot of time out there, would my stomach handle the gels, would I do ok? Well, I wasn’t going to not try!

Thankfully, we had a dry drive up to Springfield, IL. We had some rain earlier in the day. I booked us The Carriage House on Booking.com. It was historic and charming, had really nice decor that fit the carriage theme (it used to be an actual carriage house!) and was MORE than enough room for us. We had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, sitting room and it was 2 floors. The owners were quick at returning any questions we had and I’d totally recommend this house if you’re ever in Springfield, IL. It WAS close to the race site and I thought we could just walk over, but it’s not exactly in the walking downtown part, so we just drove the 5 minutes over to the heart of downtown Springfield to eat dinner and for the race and had ZERO problems finding parking.

After we had unpacked and settled into our house for the weekend, we drove over to the Old State Capitol (check out the date, 1839-1876!! Wow!!) for the packet pickup.

Of course, we had to stroll through the building a bit just to take in all of the history in it before we even got around to picking up my race packet.

It was fun to get my photo taken with Abe Lincoln himself. And can you tell me in the comments what his bib number represents? He ran in the race too, all dressed up! The race came with a dry weave race t-shirt and this jacket, which I just LOVE!!!

Here are my race stats for the 2026 Lincoln Presidential Half Marathon in Springfield, IL
Time: 1:57:57.2
Pace: 9:00

Ok, so let’s get to the SUPER FUN stuff now. So, remember how I said I woke up feeling ok the morning of the race? I was still a little unsure how the race would go given how awful I felt the day before and how little I could eat. Well, SOMEHOW I amazed myself and I felt STRONG the ENTIRE race! I actually was smiling, enjoying myself and I was even able to execute my fast finish that my coach and I had worked on at the end. The race was such a party the whole time… SO much to see such as Lincoln’s house, the memorial built at his grave site, running past the capitol, etc., etc. And there was SUCH great crowd support all around!

I finished at 1:57:57 with a PR, my previous best time was 1:59:15 from the Go Girl Run race last Spring in Springfield, MO. The course was flat, then had some ongoing rolling hills in the middle and then the last 2 miles were pretty flat. Everyone was kind of discussing during the race how they felt it was running a little long and even the 2:00 pace group said they felt like the race was running a bit long. My Garmin had me finish at 13.28, so I don’t know if it was just the GPS hiccuping on all our watches or if it did run slightly long. Regardless, I LOVED this race and man, I kind of want to do it again next year. Hmmm?!?!

Here is the map of the race and my splits. I am pretty proud of my splits, because I executed EXACTLY what I wanted to do!! My heart rate stayed at a good place all race, so I can tell I was in control of my body and focus. I started the first few miles slower to ease into it, then I kind of locked in at the middle and then the last two miles I executed my fast finish. The last .1 mile of the race I emptied the tank and look at that 7:44 pace!!!! Wow!! 

Here is a close up of my medals. The MAIN reason I wanted to run this race was for the shiny penny medal! It is a pretty big medal too! I love how the medal this year was 2 sided!

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