Becky and I were assigned the 1:55 spot for the Howloween half marathon. It started and 6 p.m. so she thought it would be fun to pace the Haunted half in the morning also. I had no such desire because I had soccer games to watch and I am not insane. She had been sick all week so I had a feeling that the second race would not go well. We dressed up as Jack and Sally Skellington. The race started and we were about 25 seconds ahead of our goal time after 2 miles. This is the ideal cushion. After mile 3 she started to feel the earlier race so I told her to drop back. I actually was hoping that she would just go back to the start because I was worried about her pushing too hard while her body is recovering. I was pretty much on my own so I decided to try to hit exactly 8:46 every mile for the rest of the way to keep myself entertained. Each mile was within a second or 2 of my goal. I picked up a couple of runners during the last 2 miles and I let some of my cushion go so that I was not pushing them too hard. Turned the last corner and my watch read 12.6 miles which made me come in almost 3 minutes early. There were no mile markers on the course so I had no idea if my Garmin was accurate or not. Becky came in about 10 minutes after me (too stubborn to quit). We ended up winning the costume contest which made the night somewhat of a success.
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