First, a shout out to my FRB buddy, Steve, his wife Courtney and their dog, Maggie, for making the 4+ hour trip to Pittsburgh to run this race with me. It was SO fun to finally meet a fellow blogger in person after following each others blogs for quite some time now. We met up at my wife's favorite Thai restaurant, Thai Gourmet, in the semi-sketchy area of Bloomfield. Food was great, service was sub-par since we got the younger of the two sisters that waitress there. But, the conversation definitely made up for that. Steve is a man after my own heart as we both ordered spicy dishes! We finished the evening with a trip up the Duquesne Incline and while enjoying the view from the observation desk, happened to catch the firework show from the U. of Pitt football game! 
We departed and went back to get some sleep before the race in the morning. Fortunately, our dog, Lucy has been "trained" to wake me up by 6:15am or so if I'm not already awake. I had set my alarm for 6am but my "techie" clock allows me to set alarms for weekdays, weekends, or everyday. I never change it from everyday, but somehow, it ended up on weekdays. So, Lucy made sure I wasn't going to miss this race! The whole family was planning to join us for the race, but my wife had a rough night so she stayed home. We were planning to meet Steve & Courtney, along with Steve's co-worker, Patti, her husband, and her son, Neal by 7:30am. We had a "date" with my recently retired Steeler buddy, Chris Hoke, about 8am for a quick photo shoot and meet-n-greet since he was one of the two Steelers that were going to be there to give a quick speech before the race. That was fun, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Too bad he didn't wear one of his Super Bowl rings...those are a sight to see in person! Here's a pic of Chris and Steve holding a quilt that was for a fundraiser for a charity (can't remember which one): 
Here we are all ready to crush this course!  Left to Right: Steve, Courtney, Neal, Patti and me
The race was to start at 9:00am. They did pretty good this year in getting it off on time. Due to a course change last year, they started the 3,000 runners off in waves. Steve, Neal and I lined up in the 20-25min wave, and Patti went to the next wave. It didn't seem to matter since after the first sub-20 wave, everyone just kinda started moving toward the start area. They staggered groups from there. For the first 3/4 to 1mi, it was quite congested. I kept Steve and Neal in sight for most of the first 1/2 but then lost them in the crowd. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up with them once things opened up, so I didn't worry about it. After the turn off the trail and onto the street, around 1.4mi, it opened up and congestion wasn't an issue. The race was great, and I ended up seeing the back of Patti for about 3/4 of a mile towards the end. I never ended up catching her since I took two 30 sec walk breaks, and she was doing great! I finished in a decent time and about what I expected. Splits were (9:18, 8:53, 8:57, 0:29). I didn't kill myself, but did try and push it once I got around people. I got hung up behind a lady and guy who were pushing a double stroller at about the 1mi mark where I couldn't pass for a good minute or two. Not sure why they were on the course yet since strollers were supposed to be after the runners so I was frustrated by that. Anyways, I'm happy with my race and I'm glad to be back into doing some races. Here's my finish photo by my daughter (I'm the one in the middle with the grey shirt and black skull & crossbones doorag): 
Steve and fam came over after checking out and hung out for a while before heading home. Our dog, Lucy, decided to be anti-social so she had less fun than the rest of us. We gave Steve and Courtney an (extended) driving tour of Pittsburgh and shared a bunch of stories. We talked their ears off. Haha We're looking forward to the next race and planning a 2013 Pittsburgh Marathon race, barring any issues between now and May 2013!
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