Bret

So I had a pretty successful race today in NYC.  3:01.17 which was a PR by over 8 mins (and over 12 years ago in fact).  I was hoping to go sub 3 hours, but I came up a little short.  No worries, I am quite pleased with my time and my effort.  Richie came up to NY with me as my adopted coach - and brought a pancake breakfast to my hotel room this morning at 4:45 am.  Rode with me over to Staten Island on the ferry to see me off and then ran with me from miles 17 to 22 - constantly giving me encouragement and barking out "coaching" advice the whole way.  I had a slowish start, as my garmin gps did not work in the first mile where my starting wave was on the lower deck of the bridge - so no reception and I really was quite cold and did not know how fast or slow I was going. 

I thought I was into an avg 6:52 pace by the halfway mark - but looking at the text updates, it appears that I was a bit slower than that in reality.  Anyway, I kept my pace at a manageable heartrate of no more than 160 beats per minute but mostly around 156 for much of the early part of the race.  Somehow I slowed going over the 59th street bridge much more substantially than I had thought - and had a couple of miles over 7 mins.  Again, the gps did not work on the lower deck of that bridge.  When I connect with Richie at 17, he pressed the pace and I wondered why - and he kept telling me if I wanted to break 3 hours I was going to have to work for it, and run 6:40 miles the rest of the way.  I really was starting to suffer - but he kept me in it - and at least according to my watch, I clipped off some sub 6:40 miles. 

The last 3 miles are primarily uphill - and I think I slowed on  them slightly - but I worked very hard the last mile and felt like I gave it all I had - satisfied that I had not made any errors or mistakes but did the best I could do on the day. 

Heading out now to celebrate...