Awesome race today! This was my 4th annual mother-son half marathon with my mom. She traveled up from Texas to race. The bus loading/finish area for this race is also just a mile from my uncle and aunt's house, so extra convenient. This was the night of sleep I've ever had before a race, as I only woke up once before it was time to get up. I had a half bagel with hot chocolate, and then we jogged to the buses. The start line was much colder than expected, and it actually took me about 10 minutes of running in the race before my muscles felt completely loosened up again after shivering. The first mile is the slowest Mike, and my Garmin registered a 6:58 mile. I wanted to take this race conservatively, as I didn't want to burn out on this course and not be able to pace the STG marathon in 3 weeks. The course just kept getting faster though, and we didn't have to do the out-and-back segment that the full marathoners had. I started calm on most of the course, and let quite a few people pass me. Around mile 11, I realized my faster-than-usual times weren't too good to be true and I pushed harder. I barely even slowed down on the level parts, and I think that is due to conditioning from 3 other downhill races this summer. I rolled in at 1:26:18, which is almost 6 minutes faster than any other half marathon I've run before. Good good day! I did a cool down loop and felt great. I also walked a mile back to the house with my family, which showed up en masse to cheer for me and my mom. This evening we drove up the course and onwards to Guardsman's Pass. Then we hiked up the remaining part of the mountain in the north side of the road to the weather station. Felt fine! | 