I really enjoyed this race... along with 15,000 other finely tuned athletes. You know the ones, fully loaded fuel belt with 20 gel packets, compression socks and sleeves, and of course, Vibrams! Then, theyre off - at 12 minute pace - ah well. Fully 60% of the 15,600 finishers were over 10 minute pace. Fortunately, my blistering 15K from mid January (1:11) allowed me to start in one of the seeded corrals, unfortunately, I did not register early enough to be in the first corral that I qualified for, so I was in the 4,000-5,000 corral... with all my Vibram-wearing buddies. This made for a very interesting first couple miles (7:48 and 7:27), but then I was able to at least breathe a little bit and work down to a comfortable 7:10-7:15 through to the 9th mile, which starts with a half mile on-ramp/bridge combo - brutal uphill, but nice and fun down to the finish (7:20 for that mile). Great aid station enthusiasm and fan support through the neighborhoods and live bands every other mile - very cool. Even with the painfully slow going for the first two miles, I ran about three minutes faster than in mid January, and was able to finish in the top 10% to snag a hapnin Adidas running hat - who da man?! |