Met early and ran 3 warm-up miles with Kelli, Paul, Rachelle and Craig. We ran an AP of my exact pacing pace. Awesome. I finally felt the confidence I could do this. Race was a crazy start and times were off gun times, no chips. Hollie and I had a few runners with us (the doc that casted my daughter's arm last month was with us! we'd discussed the race at the office, so he came looking for me. How neat was that?!?), but we started out a little fast to bank some times on the easier miles. I knew the headwind from mile 7-9 was going to kill us all and that banking an extra 10-15 seconds for each of those miles would be WELL worth it, and it was. We got enough time to walk through water stops and not die on the headwind/flat/hills. Excellent! Hollie struggled a bit and at mile 11.5 gave me the sign and said she needed to drop back, so I pull along alone encouraging all who passed me! It was nice to have an easy finish and not be pushing for time. I was SO excited as the clock came into view and it was clicking 1:54:40's. I just knew I was going to get the prize for closest without going over. Too bad Bill got 1:44:59.8!!! Dang, gotta admit defeat on that one. My HUGE 2.6 second early finish had nothing on his .02!! Afterward chatted with some people that had been pacing off me, and I didn't know it. I loved hearing how encouraged they were by me and how well I paced it through the hard miles. I LOVE pacing! I wish I could do it every weekend!! Racing is over-rated :) Then Kelli, Paul and Rachelle were taking off for a few more miles...sure, why not. Ooops. As soon as I started I could tell the 2 bottles full of water/gatorade wasn't happy in my tummy and that my legs had stiffened and were tired. Crap. Oh well, once you start running NO whining! I just plugged along at the slow creeper pace :) There was one point that if I hadn't been so far away I seriously would've just stopped, but with Paul and Kelli dragging me along I just put my head down into the wind and plugged along. Finished with 4.1 miles, add to the 3 before and the 13.1 race - 20 miles today. Holy Crap...how did that happen?!? I feel great now, and like I had a wonderful morning. I'm glad it all turned out well. The doc that ran with me finished just 20ish seconds behind me and Holli was right behind him. So, we all had a great day and I'm proud of myself for not wimping out and finishing a 20 miler today!
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