All about that pace.

1:45:00 Pacer
Kym and I left early on Friday and made a weekend of this event. We stayed with friends in Anacortes about 30 minutes away from the start/finish. We always have such a great time with Liz and Mike, I wish we lived closer. After a late night with our friends, I worked the Maniac booth on Saturday at the expo and then had dinner at Flyers Restaurant with the maniac crew. It was a long day and I was a little worried about tired legs from being on my feet all day, especially with all the stories I heard about the hills on the course.

I woke up feeling great and knew it would be an awesome day.
The weather was perfect; blue skies, sunshine, a slight breeze and about 50°. I had around a dozen runners in my group for most of the race. The rockstar in this group was Silas, he was only 12 and running his first official 1/2 marathon. I met him and his family at the expo and they were so happy to learn we had a pacer for his goal time of 1:45. He stuck with me every step of the way! There was also a 14 year old girl in my group named Julia. She didn't talk much at all and I didn't really notice her until about 5 miles in when she got really chatty. These were two of the nicest kids you could imagine. We ran steady 8 minute miles through the whole course and they were smiling and talking through most of it. During the last big hill they got a little more serious as the oldsters in our group started dropping like flies. Once that hill was behind us at mile 11 I could feel their excitment as they knew it was mostly downhill from there and they would surely meet their goals. The course ended up being a little long so our last mile was a bit faster than the rest which didn't seem to phase them at all, then I chased them off once we could see the finish line. They both kicked it in well ahead of me and I finished at 1:44:32 within my 30 second window. I am totally psyched for TCM in two weeks!

3 easy with Karina.

5 with Karina. The usual route up Farwest hill.

I planned a longer run, but my ankle was pretty stiff today. I picked up the pace a little and ran 13 @7:30 instead of 18 @8:30.

5 with Karina. It's starting to get light out by the time we start at 5:30 so next week we'll change it up a little and run Oakbrook loop Monday and Wednesday. Friday we're planning to do the hilly route for 8 miles and keep the pace between 8:55 and 9:00 the whole way. A little practice for my pacer gig at TCM on Sunday.