LineUpAndWait

So I haven't run a marathon since early Spring and wanted to get one in before the snow flies.  This long distance commuting has made it difficult to stick to a training plan and even though I wasn't in marathon shape, I decided to do one anyway.  Tri-Cities was the perfect choice.  It's a very well done small marathon.  The course was fantastic.  Nearly flat except for the 4 times you cross the Columbia river.  The scenery was great.  Race conditions were ideal. Overcast skies with temps in the low 50s.  No rain. My Garmin was in Seattle but I left the charger in Utah so dead Garmin means no Garmin.  I just used a stop watch to occasionally check my time on a few miles.  The first 3 miles were all around 8:10 pace.  I stopped looking at it after that and just enjoyed the river.  The wind was dead calm and the Columbia was like glass.  Went through the half at 1:47:42 with an ave pace of 8:14.  I had only done one long run in preparation for this race so I knew the second half would be rough and the last 10K torturous.  I definitely slowed down the second half but just kept going.  Tried to focus on not completely blowing up and posting any double digit miles.  I think I had a couple of 9:20-9:30ish miles in the last 10K but never slower than that.

Good times.