1 mile warmup with the beautiful blonde and tan Becca. :-)
13.1 miles pacing the Fargo Half marathon 1:40 group.
5 mile split: 7:35 pace
15k split: 7:35 pace
Finish time: 1:39:27 / 7:36 pace. A little dissapointed that I was off but in my defense I was about 3 seconds ahead of pace every mile and rather than pitter patter around into the finish I just maintained the same pace and ended up finishing a bit early. I tried to do a good job but I'm no treadmill! Most of the people that started with me ended up finishing ahead of me which is awesome. The course was great and the weather was also pretty good for the half. On a personal note my feet bothered me starting at mile 8 and I was thanking my lucky stars I wasn't pacing the full.
2 hour break hanging out in the dome, getting interviewed on the local Fargo TV station (I'm famous in Fargo) and letting Elite marathoner John Njoroge from Kenya back into the dorms. Me and Becca sat and talked to him for about 20 minutes and it was incredibly humbling...wow! He had to drop from the marathon because of a hamstring injury and it was just eye opening to hear his story. Most of us assume that these elite marathoners are well off and have unlimited resources. So not the case for some of these Kenyan runners that just kind of live race to race without any other income. When they are injured the make no money and cannot support there families. Interesting stuff and a very humbling experience for me. Definitely one of the highlights of my weekend.
8.5 miles out on the marathon course between running with Matt & Julia, 9:22 pace. About 3 with Matt and 4.5 with Julia. The conditions for the marathon were pretty terrible. When Julia finished it was 82 degrees and 80% humidity. Yuck! Both of them PR'd and I was very glad that they tolerated me running with them. | 