Well the conditions couldn't have been better! It all goes down hill after that- The start was on time but a guy drives his truck to the start line just as the gun goes off.....dork! The first mile was very slow, too crowded and no one was pushing it at all, I wasn't too upset because I didn't want to go out too fast but 8:30 was slow. Once past the first mile things started to thin out a little except at the turns. I started to fall into a pretty good pace just was breathing a bit too hard, not used to the elevation. That went away after 4-5 miles. I was trying to hold to 7:45 pace on the gentle down hill to save some energy for the hills at 8 and 9. Hind sight, I should have gone out a little faster because those hills got me anyway. Stomach was giving me a hard time when I ate anything and spend 3 stops at the facilities to relieve my self. Lost valuable time there but it was needed. At the half way point I knew I was in trouble sitting at 1:48 so I kind of bagged the BQ idea but still hopes I could get a shot of energy and maybe scrape by. When I was running I was hitting around the 7:30- 7:45 pace but couldn't hold that pace and was weak in the head and did many walk breaks. The stomach issues seemed to go away around 18-19 but then the right foot started to give me fits. Sometime during the week it started to hurt- kind of bruised and it had done ok until now. I stopped at 20 to take the shoes off and check things out. This seemed to help some but by then I really didn't care about my finish time and jumped made it to the finish line-
Well, at least I have the experience of another marathon.
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