I had a near-perfect race today! The winds were saying 17 gusting to 24 before we left the hotel but they did not feel that tough most of the time. Temperature was perfect. I wanted to get in a half-mile warmup for my hip but we didn't have time after waiting in lines for the PoP and gear check. Figured it was a 13-mile race anyway so I'd get my warmup. Ran without Garmin but I have a good idea of most splits.
Miles 1-2 - 7:55 pace. Nice and slow. I was getting stuck behind people but went with the flow and it helped keep me at warmup pace. I bumped into the 1:45 pace group in mile 2 and ran with them for a few minutes but it was too comfortable so I sped up.
3,4 - 7:25, 7:45. Sped up too much, then found a nice pace. 31:00 exactly at the 4 mile mark, so 7:45 pace so far.
5,6 - ~7:30 pace. Just felt great here, and I was right around 2 minutes ahead of the invisible 8-minute pace runner at the 6-mile mark. Crossed the 10K at 47:50. The results say 46-something but they're all off a minute (Danielle's showed a minute fast too). Anyway I was happy I had banked 2 minutes already.
7,8,9,10 - ~7:45 pace. We turned around mile 8-ish as the marathon people kept plodding along into the wind. I was happy to turn. This is the stretch with the 1% uphill for about 3 miles straight but the headwind turned into a tailwind so it kind of evened it out. I was at 1:17:00 exactly at the 10 mile mark. With 5K left, I saw that a 23:00 would really make things interesting so I started pushing, though I knew that was asking a lot at this point.
Last 5K - 23:04 (7:26 pace)! I don't remember the individual mile splits but they were a lot faster than I had been going. Of course I'm left wondering if I could've sprinted it out earlier to get those last 5 seconds and the sub-1:40, but right now I'm still happy about the 1:40.
Really pumped that I ran a smart race and I don't think I could've gone any faster or tried any harder (well, maybe 5 seconds...dummy). A month ago, I thought 1:45 was way out of reach! Thanks fellow FRB'ers - I actually thought about y'all as I passed the 1:45 pace group at mile 2 so who knows if I would've done that if no one suggested I could go faster. Just another example of how helpful this blog is, and the people that make it work.
Ok, next HM will be October, most likely so plenty of time to improve. Then my first marathon in January! Lots of miles to do until then. | 
