I went into this race just hoping to average 9:00/m. It's one of the hilliest halfs in our area and I haven't been running much at all. I just was hoping not to have a time over 2 hours. I had to get over myself to even sign up because last time I ran this I was disappointed with my 1:41 finish. My life is so busy right now and I've gotten out of the habit of running as much as I was back then. So about a half mile into the race, this guy from my running group named Ross comes up beside me. Ross is someone I've run with periodically over several years. We were catching up and it sounded like we both have had similar challenges in our lives right now. When we ran together in the past we'd always run 8:00/m pace but we were both more of the 9:00 milers lately. He said he was coming back from injury and he gained 15 pounds. I've gained about 7-8 pounds since NYC. He's just getting back into it. I said I have been slacking with my running only averaging like 12 miles a week. Ross has a full time job and a couple kids just like me. We were both hoping to be around 9:00/m today. So we decided to run together. Well, we both ended up beating our expectations! My watch had us at 8:20/m average for 13.3 miles. (this race is always longer on my watch with all the hills and twists and turns). I figure the pace itself was even faster considering I never stopped my watch but we walked through the water stops every 2 miles. It was so nice to run with someone. At times he was pulling me and at times I was pulling him. Mile 1: 8:09 Mile 2: 8:19 Mile 3: 8:12 Mile 4: 8:10 Mile 5: 8:27 the steepest hill of the course here known as "one nice hill" Mile 6: 8:20 Mile 7: 8:15 Mile 8: 8:25 Mile 9: 8:30 Mile 10: 8:10 Mile 11: 8:27 Mile 12: 8:49 last water stop. We walked a little longer at the water stop here. Mile 13: 8:23 Final .3 mile: 7:44 The end was a low grade uphill. Some guy right behind me, could have been Ross, but I honestly don't know, screamed "go, go, go" and so I went, went, went. I couldn't have run faster than this if I wanted! I'm really happy with this race. I told Ross I'd start running with him on Saturdays at the FW Run Co group. I've been running by myself for the last several weeks and it's just not as much fun. Ross said he runs about a 9:00 pace on long runs right now which is really what I need to be doing.
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