I signed up for this race in late January as a way to get my act together a little. I decided that I need to try to get out of my comfortable zone and back into some longer, tougher races. The comfortable zone hasn't taken me anywhere but up in weight and to slower times so I thought a change would be good. My plan was to pick up the 3:30 group and run with them. I started may 50 meters behind them and caught up in a half mile or so. I passed them a couple miles later and was maybe 30 sec or so in front. Picked up JG at mile 7 and he ran the rest with me. It was great to have someone to run with and he really kept me going when my legs started to go. I only stopped once to strech my legs - around mile 21 - and that was just for 5 or 10 seconds. By the half I was at 1:42:xx - which was right ahead of plan by a little. I knew that the last half was much harder and it certainly was. After around 16 my legs and energy levels started to drop off. Of course that coincided with the difficulty of the course. Long story short, I didn't stop and I only lost a little time in the last half. Given my training losing time in the second half is not surprising. BIG thanks to JG for dragging me along for the last 19! | 