Wow I guess that Sasha science stuff really works! I didn't think there was much of any chance of me getting close to the 1:25 time Sasha had predicted for me, but with a number of factors coming together today in a positive way (weather, lower elevation, taper, racing flats, race day "magic", etc.), I was able to finally have the blowout PR race I've been waiting for and even exceed Sasha's expectations! Although I must qualify my time by admitting that the race was a little short distance-wise by somewhere from .1 to .2 miles. I measured 12.99 on my Garmin but it seemed most people I talked to were measuring close to 12.9. So I suppose you add in another minute or so and my time is a bit closer to Sasha's prediction. The weird thing is that I think I ran the first 1/2 of the race too slow. I was in a nearly euphoric state the whole race and never really got tired. I finally decided to race the last 3 miles like a 5K and ended up with close to my best 5K time ever but even then I wasn't really breathing too heavily, I just couldn't get my legs to go any faster than about 6:10 pace. Looks like I need to do more tempo runs at that pace. I can't really remember a whole lot of details of every mile for this race. I just kind of felt "in the zone" the whole time and I remember passing about 20 guys over the course of the race. It was great to be able to give Kim a high five during the portion of the race when it backtracks and if the timing is just right you get to see some of the mid-pack and back-pack runners. Kim had a blowout PR also and will be posting her race report shortly (she's in the shower cleaning up at the moment). I was able to backtrack and run in with Kim the last 1/2 mile or so. Sasha had beat me to her though and was putting her through the Sasha end-of-race torture treatment. I whispered to her at the time that it was OK to be cursing/hating Sasha at that moment and she could forgive him later :) Splits as follows (based off the Garmin, not off the whacked out mile markers): 1 - 6:35 2 - 6:37 3 - 6:25 4 - 6:30 5 - 6:35 6 - 6:06 (not sure what got into me on this mile) 7 - 6:31 8 - 6:25 9 - 6:28 10 - 6:15 11 - 6:23 12 - 6:14 13 - 6:10 Ave pace: 6:25 Special thanks to Kim and everyone else on the blog for all the help and encouragement over that last year. If anyone would have told me a year ago or even 6 months ago that at this time my 1/2 marathon pace was what my 5K pace used to be only months ago I would have thought they were bonkers! Special thanks to Sasha. I think maybe it's about time to make another donation to the blog! One other note....the FRB was certainly well represented in this race. Out of the top 10 or 20 places I know a large percentage of them were bloggers. Kudos to all the great runners on the blog, you are all incredibly inspiring. 
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