I stayed at my friend Colleen's sister Mo's place the night before the race and we just hung out. She has a parking spot in the lot right by the start line, so we drove over and came out of the lot and were right by the finish. I was the only one running in the first wave, so Colleen and I warmed up about 1.5 miles and then after coordinating where we were going to meet afterward, I headed over to my corral. I probably warmed up a little too early, but no big deal. It was about 30 degrees, but at least it wasn't raining like the forecast had been warning all week. The national anthem was sung (pretty badly if you ask me) and then the race started. It took about 3 minutes before I got to the line. My first three miles were pretty slow. I just started and wasn't really too concerned about how fast I was going. There were a lot of people running (36,000 or so) and there was a lot of weaving, really throughout the whole race, but most in the first mile. The rest of the race was unremarkable. I just tried to keep a steady pace, anticipate the turns, and pass the people in front of me. My garmin was pretty useless. Not sure why, but it says I ran 5.4 (and I doubt I was weaving that much) and says that my avg. pace was 7:01. Obviously not. According to the results page, my splits were 7:48, 7:51, 7:44, 7:18, 7:14. I wish that I had been able to get moving in those first 3 miles. I don't know if it was me or the crowd, really. Then I cooled down 1.5, waited for Colleen and Mo to finish, and called my brother. It took me a while to find him and his wife, but we finally found each other and we took the el home. I'm actually kind of disappointed. I could have done better, but I'll blame the crowd. My nemesis finished in 35:30 or so--maybe he won't be my target for the 1/2. Or maybe I will just chalk this up to having a so-so race and redouble my efforts for my next race.
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