It was a cool, crisp morning - about as perfect as it could be for a race. The leaves were almost at peak and it was a picturesque autumn day. I got to the race site about 45 minutes before the start. I met up with John and Jason. Jason was running in the marathon relay and would run the first 6+/- miles with John and me. The race had grown even more from last year (which was capped at about 4500 marathon and half marathon participants). This year there was a field of about 5700 runners for the full and half - pretty exciting. They made some more improvements to the race this year. Packet pick up was at the local YMCA, which offered a little more room for the expo - and better parking. There was a little more course entertainment (at least on the front half - not sure how the other 13.1 miles were). Great fan support in and around Fort Harrison (the first 6 miles, and last 1.1).
We started out at what seemed like a very comfortable pace. Unfortunately my GPS shut down because I started it too early, so I am unsure of our exact pace, but it was right around 8:30/mile. We were conversing back and forth for quite awhile and everything seemed to be going pretty well. I wasn't sure if the pace would hold, but through mile 6 it had. Surprisingly around mile 5 I was getting warm, but I kept the long sleeve shirt on - my plan was to ditch it at mile 7 (my home) if I was too warm. Surprisingly I got cool when the sun went behind the clouds, so I kept it on, but took off my gloves.
At mile 7 we were in my neighborhood and there were Steph and Lilli waiting to cheer me on. They were about the only ones in the entire neighborhood out that morning - a bit too cool for everyone else I guess. I got a boost of energy and we pushed on.
By mile 8, I was feeling a little sore in my right knee, but it was slowing me down or changing my gait at all, and then around mile 8.5 we spotted Brooke and she joined us for a run to the end, to keep us on pace. Miles 9-11 are the toughest part of the course and the part I was dreading, even though I trained on the very hills we were going to run. It was all mental, because when we hit the hills we were up them before I knew it - though it did slow down our pace a bit. We exited the park and headed for the finish with about 2 miles to go. Not feeling too bad, I knew I'd finish strong. At around 12.5 miles the half and full split off. I had some flash backs to last year's marathon and then realized that there was no way I could have run a full...
We turned into the final stretch and worked hard to pick up the pace - it probably wasn't until the last 1/4 mile that we pushed it and picked the pace up to 7:30's. We got finished and got our medals and I felt pretty good - not that I expected to feel bad after just a half, but it was a pretty good effort - just not a PR for me. We came in at 1:53 - a 8:39/mile average pace.
Speaking of medals though - this year's medal rocked! Sad to say, my two other full marathon medals don't even equal in weight the one I got for this half! Oh well, it's more about the accomplishment - but the medals are cool too.
