My last long run was 12 miles a week out at 8:43 pace. I thought I could hold that pace or maybe get down to the upper 8:20s for the race. I was a bit worried about getting too aggressive early since the first 1.4 miles are a steady climb. I held 8:39 for the first mile and started gaining back some time on the next few miles where the course flattened out and dropped back down toward downtown. I remember seeing the 4 mile marker and thinking I might have burned a couple of matches trying to get back closer to a 1:50 HM pace. Mile 5 was slow at 8:40 since it involved a climb but I started ticking off miles between 8:24-8:34 up to mile 11. At about 11.5, I hit the wall and slowed down to a walk in order to take a gel. I picked it back up again but I knew climbing the Woodland Street bridge was going to hurt. Last year I had to walk for a bit on the bridge but I vowed not to do that this year. I made the climb without stopping and kept climbing for a couple more blocks (maxing out my HR at the apex of the climb). From there, it was a half mile of downhill/flat terrain to the finish and I pushed as hard as I could to the finish (average 7:24 split for the last half mile).

Nothing. I was thrilled with my performance...it was 6 minutes faster than last year and a PR for me. I could have gone a bit easier in the early miles but I was chasing 1:50 and I knew I had to be aggressive. My Garmin showed I ran 13.27 miles for an average pace of 8:31...still not fast enough to break 1:50 but I think I would have a decent chance on a flatter course. I loosely followed Hal Higdon's intermediate plan which had the longest run at 12 miles...I probably need more volume to be able to hold the low 8 min pace needed to get under 1:50.

Walked it out a bit. I was spent. Once I caught my breath I got a banana and something to drink and found some friends to see how their race went.


Probably more volume. I was only running low to mid 20 mile weeks leading up to the race