With over 10,000 people in this race it was much bigger then anything I had done before so it was pretty exciting. My goal was to not go out too fast, maybe 10 seconds slower then goal pace (4:30/km) and then after I felt comfortable pick it up. I executed it pretty good although it was tuff becasue of all the tall builings and overpass's my garmin kept cutting out so I was just going by my pace band and time pretty much. During the first 2 km's I felt a stitch coming on but just took some deep breathes and it went away. After about 4km's I felt great and pretty much nailed my goal pace. I alternated water and gatorade at every aid station, but usually only got a sip or two per station. I continued to feel great and all the bands playing and people cheering really pushed me along, at about the 11k mark it turned back and we were heading for home, I just kept telling myself to stay calm and keep good form and once in awhile would take some deep breaths to relax. I was still feeling really good and decided to pick up the pace a bit and was hitting 4:20's quite a bit. at around 16k I started to feel a little tired but pushed through it. At 18k I knew it wouldn't be long untill I was done so I picked it up again and passed quite a few runners and was planning on going as hard as I could for the last kilometer by the thousands of people cheering. Me and another guy were stride fro stride the last kilometer and really pushing each other, If he slowed up i'd say "c'mon we can do this" and he'd catch up and he did the same to me if I slowed down. It really helped me finish super strong. in was happy to see 1:34:3x but my chip time was 1:34:05! my dream gola was 1:35:00 and before the race I thouhgt it would be almost impossible to actually get it.

The only thing I would do differently is maybe get my mileage a little higher to get my endurance up so I don't start to tire at the 16k mark. Also, maybe it was just becasue I had the other guy pushing me but If I could do my last kilometer in 3:40 pace then most would say I should have gone faster throughout the race, but I guess I know better for next time. But overall I'm VERY happy with my race!

Caught my breath, drank water, gatorade, ate a bagel,bannana,clif bar, had some more water and gatorade, stretched and got a crappy massage that I paid $15 for.


I guess just my mileage base, if I was up around 70-80km's a week instead of 55 I probbaly woulda have been even faster.


Great race! with that many people I thought for sure it would be really congested but with it setup in corrals according to predicted finish time it really flowed well and wasn't congested at all. Great entertainment along the course, thousands of people cheering and the volunteers were GREAT!