My strategy was to start the first few miles at an easy pace and then try to build from there. So off I went, feeling very smooth and easy. I kept thinking about Crowny's signature... "slow is smooth, smooth is fast." I felt incredibly smooth and not too forced. So when we hit the first mile marker, I was STUNNED to hear "ten minutes!" What?!?!?! I dialed it back a little, so when I hit three miles My average pace for the whole run was 10:10/mile.

BUT at that point I felt GREAT. So I tried picking it up a little. By mile four my average pace had dropped four seconds per mile. At that point, I picked it up some more. I thought that I would see if/when I would bonk... but at some point Spokes made a comment along the lines of "by mile 6 of a half-marathon you should be hanging on with white knuckles." So from mile four on, at any point I felt like I was slowing down, I would just keep cranking it... Every couple miles I got to see my brother who would be waiting and watching for me where the rail trail crossed the road. It was great to see him, and an incredible encouragement. Throughout those first five miles I was completely under a runner's high. The run was beautiful with the fall foliage. I felt incredible.

At mile 8, I thought I had an outside shot at going under 2:00:00. I didn't but I knew I was going far below my previous half-marathon best of 2:38... just not how far. Imagine my surprise to find my average pace to be below 9:43!!!

Here are the splits that I took.
Dist. time Avg Pace
mile 1: 10:00 10:00
mile 3: 30:30 10:10
mile 4: 40:26 10:06
mile 6: 59:45 9:58
mile 8: 1:18:29 9:48
mile 10: 1:37:14 9:43
mile 12: 1:56:30 9:42
mile 13.1: 2:07:11.9 9:43

What I found amazing was that my tempo runs were set at 9:50. HA! Is that how it is supposed to work?

Also... every once in a while I could feel a stitch forming in my side. I started doing some deep breathing to sort of stretch out my diaphragm. After a few deep breaths, the very little pain subsided. I will have to remember that for the future.

The ONLY downside to the race was at mile #12's aid station, as I approached I called out, "Who has water?" Two volunteers pointed to a third. I grabbed the cup from him and kept running only to find that I had grabbed gatorade... I drank it because I needed some fluid, but I was unhappy with that. I had only been taking in water with some shot blocks and a gu... I am not sure the gatorade sat well in my stomach since what happened after my finish. But it wasn't too bad really, and might even have been unrelated.


Nothing really... best performance ever for me in a race.

When I finished, I walked around a little bit, started to cough and occasionally in the midst of the coughing started to dry heave. That was new. But then I walked over grabbed a bagel, and a banana and some water. My brother and I walked back to the car. I put on a dry shirt, my jacket and my track pants so I could stay warm. We walked back to the finish area where I ate and drank a little more. After the raffle, my brother and I walked back to the car and drove back to his house.


Absolutely nothing... well except maybe my weight. As I lose more weight, I hope to get faster.


This race is well-organized, and everyone should be able to post a great time on this mostly flat course. I would certainly think about doing this again.