Decided to see what happened and went out with the thoughts of PR on the mind. Had absolutely nothing to loose on this race by blowing up. Went a little to fast for the first mile (9:53), but settled into 10:30 pace for awhile. Then as expected, about mile 6, my legs started to show the lack of running for two weeks. Tough being sick with a chest cold, then, just not able to get any workouts in as the cold started to subside.

Splits 9:33, 10:18, 10:24, 10:32, 11:05, 10:37, 11:19, 11:44, 12:54, 14:51, 14:49, 14:40, 16+ including the extra 0.1 miles. Did not stop watch at finsih, so the exact split is not known for sure.



Having a could for over 2 weeks can realy hurt a race. Also went out a little faster than I had wanted to by being under 10:30's. Do not thing going a little slower the first 3 miles would have factored much.

I will realy need to work on overall running speed and negative splits on runs over 10 miles in the future.

For what it is worth, I am tired of excuses

got my chip taken off and grabbed my medal, mylar blanket and some quick food and got out of dodge.


Training and not having to hack up a lung while racing at the end. I was not coughing much until I started to walk. Then I could hardly breath. I have to figure that my lungs were not helping me much


The best move I made for this race was stepping down from the full Mary to the 1/2 about 3 weeks before. I could not have done a full with my lack of training and then minor health issues. My heart was not in the race, so I went at it like a long training day with friends. Overall I had a good time, just not a good race.

Notes: At the end of my first lap, I was passed by the winner of the 1/2 mary, humbling.

At about mile 11 on my second lap, I started getting passed by what would end up being about 20 finishers of the full mary, again, humbling.

I could have approached this race with the " I will not walk" mentality, but I think I learned more by pushing to see what my current fitness level could do for me instead.

This race has helped me hone my approach for next seasons run empahisis kind of year, so all was not a loss. Glad to have had a good time in general, and glad the long running is over so I can enjoy my "off season " for a few weeks.