Pretty good run -- I was satisfied with my time. The course was a little small for the # of runners, and they started everyone at the same time, which was a bit annoying because we had to pass a lot of walkers on our return trip. I got a little overexuberant after I got through the crowds of people during the first mile -- it took about 10:30 for me to get to the first mile marker, but the clock was only at about 18:00 when I reached the second mile marker. Oops. I feel like that hurt my time a little bit, but on the other hand, I didn't have to deal with huge numbers of people that I had to pass, so it worked out OK.

I would concentrate more on pacing myself -- the last mile was a bit rough, although I finished OK.

Fought off the people trying to make me stop and remove my timing chip by telling them to let me walk unless they wanted to be vomited on; walked along the riverfront until my HR got back into a normal range; stretched out.


Made a bad decision about my pace in miles 2/3; kicked too early because they put the balloon arch about 100 yards BEFORE the finish line. WTF?!


The course was really nice, and the volunteers were mostly helpful and friendly. This race ballooned compared to last year -- there were more than double the number of runners, so the organizers couldn't really handle the volume. There were too many runners for the narrow trail, and things seemed pretty disorganized (the starting horn was blown while the pre-race lecture was still happening, they accidentally started all the runners at once and gave the walkers an incorrect route...) Also, the timing chip people were overly aggressive about getting their chips back, trying to stop people still in the finish chute and get the chip off their foot without even giving them a chance to cool down at all.

That said, I did have a blast. The course was really nice for a Pittsburgh race -- very flat, which was good for my first 10k, and it was nice to go along the trails (although the trails really are not wide enough for the number of runners who participated -- bottlenecking was a bit of an issue, and I was forced up onto the grass many times).