Took off fast chasing down a friend & a couple other fast women. Hit the first mile in ~7 min. Oops. I quickly realized I had 3 options... (1) slow down... duh!, (2) crash & burn somewhere between 18-23 miles or (3) huge PR. Well, I wasn't about to slow down voluntarily... so it was going to be "go big or go home" day. I'd either crash hard or a big PR. By the end of loop 1 (3.5mi) I was in second and didn't think I would catch the 1st F... she was already 2+ min ahead. Continued to push along at <7:10/mi... feeling more like I was racing a 10k or HM... not a marathon. Heh. Finally around mile 16 the pace started to catch up to me... and I'd probably already been slowing down. But still, only 1 guy passed me (I'm not counting the relay racers). 4th loop I noticed that 1st had ~9min on me... now way I was going to catch her with <9mi to go! Last loop (5.6mi) was strictly about survival... trying to keep pace up... trying to hold onto a fast finish... and not knowing how far behind me 3rd was. With 2 miles to go I was toast... hammies & glutes were very unhappy... stomach was starting to head south. And that !#*@! hill near the end... with a HEADWIND just about killed me!! I'd forgotten how not fun those last 5-10 miles of a marathon are if you race hard. Afterwards I found out that 1st was only 1min ahead of me... but not sure if I could've gone 1 min faster... even if it mean 1st. Still, a 3 min PR on a "training" run.

Hobbled back into the warm building for juice and cookies. It was like an evil trick that you had to go UP stairs to get to the post-race refreshments and any gear you left inside. Evil! Then back out to see a friend finish ~9 min behind me.


21 mi the day before?? No taper? I'm just sayin'! But... it was a B/C race... definitely not an A race for me.