I ran my last half marathon in February of this year so it had been several months since I raced this distance. However, my weekly training includes runs of this length so I felt like I was coming into the race well prepared. The weather was perfect with a morning low of approx. 40 degrees. The marathon and half marathon racers start together, so 1500 runners started as the civil war cannon was fired. The first mile was slow due the large mass of runners trying to jockey for position. My goal was to finish in 1:45 minutes so I knew the first mile was well below the pace needed to meet my race goal. I felt strong from the beginning and was enjoying the beautiful autumn morning in the park. I pretty much clicked off 8 minute miles from mile 2 thru 7. I had wanted to be at 7.5 miles at one hour, my Garmin read 7.4, pretty close considering the slow start. The next several miles I was able to pretty much stay on pace and had some pretty strong miles for me, passing alot of people along the way. With one mile left I knew I was going to have to run a pretty strong finishing mile to make my goal. I didnt leave anything on the course and sprinted to a finishing time of 1:46:16, just off my goal time but it was a PR for me, finishing 62nd out of 611 and winning 2nd place in my age group. It was an excellent race in a beautiful setting, doesnt get any better than this one!