I started off the race towards the back. I didn't want to get caught up in the early rush. I went a bit slower than I had intended through mile 1 in 10:45. I started to pick it up towards my goal pace of 10:00 and slowly started to reel people ahead of me in. I made it to the first walking break with no issue. Hit mile 3 right over 30 minutes. Grabbed a Gatorade at the aid station. Kept plugging along until the second walking break just past mile 7. I was feeling pretty good but I was worried I was going to hard so early. I hit mile 8 at 1:17ish. Kept slowly reeling people in. Got down to mile 12 or so and realized I had indeed gone too fast. At mile 13 I took a bit longer of a walking break because I knew I had been going too hard and the second half was going to suck. Hit mile 13 at 2:08. I had been expecting to be closer to 2:15. I had to increase my walking breaks from here on out.

Around mile 18 I knew I was just dead. I ended up walking quite a bit. At mile 19 my plantar fascitis started to act up badly. By mile 21 I knew I probably wasn't going to finish. At mile 22 fortunately a nice elderly couple saw me stumbling down the road and offered me a ride back to the finish. I took it because I knew I wasn't going to be able to walk the next 4 miles without serious injury resulting. Took the ride back and turned in my timing chip.

Well I had been fighting off the PF for awhile now and thought I had it under control. Apparently a marathon wasn't in the cards with it. I don't normally DNF but it would flare up every 5 or 6 steps and I'd almost trip and fall over from it. I actually stopped and sat down around 21.5 miles because I wasn't sure what I would do. My first attempt wasn't successful. Not sure if I'll try again.