Mick, Katie, Justin, and I started off together in the crowd. We immediately lost Katie. I looked around behind me for her, but couldn't see her (yeah, she was ahead of us). We ran a pretty easy pace for the first couple miles, not wanting to get carried away with the rush of the crowd at the start. A negative split was the goal.

Justin was feeling a little tired after a couple miles, and started dropping further back. I think I lost sight of him around mile three. Mick and I were cruising, having a good time. We had a very comfortable pace going, but there weren't any mile markers, so we didn't know what our actual pace was. We were hoping that in being with the crowd we were moving along pretty faster than it felt. Somewhere around mile four or five we overheard someone next to us say that their pace was 9:17. Mick and I kind of looked at each other, with a whoops expression. We had definitely been trying for an 8:30 pace the first half of the race. We picked it up a little bit and dropped our pace down underneath 9:00. At six miles we were at 53:16, an 8:53 pace. I do have to say, it was great having someone to run with. It made it very enjoyable.

The half marathon turnaround was at mile eight, and at that point Mick told me he was going to keep the pace that we were at, and if I wanted to go ahead to go on. So I picked up the pace and started passing people. We had passed Katie who was coming the other way about a half mile until the turn around, and so I figured she was about 8:00 in front of me, and I didn't think I could run that off of her in the last five miles, but I sure gave it a shot. I'm not sure of what my actual pace was, but I must have run 7:xx the last five miles. I would pick the next person(s) ahead of me, and pass them. I don't think anyone passed me after the turnaround, but I passed lots of people. With a couple miles to go I could definitely tell that the level of difficulty for passing people was increasing. Though, I wasn't sure if I was passing people because they were slowing down, or if I was keeping a good pace.

Around a couple miles to go I figured I was with runners, so I started asking people what distance we were at. I was 2/2 for finding people with GPS watches. I kept up the pace for the last bit, although with about a half mile to go I had to stop and tie my shoe laces, which was a bit annoying. I had felt them loosening up for the last couple miles. I picked it up the last quarter mile and was able to pass a number of people. As I was closing in to the finish, I passed Katie on the sidelines, and she gave me a five. She had a great run of 1:43.02. I had a good sprint heading into the finish, which kind of surprised me. I didn't think I had that much left in me.

Other important details:
I had to pee the entire run. After the turnaround I started checking porta-potties at every location, but they were all occupied. I almost made it to one, but somebody got there just before I did. So I just kept running. When I got close enough to the end I just finished out. And, interestingly, after the race I was fine. Go figure.

And, for those that are interested, my neon yellow shoes helped me run a scientifically calculated 0:58 faster time than I would have otherwise. ;)

Next time I'll pace better during the first part of the run. I was a bit caught out because there weren't mile markers. I can definitely knock off a few minutes from my time.

I didn't see my mom right away, so I went in and grabbed a banana and a cookie. I ended up carrying the peel around with me for a while, and I had no idea that banana peels get nasty that quickly. Anyways...

I went back out on the course and ran the last couple blocks with Mick, and then a while later ran in with Justin.


Poor pacing, no mile markers.


It was a great HM for $25. You can't beat that.