The run was good and my pacing was about right. I was not able to get in as much mileage as I would have liked in training so I did not push the pace. The last 5K took 31 minutes and I really was trying to go faster. There just wasn't much left in the legs at that point. I also had a pretty bad side stitch between miles 9-10 in the dog leg portion. Not too sure where that came from as I have not had one in forever. Running down Ocean Dr was great and the little bit of breeze coming in from the ocean was just right. I had a gel prior to the race, one at 45 minutes and one at 1:40 (10 miles). I felt like a drank enough but it was hard to tell since it was so cold at the beginning. I pulled my gloves off at mile 10 and they were soaked. Normally this has not been the case in training so I know I was putting in a race effort.

At least 2 more race length runs with more intervals. The time of year makes this a hard race to get ready for even if you have no other distractions.

Walked around the ending area and walked back to the hotel. Boy that shower felt good!


Lack of training. You have to put in the miles to blow it out on race day. You will never fool a long course.


This race is the first BIG run I have done. The Cannonball Half in Greensboro is not this big. What support! At times I thought there were more volunteers than runners. It would be really hard to find fault with the support of this race. If I could change anything it would be to have the race 1 month later to help with the training.