I signed up for this half marathon a couple of weeks ago, because Melodie had a conference down here this weekend, and I had nothing better to do. The race didn't start until 8:30 which was nice, because I woke up at 6, and didn't have to wake up super early. I did however have a horrible nights sleep and woke up a whole lot. Anyway I got to the race, got on the bus and we got to the start line an hour early. Everyone was just camped around these fires trying to stay warm. The race was pretty small with only about 120 people in it, so I was wondering how well I could do. I was planning on taking it pretty easy and just running it as more of a tempo. I warmed up a mile then meandered over to the start line. It was a really casual start, with a minute left, the announcer said "okay, fast runners go to the front" nobody stepped any closer to the line. He said anyone with a 1:15...nobody, anybody with a 1:20, once again nobody, but I knew there was a girl there that had ran that fast. So then he went to 1:30, so a couple guys and I went up to the line, and then the race started. I just ran right behind the first place guy for the first mile (6:25) Then the first place girl ran with me for a little bit for mile two and three (6:42) (6:43) She would eventually end up winning the race. Another girl passed me around mile 4 (6:43) and so then I just stayed in fourth after that. The course elevation map in my mind was pretty far off, because there were three pretty good climbs in this race. mile 5 was just a couple of rolling hills (6:49) The first hill was at mile 6 that was about 3/4 of a mile, It was really hard to push over the top of that hill (7:05) Then we had a little downhill for mile 7 where my legs started feeling normal again (6:40) All this time I could see the other three ahead of me, but I wasn't making up any distance. Here is where I took a Gu and it helped a lot before the big hill that was coming, The hill just looked like my worst nightmare at that moment, this is when I had to use a lot of mental toughness to not stop on, or after the hill, but even with the hill the mile wasn't too bad (7:02) Miles nine and ten weren't much to report I was just trying to stay focused (7:01, 6:53) . Mile 11 was perhaps the worst thing ever. The entire mile was uphill, and I was pretty dead at this point physically so this mile was pretty rough (7:31) the next two miles were just survival and were pretty rough (7:18, 7:13). I didn't end too great, but I got a PR and that is on a course that was a lot harder than the first half I ran so I was pretty excited about that. The hardest part was probably running this all as a solo effort, Nobody was ever really close to me. It was pretty cool that I was the 2nd male overall, they gave me a big plaque, so that was pretty awesome!
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