Steve - 13.1

1:37:19(7:26). Not a great race, but I did my best.

So logistically everything went as planned. I woke up at 5 am, got dropped off at the race around 6:15. Plenty of time to take a few leaks and get up to the very front of wave 1. I jogged around for about 5-6 minutes and that felt like it was enough. The weather was perfect. Overcast but not rainy. Pretty much no sun at all.

My plan was to run about 7:15-7:20 for the first mile and just negative split from there. My goal going in was to break 1:30, or to break to 7:00 mile/pace, which is like 1:31:xx. I got off to a nice smooth start and clipped the first mile at 7:01 and felt great. It was a bit faster than planned, but I was feeling good. There was a bit of a hill in mile 2 so my mile time faded a bit. Came through mile 3 at 6:56 and I was feeling confident. At some point in mile 4, I started to falter. The weird groin/lower stomach muscle(sports hernia) thing I have started acting up again. Pretty much it feels like a really bad cramp in the side. It sucked to have it flair up so early in the race. I knew it was going to be really tough to keep close to a 7 min pace with the pain. I had to squeeze with one hand at various points to lessen the pain while I ran swinging only my left arm. After about 2 miles of doing that on and off the pain did fade somewhat, somehow, although my mile times were fading as well. When I crossed 6 miles at 36:16, I knew it would be really tough to make up that 1:16 to get down to 7:00 min pace for the entire race. I started feeling better on miles 7 and 8 and started thinking I was going to have a shot to start running close to 7 min miles. It felt like I was running that pace but I was actually 7:20 and 7:16. After that little surge, I started to fade again. I was at over 60 minutes at an average pace and distance that I haven't run for a few months.

It was starting to become more of a quest to finish the race respectably, rather than running for a time. The sports hernia wasn't bothering me, but my body was starting to wear down. I just kept thinking about getting to the mile 12 marker and finishing strong. Miles 10,11,12 went by in 23:55. I think I missed the splits because I was trying not to look at my watch too much. Also at the mile 11 marker they had donut holes. At that moment I was thinking that is the last thing on Earth I want to eat with 2 miles to go. I had been taking small bites of a Clif Bar and grabbing water every other mile so I was thoroughly fueled up. When I did finally hit mile 12, I picked it up. People had been passing me somewhat for the last few miles so I wanted to catch a few people. I got a surge of adrenaline that carried me to the last turn of the race. I knew there would be about .3 miles from there so I picked it up again and passed a few people. I cruised into the line in 1:37:19.

My take on the race is that I did the best I could, considering I haven't trained as much as I would have liked. In hindsight, 1:30 was a bit unrealistic since I didn't get that many long runs in. I think last year when I ran 1:40, I was in much better shape. However, a comical series of events added about 7-8 minutes to my time. Last year I was regularly getting in 8 mile runs with long tempo efforts. This year I was only doing about 20 miles a week during August and September. Anyway, I'm glad I pulled through and that I made it through the race without ever stopping.

Splits below:

7:01, 7:10, 6:56, 7:15, 7:22, 7:34, 7:20, 7:16, 7:28, 23:55, 7:14, 48