Last Chance for Boston Half Marathon

Yesterday was the Last Chance for Boston Half-Marathon. I was a little nervous about it: I wasn't feeling good on Saturday and haven't been eating well lately. Then I was late getting to the start line, feeling a little frazzled. The race itself went really well, however. I told Meredith I wanted to run a 8:00 pace, but wasn't sure if that was going to happen. Nevertheless, I had made up a little pace band for a 7:49 and 7:59 min pace (7:49 was my previous PR). Well after the first mile (8:10 or so), we were sub-8 for the whole time. It felt pretty good, although I was dragging the last few miles.

It was great running with Meredith, I know that I ran way better because I was with her. She was definitely strong the whole way, and it was great to see. What's interesting is that I was so beat she said we could run the last few miles (11 and 12) slow and then pick it up -- even though we thought we were going slow, they were still among our fastest miles! We ended up with 1st and 2nd in our age group, too!

Finally I told her to go ahead in the last mile, and I even ended up walking for abit. I was spent! But I still managed to pick it up afterwards, and my last mile was still my fastest. I was so proud of how great she was doing, and I'm really looking forward to running Boston with her. She's a great motivator, and it was obvious how good she was feeling.

What's interesting is that I'm not sore today, and wasn't yesterday. I was hurting a bit after the 15 miler, which was slower, but I didn't bonk in. I don't know if it is the picking it up at the end that's so rough on me, or what. All I know is that I'm feeling really really good about my running right now. I think this is going to be a year of PRs (since I set one yesterday even despite crashing). Hurrah!!!

Splits:
.1 .47 (unofficial)
1: 8:10 (unofficial)
2: 7:53
3: 7:54
4: 7:51
5: 7:49
6: 7:45
7: 7:52
8: 7:45
9: 7:44
10: 7:38
11: 7:47
12: 7:43
13: 7:34 (AND I walked a bit during this one!)