The last time I ran this event (last year), I struggled enough that I told myself it was my last marathon. But I ended up signing up for the She.is.Beautiful 1K Club (Goal: run 1000 miles in 2016) and I figured the best way to guarantee that I would hit 1K miles this year would be to sign up for a marathon.
I actually felt great and ended up running the whole thing (unlike last year where I walked a significant amount of time), but I didn’t get a PR. Still I came in under 4:00:
Overall: 81/409 (19.8%)
Gender : 27/199 (13.6%)
Age Group: 4/44 (9%)
Total Time: 3:58:43
Pace: 9:09
I did a great job pacing myself for the first half. I felt great, but based on my performance the previous year, I knew I had to conserve my energy. I felt like going faster, but kept my pace to 8:40-ish. I maintained this pace for the first 14 miles.
Then, at West Cliff, I saw a welcome sight: my running buddy! Yes, I run slower when I talk and so, yes, my pace dropped — all my splits in the second half of the marathon were over 9-minute miles. But, I loved having her company and she definitely pushed me through some very tough parts. More than that, I was so impressed that she came out and ran 10 miles with me pretty much without training for that distance (the furthest we’d run together was about 5-6 miles)! Three cheers for dear friends, for sure. Who knows, maybe I’ll give this event another go next year!