I was happy with today's race especially considering that I had a super stressful week at work. I even had to lay someone off on Thursday which was the worst feeling ever. Capitalism at its worst. I could go on about that but I don't want ruin my good mood.
So....my previous best time in an honest half was 1:13 which means this was a PR by about 3 mins. And ramping up my speed work this summer should only help. As for the race, I went out with Paul and Jeff just to see how long I could hang. I lasted about 4 miles and probably could have gone longer but I knew if I did I would pay for it later. Jeff and Paul built up a ~60 second gap over about 5 miles but after mile 8 I think I held my pace (5:20) fairly well and didn't let them grow the gap. In the end it looks like I was only 30 seconds back but it should have been closer to 60-75 seconds. While I had thought I had miraculously closed the gap it turned out that Paul and Jeff had lost some time at the end because they missed the last turn that was only because Jeff and Paul lost some time at the end because they missed the last turn. Luckily they still had a big enough lead on me or else I would have had to stop before the finish line to let them win.
Overall I was pleased that I held steady throughout (splits below) and that I improved my time on an honest course. I suspect that some people were annoyed with all the traffic on the course over the last 4 miles. In the moment I was definitely annoyed because at least 50% of the people couldn't hear me coming because of their headphones. But looking back I think having to shift my focus away from the suffering and towards the walls of people helped my splits for the last few miles.
Congrats to Paul and Jeff for a solid race and to all of the other bloggers who ran. If I had to guess I think we accounted for around 7 of the top 10. Splits 5:32, 5:22, 5:09, 5:15, 5:24,5:22, 5:28, 5:23, 5:25, 5:25, 5:21, 5:27, 5:18, 0:21
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