Notes
Well, all's not lost as I made it in under 3 hours but it was a mighty effort to get even that at the end.
My sad story begins with trying for a PR (2:55:35 or better) while almost assuredly just not being marathon-trained well enough to run that kind of time on this course. I think on a little more advantageous course I might have made a better show of it.
I tried to go out at 6:45 and just hold that until the hills were done with and we come back down to downtown. Even that was tough and didn't quite make it for a couple of miles. By Mile 20 I was already struggling to hold pace and every time I didn't focus I'd look down at the ole Garmin and it would say 7:01 or something like that so I'd try to step it back up to low 6:40's. At 20 I was already pretty much done with 2:55 because my time there was 2:16 (even though when I looked at it during the race I thought it read 2:15 - I was in a haze). So I tried to run a 40minute 10K to the finish. No dice. I managed to eek out mile 21 at 6:34 or so and then came the realization that it just wasn't happening. At that point I just focused on trying to run efficiently and relaxed and try to make sure I didn't get passed to the end. I think I succeeded in that one.
All-in-all I'm happy even though I probably shouldn't have gone for 2:55. NEXT!!
Splits:
1st Half - 1:28:48
2nd Half - 1:30:44
by 5K:
1st - 20:45
2nd - 20:55
3rd - 21:10
4th - 21:35
5th - 20:44
6th - 21:19
7th - 20:52
8th - 21:21
10:47
by 10K:
1st - 41:40
2nd - 42:45
3rd - 42:04
4th - 42:13
10:47