Notes
Best race of my life as of today. The race began in pretty intimidating weather. No wind, but 38 or so and a decent amount of freezing rain with a little bit of hail mixed in. I warmed up with the guys on Team Blitz, and Jacob Frey and Michael Wardian, so we had a nice group for our warmup.
Afterwards, we came back to our headquarters at Cabel 101 and stretched for a bit, then walk/jogged over to the start of the race. There were quite a few people out on the starting line, despite the weather. I always feel really hardcore when I'm lining up for a race in shorts, a singlet, and nothing else when the weather is absolutely dismal.
After standing around for about ten minutes before the race, and doing a few strides, it was finally time for the gun to go off. As I waited, I looked down at my left shoe and noticed I had forgotten to double knot it. I prayed that it would not come undone, as my hands were way too cold to tie my shoes, and stopping in the middle of the race would not be much fun.
When the gun went off, I started out nice and easy. I never like to take races out very hard. Trevor and Tommy and Marshal (who was pacing Trevor and Tommy through five miles and stopping) were in a group. I was about ten meters behind them by the first mile marker, running with John Piggot, who was trying to break the master's record for the colonial half marathon (he would do so, by just a few seconds, running around 1:15:00.
The first nine miles of the race went by pretty smoothly. I was by myself for most of the time. Piggot ran with some other guys that I passed at about mile three, and I passed my friend Dave at around mile 5.5, but other than that, I was by myself. I could see Trevor and Tommy and a guy in between Trevor and myself, so that helped keep me focus.
At mile 11, someone behind me began closing fast. Every mile he gained about five meters on me, because I could hear people cheering for someone behind me louder and louder. By mile 13, with just about 160m to go in the race, I could feel his breath... so I threw in the largest kick I could muster (probably only sped up 10 seconds per mile) but I was able to fend him off. He ran an awesome race, though, and was really close at the finish.
Tommy ran awesome and ran 1:10:50somethinghigh, and he was very excited because his entry fee was waived because he ran faster than 1:11. Trevor ran pretty well, although he wasn't too happy with his race. He was 20 - 30 seconds ahead of me I think, at 1:11:30ish. I ran 1:11:56, which was a PR of almost two minutes, so I was ecstatic. Beiter was behind me at 1:17:30 or so, which is great for dealing with a really bad calf problem the past month. Sharif was just behind him at 1:18:30 which is a big breakthrough for him. Josh finally broke 1:20 with a 1:19:30, which was much deserved, and Nick finished his first colonial half marathon in a very quick 1:20 low to mid.
Long story short: it was an awesome race.