Notes
Official time 1:32:41. 10 mile split: 1:09:29. Parks Half-Marathon from Rockville to Bethesda mostly on paved trails in the northern reaches of RCP. Nice course: shaded almost the whole way, with a few small hills but a net downhill. It was humid but not horribly so. The trail had been submerged in places from flooding only days ago, and plenty of slippery mud was left behind. But that wasn't too difficult to navigate. Garmin says the course was a bit short, but the trees were so thick that I'm inclined to believe that Garmin got it wrong, in which case my splits would be slightly off. I ran my first two miles too fast, but it didn't seem hard because that part of the course was still on road and downhill. After that I pretty much ran 7-flat through 9 miles, when I started getting tired. I then ate a gel and slinked along at 7:30 pace for a few miles, but I started feeling better near the end and picked it up a bit for my final (slightly uphill) mile. I should be able to run 13.1 miles faster, but for a tune-up race this was fine. Now I need to get comfortable running at 7:15 rather than 7:00 and then 7:30.