Notes
Huh, this will go down as an interesting race. As I've been complaining about, my ankles have been really stiff lately, and it was noticeable right away. The mile wasn't much under 6min and I tried to pick up the pace, but every step felt like I was just pounding my foot into the ground and not getting any spring back. So I just settled into the group I was with and hoped for the best and running ~6:10's (at least that's what I thought my watch was telling me, online splits tell a different story).
After 4 miles I started feeling a lot better and started to stretch my legs out. I probably got going too quickly as I stayed with my group on an uphill - dropped them on the downhill picking up speed - then saw someone I knew and chased after them. So for the next 5 miles or so I was in pass-everyone mode, and it was fun (the rain didn't hurt either). Problem was, the course was different than last year: obviously it was .7 miles longer but there also wasn't an early loop like last year, so the 8 mile mark was probably closer to the 9 mile mark last year. What I'm saying is I based a little too much of my pacing on how I thought I felt last year at the same landmarks when I really had >1mile further to go then last year.
And that lead to me feeling like crap the last 5k (though likely that should probably happen most half-marathons). I also had run out of people to pass for the most part. Luckily I had 1 more guy in sight who I knew and I passed him. Little did I know there was 1 guy bearing down on me. With 400 meters to go he passed me yelling some encouragement, so I sprinted with him for about 200m before relenquishing that idea and allowed him to be the only guy to pass me (btw, he looked familar and I connected the dots later to realize we used to race in high school and we're related actually, our grandmothers are twins. He ran smart splits and is also doing Grandma's so I might have to try to meet up with him.).
Conclusion? I don't know, by far my slowest half-marathon or 20k. And yet I placed similar to last year and didn't fall apart like so many others. Let's just say the past week and today's conditions were not ideal and we'll see how a marathon feels.
Did I not mention I signed up for Grandma's Marathon in 3 weeks?