Notes
Weather: VERY WINDY, 15mph with gusts up to 20mph. It rained early in the morning, but luckily it stopped around 7:30 just before the start of the race.
Plan was to start around 5:25 pace and then try to work my way down throughout the race.
The first mile was literally into the headwind. I tried to draft off of some runners, but mainly found myself weaving through slower runners. I came through the first mile in 5:28, which I thought was good considering the strong headwind. After the first mile I tried to get into a rhythm of running 5:25 pace. Ran miles 2-6 at 5:24, 5:25, 5:25, 5:26 and 5:26 (GPS splits). My watch was splitting the miles about 10-20 meters short of the actual mile markers. After the 10K, I felt like I started to get rolling. I ran my fastest splits at miles 7&8 in 5:23 and 5:19, respectively. I was feeling good and still running strong at mile 9. The first 1/2 mile of mile nine always seems to feel tough because of the hill just before we head onto Army-Navy drive. I didn't slow much though as I split mile 9 at 5:28. The last mile was definitely the toughest because we ran straight into the headwind for a good half mile. Official time was 54:41, 55th overall.
Man, the winds were brutal out there today. Despite the windy conditions, I finished only 6 seconds slower than last year. There's no doubt that I'm fitter than I was last year in this race. I think if the conditions were much better, I probably could have run sub-54. The other thing is that I went into this race not backing off the mileage too much. I was at 79 miles pre-race. This certainly shows that my fitness and marathon strength is a pretty high level.