Notes
Weather was 68 deg with 88% humidity at the start. GPS measure was 13.23. Splits below are a mixture of automatic and manual splits. I should have left it at automatic splits or turned off the auto-lap and just do manual splits.
I really did not know what pace to run before the start of the race, so I decided to see what the first few miles felt like and then adjust from there. I also did not want to start out too fast because 1) half-marathon is a long enough race that if I start out too fast I'd pay for it in the end and have a long finish; 2) it was humid but I didn't think it was too bad (I run pretty good in hot weather).
The 1st mile felt comfortable at about 5:35ish pace; however, I didn't know what to think of it and was a little concerned because there were still quite of few elite women (hanson-brooks, oiselle, etc.) still in front of me and I didn't think they were faster than me. On mile 2, my GPS was either off or I was bad on the tangents because my watch split about .03 early. Came across 3 miles in 17:00 and 5K in 17:33.
I hit the 10K split at 35:03 feeling really good. Around this point in the race I was beginning to reel in some runners, probably because they started out too fast or was fading because of the humidity. When I hit 10 miles in 56:15 I did some quick calculations and realized that I'd run close to my PR of 1:13:09 if I pick up the pace in the remaining 5k. I even I had positive thoughts that I could potentially dip under 1:13.
I felt like I ran really well in the last 5K, which was a 16:58. At the 11 mile mark, all I kept telling myself was that I only had 2 miles left and to make it tough, just as I did on Tues workout. I caught and passed a bunch of runners in the last 2 miles, which gave me a lot of confidence. At the 13 mile mark just before we ran up the hill (ramp) to the finish, I sprinted for the finish and passed the 2 female elites I've been eyeing in the last mile.
This was probably my best executed half-marathon race. Despite missing my PR by only 4 seconds, I finished the race still feeling strong and knowing that I could have ran a little faster, whereas when I ran my half PR I literally was holding on for dear life.