Notes
I got a good night sleep and felt quite rested for the race. Since I had a 2 mile walk with Carmen to the start area, I only ran a 1 mile warmup.
I got off to a pretty fast start, but was shocked a bit when the I hit the 1 mile marker and it was 30 seconds after my GPS already hit the first mile. I had left it on auto lap. I really thought that was the end of any PR attempt if the first mile was 30 seconds long.
I knew once I got headed south, I had to take advantage of the wind to my back. The 7:35 pace heading south felt pretty controlled. I had planned on taking gels at miles 4, 8, and 11, but realized when I reached the halfway point of the race I had forgotten to take any. So I ended up with gels at miles 7 and 10. Probably didn't affect me too much overall, but I don't usually lack that concentration but was too busy just clicking off the 7:35 pace. Can't do that at Berlin.
The turnaround was at around 7 miles and it was noticeably tougher heading back into the wind. I tried to keep the same effort, but the pace dropped off some.
I would manually hit the lap counter when I hit the mile marker, whether it was long or short.
But all of a sudden I hit the 9th mile marker just 6:19 after mile marker 8. Made me wonder about mile 1. Then the 11th mile ended up being 1.2 miles. I hate it when they make those types of posting errors.
I really should have pushed it starting after mile 10 rather than after mile 12 and I would have had a shot at the PR. Some tunnels lost some of the GPS, I didn't realize I was so close to 1:39 until I saw the finish line. On Strava I could see other people that ran the same segments and I did see one person on Strava show 13.2 miles, but saw someone saying Garmin shorted them. Hard to tell with the screwed up mile markers.
But even missing the PR, this was one of my best long tempo runs at this distance. I kept a good hard pace, but still controlled, and was able to get sub 1:40 half.
This weather should mirror what should be expected in Berlin. I think I will be ready to hold this pace for an entire marathon before I get to Berlin.
Probably around 55 at the start, maybe 59 at the end.