Had a good time

My first half. It felt good. Rewarding. Like all my training paid off. I kept 7:57 mile pace. Well, didn't keep that pace, but averaged it. Overall 1:44:02. I'm very pleased with myself.

Hey, there's more if you care to read!

So I'm in line for the bathroom about 20 minutes before race time. And I'm finally getting near the front of the line as they're doing the national anthem. And I'm shaking it off as the gun goes off. But as I exit the outhouse I see the New Balance pace group for a 3:20 full marathon, which is only slightly faster than the pace I had wanted to keep anyway. So the timing was impeccable.

The course went out toward the Budweiser brewery and around. Too bad they weren't giving beer instead of gatorade. But once around the brewery (the same, usual, lovely, grainy smell made my mouth water) things thinned out a bit. For about a mile I was talking to a guy who was at school in Rolla. And the whole time I stuck with the 3:20 pace group. My parents were there cheering us on: I saw them at the start line and again around mile 6. Ran up by SLU where there the grades started getting to me. Mile 8 a full marathoner (his second, but the first was about 10 years ago) struck up a short conversation. I could feel myself slowing a bit by now, and the 3:20 group had pulled ahead. No worries, I was near the half turnaround anyway so I couldn't keep with them much longer. Mile 9 I got a pretty bad side stitch. Going back up this stretch I saw first Lindsey (doing the full) then Kristin and my sister (both doing the half). About this time I was passed by a guy just flying, with two prosthetic legs. Absolutely amazing, from a human perspective and as an engineer. Just past SLU campus I saw Jeremy doing the team run. By this time I was really dogging it. The cramp had gone, but I was feeling overall fatigue. Miles 11 and 12 were the toughest. Mile 13 I started feeling it again, looking down Market to see a giant flag over the start/finish area with the Arch as a backdrop. I finished strong, getting energy from the crowd near the finish line.

So I started too fast, slowed down, but still finished right about the time I had hoped/expected. I'm looking forward to running another half within a year, maybe a few 10Ks too. This was great fun.