Colonial 1/2 Marathon in Williamsburg

On Sunday, I ran in the Colonial 1/2 marathon in Williamsburg, VA. It went well! I wanted to run an average of 7:45 per mile, finishing somewhere near 1 hour 42 mins. I actually ran 1:40:10, averaging 7:38 per mile, so woot!

The race was unusual in several respects: it was 3 hours away, and started at 1 in the afternoon. The course was very rolling hilly, and had several different surfaces -- from brick to asphalt to that mulched wood stuff you see in parks. My race plan was to start out running 7:50s, and at mile six drop to 7:40s. I was pretty close to this on the way out -- First mile at 7:53, holding that pace through mile 6. I ate an energy gel at mile four -- WAY too soon, I don't know what I was thinking; I had planned to do that at mile 6, but I had torn the top off the gel before I really thought it through.

At mile six I planned to make my push, drop the time, and catch up with the people I had been trailing -- we were all running the same pace, but a couple of them were 200 meters ahead of me. What I failed to account for was the fact that everyone else had the same plan -- I ran mile six in 7:16, and didn't catch anyone. So, fine, I said, let them go, and run them down later. I noticed that the big hills were in mile 9 and mile 11 (it was an out and back course, and I looked for the mile markers over my shoulder after running down the hills in the first half), and I didn't want to run out of steam late, as I did in Delaware.

That worked out, kinda I slowed down too far, mile 7 at 8:06, but stabalized on mile 8 at 7:33. I ran around there for the rest of the race, and actually caught and passed the entire pack I had been running with in the first half -- one woman, who I had pegged as the one I wanted to catch around mile 2, I passed as we turned the corner to run into the building with the finish line -- I think I beat her by about 5 seconds.

1:40:10 is a great time for me. It suggests that I might be able to run the Marathon next month in 3:35:00, which, considering I have been worried about running it in 4 hours, is encouraging.

In other news, J is sick -- he has asthma, and gets winter colds -- this is the first of the year, though, so it could be worse. I got some awesome archival stuff through ILL, on which more soon, and saw a movie - Push - Good! and a play - Anton in Show Business - Awesome! - reviews possibly forthcoming but maybe not. Gotta make lunch for the b'hoi -- more laterz!