Well, the day has come and gone, and I broke the 2hour mark with room to spare. I didn't quite hit my goal of 1:55 (my official time is 1:55:17), but there were some extenuating circumstances. More on that later. Even with those 17 seconds over my goal time, I'm still extremely satisfied with my performance. Here is the GPS of the run, but I forgot to hit stop right away at the end so there are a few extra seconds in there.
On the morning of the race, Carena and I got out the door a little later than we had hoped, so it was kinda sketch for a little while. Luckily, we found parking and were at the starting line with a minute and a half to go. While it was cutting it close, it actually worked out great because we didn't have to stand around idle freezing our butts off.
I started off halfway between the 1:51 pace marker and the 2:00 pace marker, which was a big mistake. It seems like people always overestimate themselves and line up too close to the front, so I was stuck in a big group of people running at around 10:00 pace. In the beginning, it was really crowded so I had no choice but to follow the pace. In the future, I guess I'll have to be one of the morons who starts further ahead than I should in order to go the pace I want from the get go.
The next 5 miles or so I probably did a little faster than I should have. I had decided on the "no guts, no glory" method and didn't want to have the possibility of finishing and regretting not pushing myself hard enough. In the end, I think it hurt my time. The best performance, for me, is when I maintain a constant pace throughout the whole race. I ran them all right around 8:30 pace, but I should have probably maintained closer to 8:40 pace.
At mile 9, I started feeling the consequences of running those early miles too fast. My legs were starting complain, and I slowed down a bit to the 8:45 pace range. I had not realized that the route went so far along Minnehaha Parkway, so I was not ready for the hills. In fact, 8:45 was probably a little bit too fast considering all the hills. There was a hill just before the 9 mile marker that really sapped my energy (even though it appears the hill doesn't show up on my elevation graph from my GPS). It was short, just a city block, but it was terribly steep.
Miles 11 and 12 were my downfall. As I was going up the hill just before Lyndale, I noticed all the runners ahead of me were stopped at the intersection. I could see traffic going by, so I decided to make the most of it and walk up the hill. I walked to the top, and sure enough, there was a cop directing traffic, and we had to wait another 15 seconds before we could pass. I did feel bad for the guy. Everyone was complaining to him, but he just kept saying, "Take it up with your race director." They must not have had permits to block traffic there, which I'm not very happy about. I'm almost certain I would've hit my goal time of 1:55 if it weren't for this snafu. I was having enough trouble maintaining my pace at the time without having to worry about making up for lost time waiting at an intersection.
Nevertheless, I pushed on. At around mile 12, we came back to Lake Harriet, and were met with gusting winds blowing in an unfavorable direction. Some bystanders joked to the others, "run behind the tall guy," which made me want to punch them at the time because I didn't really have anyone around to break the wind for me. This last mile was all willpower. I had gone out too fast and had nothing left. I kept looking at my GPS, trying to maintain an 8:46 pace, which was near impossible for me at that point. Somehow I was able to, and when I crossed the 13 mile marker, I ran as fast as I could given the circumstances. I started gasping for air and felt like I couldn't physically maintain the pace, even for .1 miles. I just kept telling myself that I would be so disappointed if I missed my goal by something like 3 seconds that I could've made up at the end. Mercifully, while I was arguing with myself about whether I could slow down or not, I crossed the finish line. I had given it my all, and had a finishing time of 1:55:17 and a shiny medal to prove it.
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