Big Lake 2006

For the second year in a row it was cold, raining and windy at the Big Lake Half marathon. With Vermont City marathon 2 weeks away, I didn't want to run hard and decided to work on my marathon pace. I swapped today and tomorrow on the schedule which meant today's run was supposed to be 17 miles so I went out for a 4 mile warm up before the race (first 2 miles of the course and back). For the most part I was happy with my splits. I think that at least one of the mile markers was wrong. Here were my splits:

1 - 7:49
2 - 7:48
3 - 7:38
4 - 7:39
5 - 8:00 (had to stop and tie my shoe)
6 - 7:45
7 - 7:23
8 - 7:45
9 - 8:04
10 - 6:48 There's no way I ran this mile under 6:50. Looks like 9 and/or 11 was long.
11 - 8:02
12 - 7:25
13.1 - 8:25 (7:39 pace)

I got passed by a small group about 1/2 mile from the finish, but resisted the urge to speed up. I had nothing to prove today and didn't need to push myself. I finished at 1:40:45 which wasn't too much faster than the 1:42 that I planned. Other than 1 hill that I went up a little too fast, I felt like I was running at a comfortable pace.