time = 1:51:02 (1:51:12 official results)
pace = 8:25 (8:30 official results)
placed 9th in my age group (40-44) out of 61
placed 58th in women out of 408
placed 226 overall out of 792
based on my experience with the Summerfest Rock 'n Sole i decided to approach this race a bit differently. i have a tendency to take off too fast out of the gate and then poop out near the end of the race. so this time i decided to pace myself. it was a really (seemingly) easy task because i bought this awesome garmin a couple of weeks ago! let me just say... I LOVE LOVE LOVE my garmin! best purchase i've made in a long time.
so... one would think that it would be a cinch to pace my running with this lovely addition. let me tell you... IT WAS NOT! my mileage looked like this:
evidently i am incapable of maintaining a steady speed! the first couple of miles i was going so fast but it didn't feel uncomfortable or taxing but i kept telling myself to slow down and then i'd try that and the next time i looked at my watch i'd be going faster again. it was a continuous adjustment. the first 8 miles were pretty easy but then my legs started to get tired and i found that it was incredibly challenging to maintain the 8:20 speed i was trying to stay at. i really wanted to beat my time (1:48:17) from the summerfest 1/2 so i figured that if i run at a steady 8:20 i should get that or a minute or so better. too bad i couldn't maintain that pace. the last 2 miles were the worst! i was so slow!
this was a great race! really well organized and beautiful to boot. the one thing i didn't like about it was that there were no timing chips. that would have been nice for accurate and actual times. although... when i finished the time on the clock was close to the time on my watch so i guess it really didn't matter that much. this was my first time running this race and i guess there were maybe double the runners as opposed to last year. even with that being so they weren't overwhelmed with the overload so that was great! there was free breakfast and beer afterwards in the beer garden as well as the usual water, gatorade, bananas. of course, they also had sodas, chips, and pretzels which is a twist. all in all it was a really awesome race and such a great experience. i had a lot of fun.
