The Half Marathon in 1:56:42 !

Last weekend I finished the Avenue of the Giants Half Marathon with a great time of 1:56:42. That's an average pace of 8:54 per mile for 13.1 miles. That was good for 172nd place out of 883 runners - well entrants - some were walking, not running. Not too shabby for a 46 year-old guy with only 6 weeks of training! The bad news is that I was nursing an injury and possibly shouldn't have run at all - and definitely shouldn't have run so hard. I started out easy, but picked up the pace once I warmed up. I ran miles 3 thru 13.1 at a 8:48 pace.
So ice, aspirin and rest most of this week and hopefully I'll be ready for the Envirosports Mt. Tam. Wild Boar Ridge 18k this weekend.
A month ago I hadn't expected to run in this event. Tina and I had planned a 9 day road trip to Utah this week. Unfortunately, our dog Squeak was hit by a car last month and required surgery. So we canceled our vacation to help pay for the pet hospital bill. Since Tina had the week off we decided to take an overnight trip up to the Redwoods and I'd be able to run in this event.
The weather was beautiful and we had a nice drive up. We drove up Saturday and stopped at the site of the Marathon to check in. We drove the route of the Half Marathon so that Tina would know what it would be like. Lodging was tough to find so we actually had to stay in Arcata almost an hour north of the event. Sunday morning we got up at the crack of dawn to head down to the Marathon site.
The weather was perfect and the location is beautiful. There were about 1200 participants for the Marathon and Half Marathon. We all started at the same time so the road was crowded for the first 3/4 mile. I was nursing an injury - a strain in my left hamstring - so I took it easy at the start. At the 3-mile mark I was surprised to find that I had run the 3rd mile in less than 9 minutes. Doing some quick math I determined I could finish the half Marathon in less than 2 hours if I kept that pace. My injury felt ok so I kept up that pace. I averaged 8:48 per mile for miles 3 thru 10. After the 10-mile mark, I started to tire and my times for miles 11 and 12 were 9:06 and 9:10. The last mile or so in picked the pace and ran mile 13 in 8:38. I mistakenly thought the finish line was at the starting line and kicked too early - I had another 1/10th mile to go - oops! Anyway, I finished with a great time - at least for me. Between the injury and fatigue, my legs felt terrible after the event and I have a lot of ice, aspirin and rest planned this week.