Batimore Half Marathon

This past Saturday I mounted my scaled down attack on the streets of Baltimore in the Baltimore Running Festival. Unfortunately my training regiment over the past few months did not allow me to compete in the actual marathon as I had hoped but I didn’t want to just not take part so I managed to just sneak in off the waitlist for the ½ marathon. What a great race! The half joined up with the marathon at about the half way point and basically ran the second half of the race with them. Not sure that was the greatest experience for the marathoners but for us in the half it sure was cool.

I had what I felt were reasonable expectations of myself for the race and figured I’d clock somewhere around 8 minute miles for a modest finish that’d be slightly better then my marathon time back in March. The weather was perfect and I was feeling pretty good so I took off at a moderate pace from the start line. By the two mile mark (I missed the first mile marker) I realized I was cruising along at a bit under 7:30/mile and was feeling just fine though I figured I’d slow up a bit later in the race. A bit later came and I was still running strong, encouraging the folks with full stickers on their backs (full marathon runners) every time I got the chance.

When I crossed the finish line I looked down at my watch and realized I’d shattered my expectations for myself in the race. My brain was a bit too fried to figure out any details but crossing the line in 1 hour 36 minutes and 3 seconds was far better then hour forty-five I had expected, and a full 40 seconds per mile faster. What was even better is I still felt great. I obviously only did half the distance, but if I could manage a full marathon at this pace I should probably even be able to qualify for the Boston Marathon (my new next running goal!).

Check me out cheesing for the camera with two thumbs up. MarathonFoto was at the event and took more pictures of me then I've ever seen for a race.