I planned en route. My hope was to hit the first mile in 13:30. The River Trail has markers every quarter mile, so it was easy to figure I had to go through each of the quarters in 3:22.5. It was hard to go so slowly. I had to walk the last 20 yards at a .001 mph pace to go through in 13:29. That's when I came up with the idea to see how long I could comfortably cut 10 seconds off each mile. So the goals became 13:20, 13:10, and so on. I went 13:16, 13:06, 12:54, 12:39 (11 seconds too fast, when I decided, as punishment for my lack of patience, I would have to run each mile faster than the previous. I then went 12:37, 12:27, 12:17, 12:02, 12:00 (for 10 miles in 2:06:46), 11:35, 11:31, and 10:37. I felt good that final mile. It wasn't the sub 3:50 I hoped for, but it was cold and I feared a string of 57-second quarters might injure something. I think I could have continued at that pace for at least another 2 miles, maybe 3. I did continue running for 62 seconds, which I estimated would be about what I could have expected to run for an extra 182.5 yards, thus giving me a half-marathon of 2:41:31. I walked it off, and it was 93 full strides, more like 186 yards. So, for the record, I broke the magical 2:41:30 half-marathon barrier.
My blood work was perfect. It measured 55 mg (of glucose)/dL two hours before my 5:55 a.m. start. I drank four ounces of grape juice, a can of Low-carb Monster Energy, two cups of Kona, and ate half a banana. It was at 82 when I left my house at 5:40 a.m. I ate 11 SweeTarts on the course. My thinking was clear all morning, a matter easy to gauge as I calculated quarter splits. My blood sugar was at 102 when I tested it about 30 minutes after I finished.
The parts of this most noteworthy to me are that I ran the final 10 miles in 2:00:39 (5:16 marathon pace), the final 5 in 57:45 (5:03 marathon), and still felt fine running a 10:37.
Four weeks and six days seems like a long time. Maybe I can get under 5:20. That feels realistic. Today.
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