Message posted by: Clyde W.

Well, despite fears of rain it turned out the weather was pretty perfect. Overcast, about 60 degrees. I monitored splits for the first 8 or so miles before just settling into a groove and ignoring the watch. Around mile 14 I founds myself running pretty much side by side with a girl, and then at about mile 18 we started to accelerate a bit. I was keen to push as I wanted to leave it all out on the course, and someone called to her to say that she was the 6th place girl, so I was psyched to help her improve on her place. Then another person said she was 5th though we hadn’t overtaken any other women! Then we did overtake a girl and someone else confirmed she was 4th. We saw another girl up ahead, but after about 3-4 miles at this faster pace I realised I was cracking. Luckily she wasn’t and went on to finish 3rd! I struggled to the end, calves screaming and crossed in 3:13:10. Pretty happy as my previous PR was 3:30 and my goal was somewhere around 3:15. Note to self
, though, only speed up after mile 22!

Post-race, the sun came out and we hit the beach with the kids. Cooling my calves in the cold Atlantic surf was bliss! All in all a great day.

To view the rest of the post, please log-in to www.ontri.com