7:19, 7:11, 7:46, 7:44, 7:21, 7:15, 7:25, 7:55, 7:28, 7:26, 7:39, 7:25, 7:29, 1:18(7:26)
My mantra for the day: Success is in the effort not the outcome.
My initial goal going into this race was to run a time of 1:30:00. When I'm honest with myself about it, I know I was not trained well enough to run that time so it was hard being confident going into it. This made things very hard from the start. I could tell I wasn't in it from the start and I could feel myself kind of giving up before the race even started. My plan from the starting line was to take the first couple miles easy and see how the legs felt. If I felt good I thought a 1:35 was realistic, if I didn't I had no clue what would play out. The gun went off and I started out with Amber and Jen going their pace which was right behind the 1:35 pacer. I figured if my legs felt good I would make my way up to the 1:35 pacers and try to hang on with them. My legs never felt good. Never felt fresh. This was very discouraging especially since I took such a long taper. From mile one I could tell this was going to be a long race. There was a headwind that is not only hard to push against but it can defeat you mentally. By mile 8 I wanted to drop out or at least just stop and walk. My legs felt dead and I was just done. I made myself keep running and it was hard to keep up the pace I was going. I needed to prove to myself that I could push through the disappointment though. Miles 5-9 were the hardest. With about 4 miles to go my legs magically started feeling like they had some strength behind them so I tried to push myself to the end. It came just in time. It allowed for a mental boost as well and I needed it big time. It still wasn't enough though. I wasn't anywhere near the 6:50 average pace I would have needed for a 1:30 and still off of a 1:35 pace. But I never gave up. I wanted to and I didn't. That's what I'm proud of today. I pushed as hard as I could. I ran an effort I am proud of.
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