Afterwards

I finished! I mean that in a "thank goodness I'm done" way rather than suggesting that there was any chance I would not. Although there were moments I really wanted to quit, as there usually are in any race.

I don't like typing on the BlackBerry enough to write too much, but I'll say that I was both pleased and disappointed with my performance. Disappointed because I was in fact slower than last year, but pleased that I didn't entirely suck! My Garmin time, which should be pretty close to my chip time, was 1:12:23. That's a 9:36 average pace for 7.54 miles (of course the race was only 7.46 miles). I think my splits vary wildly depending on whether I was going uphill or down, and most of the race, except for the last 2.5 miles, was one or the other. (More up, I would say, but perhaps my perception was skewed.)

I will admit that I walked a little bit on Doomsday Hill. Not much, and I didn't strictly need to--but I did. What's the pits about long hills is not just the hill, but then the difficulty of getting back up to pace at the top!

After the finish I met my mother at Madeleine's, a delightful French-style cafe (with the most delicious lattes, better than my beloved Starbucks, I'm afraid) and we had whole wheat pancakes with maple butter for a carb-replenishing breakfast. And some bacon for protein. Yummy!
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