Whoo Hoo! This was a PR for me. I forgot to turn my Garmin off at the end when they were taking the timing chip off my shoe, which is why the official time was 2 hours and my Garmin time was 2 hours and 1 minute. Either way, I averaged 9:12/mile. If I could just shave off 3 seconds per mile (and do this for 26.2 miles), I could qualify for the Boston Marathon!

I need to log everything I did so that I can hopefully recreate this type of success at my next race. I ate oatmeal, bananas, and fruit around 3 AM and drank Propel until 4 AM. We left the house around 5:30 AM to get to the race by 6:30 AM. Then we hung around in the warm car until about 30 minutes before race start.

I drank a large cup of coffee and ate a granola bar right before race start. My waist bag contained two bottles of sports drink (Accelerade). I just kept running the entire way and didn't stop at any of the water stops - I just grabbed a bottle out of my waist bag and drank out of that.

In spite of the hills, I felt good and didn't get "cinder block legs". My IT Band issue reared its head at mile 7, but I adjusted my running form to stretch the band less (leaned forward more). Thank goodness that worked. I was afraid it would be so bad I would have to stop. So far, I have been able to run through it by altering my form. I also took two Extra Strength Tylenol before the run. The ortho doctor said Tylenol was safer than Aleve as far as not causing kidney damage when getting dehydrated.

I was so thrilled with my time! It was a PR (personal record) for me. I finished 15 out of 99 in my age group. The cool weather helped. I always run better when the weather is cold.

There was a guy that ran the entire race in a cow suit! It was great!