Holiday Halfathon, Madeira Beach to Largo, FL
13.12 mi ,01:29:33, 06:49 pace
Good effort and fun time. Hoping to get about the same time as Blue Moon, was a little slower but made my "B" goal of under 1:30 after a few slower miles.
I started out feeling great for the first two miles, and was feeling good into the third mile when my shoelaces flapping was bothering me. I should have ignored it but couldn't let it go. A guy came up behind me and said "let's follow behind this train". I did for a little bit, but finally stopped to check my shoelaces. So, the fast train got away from me and the next train passed me which I kept up with but with some slower miles.
After the bridge to the mainland, as the trail flattened out and went slightly uphill, I felt slower, stayed just under 7:00.
Felt good once I was on the trail, played tag for a while with some people that had passed me earlier which helped pull me along. Jessica was waiting at the finish line to cheer for me, then we waited and cheered as various friends crossed the finish line, then enjoyed the post race celebration.
Splits were: 6:33,6:43,7:02,7:01,6:44,6:55,6:59,6:41,6:45,6:49,7:00,6:48,6:50,0:41 (0.12@5:49). Came within 1 second of catching Dr. Cottrell to almost get 3rd place masters (and 2nd place masters was less than 15 seconds away). First place age group!
I was running on a little less sleep than I should have and the night before was the company Christmas party (although I did something similar last year with a better time). But still, another under 1:30. About 10 miles of this course will be used for the Clearwater Marathon coming up in January, hoping to run some similar splits as part of that race.
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