The Detroit Free Press Half Marathon

Ok so I am a tad behind in keeping up with my blog.

However, October 18th, 2010 I ran the Detroit Free Press Half Marathon with my dad and my brother. It turned out to be a great race with a PB but it didn't start out so great.

It was a very early start to the day with a 4:30am wake up call and a 7am start time. Having completed the marathon just a few short weeks ago I was not expecting much from this race, other than a really neat experience. My dad has ran the Detroit Marathon for year and more recently it has become a tradition of running something at the Detroit Marathon. Last year we ran the relay and this year the half. One of these years I am sure it will be the Full. Anyway, I had just bought the Garmin watch and I was super excited to use it to help pace myself, something I have never done. However, at the start line my watch froze I could do nothing and i was mad. I was mad that I didn't have a thing to use to time my walk breaks or anything to keep me on pace. I was also mad that I had spend $300+ on something that didn't work. My dad kindly handed me his watch and said he didn't need it.

I didn't run with my dad or my brother as they are much faster than I am. I had in my head that I wasn't going to get a PB today because of the congestion on the bridge. The bridge was down to one lane and at some points were were walking. I knew this ahead of time and skipped my first walk breaks. I also decided that I would run only at the water stations. It was a really nice run, the weather was perfect and it was awesome to cross the bridge and then the tunnel. Crowd support was also great on both sides. I couldn't believe that when I got to the 12th mile I realized that I could easily make it under 2:20. I actually thought there must be something wrong with my watch, but there wasn't I ended up finish in 2:18 a 6 minute PB!!! Very happy!

There is something to be said for going in with very little expectations and when everything is going wrong, sometimes it just turns out right. I honestly think that I would have slowed down if I saw my pace on the Garmin because I would have thought that I couldn't have maintained the pace. Sometimes it's just meant to be!