As always the numbers up front!
Five Points of Life HM in Gainesville, FL
1:56:54 - Old PR set at the New Orleans HM in Feb 07
1:55:02 - Today's Lifetime PR 
8:47 mpm
OA: 146/388
Div: 15/40
Splits: 8:36, 8:49, 8:56, 9:03, 8:43, 8:37, 9:10, 8:40, 8:38, 8:26, 8:32, 8:54, 7:53, 1:09
Sometimes the situation is just perfect for a fast race, and this was one of those days. I had spent President's Day weekend out in Death Valley on a family camping trip, and had come back with a pretty nasty cold. Although I'd enjoyed 2 hour and 4 hour bike rides last Saturday and Sunday respectively, and done a 90 min recumbent bike spin and 30 min run at Coronado Springs on Tuesday after switching coasts (which apparently my All Star Music room key was good enough to get in to) I was basically out of commission for the rest of the week. Although Wed and Thur were spent theme parking for 12+ hours each day so that probably has to count for some form of cross training, I had to take Fri and Sat totally off. So I guess you can call it a "taper" of sorts leading into this race, which I just threw on the schedule because we were going to be spending time with DW's sisters in Gainesville. It had also been quite some time since I ran a half at a fast pace and I was curious to see where I was at.
Race morning brought perfect weather, about 45 at the start rising to 55 or so by the end. Not that the sun would have mattered much as the vast majority of the course was shaded. There was a great variety of terrain, with real deceiving shallow graded uphills giving way to visibly sloped loooong downhills throughout. There were some steeper ones on the backside, but the net elevation of the first 10 miles or so was up, which led to some great downhills through the last few miles. I focused a lot on my HR throughout, keeping it in the low 160s for the first half of the race, then letting it creep up into the upper 160s for the hills on the backside, then running miles 8-11 in the low 170s, then taking it to 180 for the last couple miles as I headed home. Wouldn't have been feasible to go any further with the HR spiking that much, but my IM training plan actually called for a race to be done "flat out" so I went for it. At the halfway point I saw that I was just under PR pace, and that was all the incentive I needed to keep pushing the pace.
The course actually ran into The Swamp as they call the Florida Gator stadium, and those concrete bleachers as we looped around the field sent the Garmin haywire, so I was clueless as to my splits for the last couple miles. I just kept trying to pass people, and they weren't giving up easily. Highlight of the finish was having a frat guy who had been clearly sandbagging hear my heavy breathing coming, sprinting on ahead, but making the mistake of swinging wide on the last turn with 30 meters to go or so to high five a frat buddy, and being passed by me by about a foot right at the line. I REALLY had to motor to do it, and my max HR at the end was listed on the Garmin at 196!?!
So a PR by nearly 2 minutes after a 2 year hiatus. Tough to complain about that! Alas this was the last "recovery" week for my IM training, next comes 5 solid weeks of 12+ hours of training per week all the way up to about 18 for the peak. I suspect the Princess HM will be more of a training effort than a PR effort as a result, but I'll still have to finish in time to get back up there to the overpass in my Mickey ears/gloves!
GO! WISH Team GO! 
Anne
You've had a fantastic start just at the expo. What an honor to meet two running greats! Hope the race was a blast! 
