First off sending
Anne's way, she was going to snag my packet for me for the Snickers Half on Friday night since it looked at the time like I wouldn't make it there in time (no race day pickup on Sat) but I got a call from her saying she wasn't going to make the race at all as her mother was in/going in to the hospital.
Looked for her WISH shirt just in case on Sat and didn't see her, so hopefully it's nothing serious and we'll see her back here soon.
I'll keep these short as I'm pretty mentally drained.
Snickers Half Marathon in Albany, GA - Great course through treelined neighborhood streets fully shaded with some great old houses, tons of volunteers, and a nice early (7am) start time to avoid the heat. Also were letting people take 3 or 4 Snickers Marathon bars each at both the expo and the finish, so I made off with over $10 worth of those. The main con was whatever they were serving instead of gatorade (Cytomax I think?) was pretty nasty. Tried really hard to take it easy knowing I had another race the next day. Was expecting 10mpm (marathon goal pace), but about 9:30s came real easy, so stuck with that. Kicked it in as usual, and funny enough ended up 4th in my age group, although 3rd beat me by over 19 minutes.
Had I been female, I would have only gotten 11th in my age group, I guess none of the guys showed up.
Miles: 9:20, 9:21, 9:25, 9:14, 9:25, 9:36, 9:28, 9:32, 9:38, 9:43, 9:44, 9:14, 8:42, :54
Total: 2:04:03 Avg: 9:29
Seaside Half Marathon - For some reason or another, I was real sore for this one.
It was cooooold at the start, something like 40F which isn't that bad, but the 15-20mph gusting quartering headwinds for the first half made it worse. Pretty boring 6.5 mile out and back course, along the coast sort of, but some dreary through the trees parts too. Or it could have been I was just tired of running.
Lots of hills too, soo much for "flat and fast" Garmin showed +/- 300 feet of elevation at various times. Figured I'd maybe try to equal the previous day's time if I felt good enough. Well I didn't, but I still did and then some.
Miles: 9:02, 9:06, 9:16, 9:11, 9:00, 8:56, 8:40, 9:04, 9:02, 9:08, 9:27, 9:12, 9:05, :46
Total: 1:59:01 Avg: 9:05
So there you have it, another sub 2 half. Although those last few miles were some of the most tiring I have ever run. Probably like miles 24-26 of a marathon I wager. Probably going to have to take some time off of running now and stick to the bike and some muscle work.
The monster month is completed.
2/3 Double Bridge 15k
2/4 Tallahassee Half Marathon
2/18 Pensacola Half Marathon
2/25 New Orleans Half Marathon
3/3 Albany Half Marathon
3/4 Seaside Half Marathon
Bling pic to come!
I was doing well on pace, so walked up and ran down the bridge. Really neat to be at the top looking out across Sarasota Bay! After the up and over, the full runners split off and kept going out to Lido/Longboat Key. We curved around under the bridge and went out a bit further before the turnaround at Sarasota Yacht Club. I found Bill about mile 6...I was heading out, he was on his way back. 
So close! I'll be really interested to see the official results. Last year, official was clock time only, but they've said this year, they'll give us chip time too. 
A great race all around! I'm still a little nervous about the full, but have lots of training left to do. I think the gels are working better for me than the Clif Bloks. Now I need to work on pre-race breakfast. I had horrible GERD the entire race!
for Anne and her family.
