Finished Youngstown! Got in my 18 miles. I feel great!

Splits:
8:44.40
8:21.42
9:44.60 (obviously mile 3 marker was off)
7:17.40
8:39.19
8:23.50
8:30.38
8:04.68
8:13.03
8:15.56
8:02.69
7:42.34
7:47.85
54.28
Total: 1:48:52

20 minute warm up and 3 mile cool down to finish out the 18. Lots and Lots of hills. They went back to the old course so it was even more brutal than last year. Despite being about a minute slower this year I am happy with today. I really wanted to run a negative split and feel strong the whole way. Plus I heard some guys mention that they ran 5-6 minutes faster last year. So that's a good indicator that I am improving despite a slower time.

My legs feel great and I am pretty sure that last year I could barely get down the stairs for dinner after this race. I felt like I could have run a lot more. I think that must be due to the low mileage. Perhaps my body just responds really well to the low mileage.

There was over double the number of racers this year 400+ but apparently the girls that ran in my age group last year moved up or didn't show because I managed to snag 2nd in age.

The SERC gals Rocked the course! B, K, and E all came home with hardware. J took 2nd in her age group too. Curly Su and DaisyDuc ran a great half together under 2 hours! A lot of TNT peeps showed and got introduced to some hills. The men also did great, SERC guys came in number 3 and 5. B and B2 rocked the course as well winning their age groups.

So it was a good day! I am super pumped. I am feeling really confident about Boston now. I felt great on all the hills today and I am really happy! Looking forward to the SERC banquet tonight and for consuming all those calories I just burned! Bring on the cassata cake!

More Details please?

Rode with my SERC posse to the race. So nice not to drive. Youngstown is about an hour drive so definitely a haul. Woke up at 6:00 and grabbed a coffee and some toast with PB on my way out the door at 6:20ish. We left Starbucks at 6:50 and headed to the race. Got there and because I slacked and didn't pre-reg didn't get a small wind shirt. Oh well looks like David has another race shirt!

K and I headed out to warm up. I got in 20 minutes and called that 2 miles. Got back to the car and took off the fleece pants and changed to shorts, also ditched the jacket. It was sunny out and my core temp was high. Met up with J, AM, Su, and DaisyDuc over at the start. Emptied out my shoes, weird gravel from the towpath. Realize that the end of the tie in my shorts isn't there. I start messing with that trying to get the tie out and get the shorts tied, before I know it we are running, oops! So I mess with the shorts for the first half mile or so and have to give up. Luckily my shorts did remain on despite not being tied!

Stuck with Su and DaisyDuc for the first few miles then we picked up the pace a bit. J and AM suggested we play a game to pass the time. It was pretty funny. Basically one of us names 3 people and you have to decide which one you will throw off a cliff, which you'll marry, and which one you will have a one night stand with. V. amusing. Probably even more so for the people we were running around who didn't realize we were playing a game!

I wanted to go out around 8 minute miles but I realized pretty quickly that wasn't in the cards on this hilly of a course. So we just tried to stay comfortable and we talked the majority of the first 10 miles. Around ten we started to pick up the pace, still able to talk though. There are pretty much hills the whole course. Maybe 1.5-2 miles of the whole thing are flat. And these aren't what I would call rollers. Most of them have a significant grade and are relatively long. At 12 some girl that we were passing decides she wants to give us a run for our money. I felt good so I wasn't worried about it and I knew there were 3 more significant hills to climb so I just stayed even and hammered in at my own pace. V. happy with the results.

J and AM and I went back out for about 3 miles (we just ran the course backwards so we could see some friends) taking it really easy. Awards took absolutely FOREVER! But we finnaly got out of there. Stopped and grabbed some pizza on the way back. Now I think I am ready for a nap!