Surftown Half Marathon, 9/16

This was my first half marathon last year - I ran it in 2:12, at a 10:04 pace, and met my crazy ultramarathon friend Gary along the way, who is the inspiration for this blog...I wasn't nervous at all for this race, as I've been ramping up my miles to prep for the longer races coming up.  My body, on the other hand, doesn't like me very much right now and I slept fitfully all night, up every half hour and finally got up at 5.

Packed my bag, light breakfast and headed out.  Traffic was backed up for over a mile, so I used a bit of local knowledge and got around it :)

Ran into Jeff and Justin as soon as I pulled in.  Went for a quick warmup/pit stop (again, local knowledge) and fueled up.  Brought all my extra gear, and decided to skip all of it in favor of just the GPS.  Did I mention the weather???  Cloudless sky, 50 degrees and a light breeze at race start.  I see Mike B in the crowd, wish him good luck and head to the back with my people.  Here's a shot of the crowd (Note WTAC singlet in the foreground!) at the start:

Last year, this race had 800 or so runners.  This year?  1200+... the race starts, and my goal is to keep the 2:00 pace leader in my sights, and I quickly lose him in the crowd.  At mile 2, I'm checking the surf and the girl running next to me says I should go surf after the race.  I say, "Well, we've got a ways to go," and she says her friend Justin will be done an hour before us, haha.  Hmmm...you mean Justin B?  Small world, eh???  Turns out, Heather is a good friend of Justin's, and after losing her for a while, we meet up again a few miles later and wind up keeping the same pace, pushing and encouraging each other all the way to the finish.  My GPS was calling out our time and pace, and it kept getting faster and faster, and we dropped into the sub-9's per mile average, and passed the 2:00 pace dude, who told me I was gonna crush my time from last year...and the best moment of the race?  Hitting mile 12, with 1 to go, and knowing I was going to be below 2 hours...

So I ended up, unofficially, at 1:56:10, or 16 minutes better than last year.  Wouldn't have done it without Heather, who was super cool and a great runner in her own right, and I felt fantastic today.  If there's a "Cloud 9," I'm on it right now...and I feel a lot better about Nipmuck today because of it.  Awesome day, and this is why I run.  Notable?  My friend Antone, who I take karate with, just ran his first 5K at the CVS, and came in at 24:04, at a 7:45 pace, very cool...

Saw Jeff at the finish, and he PR'd and came in 1st in his age bracket?  Justin killed it and came in 6th???  Mike PR'd and jetted for the Pats game (3rd in his bracket?  What???)  So the WTAC represented  well at the local race, and I'm stoked for the Nipmuck...should be a great test!