Because of a last minute change in hotel, we weren't staying on the beach, so we had to drive in through traffic. We had about 8 minutes left before the start after I parked, so, no warm up. Yesterday I had already resolved to doing this race at a slower pace than last time, if it were raining or really humid. I switched shoes last minute as well, since it was raining before the race had started. I went out comfortably hard, and tried to stick with a pack that formed to get shelter from the 15mph headwinds. Once they started pushing 5:45's, I backed off and ran some 6:15+ miles by myself. The wind was rough, and made my hat completely useless for blocking the rain.
Around mile 5, the heavier rain stopped, and I heard some people behind me. I decided to pick it back up (against my original plan) since I knew several of the runners in front of me were running the full, I thought that I had the possibility of placing in the top 3-10. I still tried to maintain an easier feeling than Surftown though, and my avg heart rate really reflects that.
I soloed the majority of the race, and only saw one half marathoner in front of me after the split, so I decided to catch him, since the wind was at my back. This guy was one of the originals in that pack that I tried to keep up with in the start of the race. I caught him with 2 miles to go, and laid down a nice 5:55, 5:48, and 5:20 pace for the last quarter mile. I may have put a minute or more gap on him, since I was afraid he might try to catch back up, and I didn't see him finish before I went to get some Domino's from the pizza tent.
I didn't really expect to pull off a 1:20:32 with sloshy shoes, no warm up, and running with an avg heart rate of 182. Most of my marathons finish with a higher average than that. This was good enough for 5th place overall, and 1st in my age group.
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