My final results were 98 out of 2551 overall finishers, 34th out of 1798 women, 11th in the 35-39 age group.
This was a great run for me. I had a plan to try and get under 1:32. (my prior 1/2 marathon PR was 1:34 2 years ago before I was pregnant) I printed out a pace band specific to this course for 1:31:45. This really helped me and made it so that I could mentally break down the race into segments. That way I really only worried about 1 mile at a time. This goes with the saying: "Inch by Inch is a sinch, yard by yard is Hard." I hit all of my mile split goals and some were a little under and that's why I actually came in over a minute under my goal. I really had to dig deep to keep this up during those last 3 miles, but I'm glad I hung on.
For race fuel, I woke up and had a peanut butter granola bar, a banana on the bus. A GU about 20 minutes before the start. 1 salt tab at mile 3, GU at mile 6.5. I stopped about every 2 miles for just a few seconds and had water.
The canyon was so beautiful and I loved seeing that the colors are already changing. I kept my music off for the first 6 miles just to enjoy the race and the beauty of the canyon.
After I was done, I jogged back and forth to the car a few times and then I ran up the course cheering for the marathoners. I ran about 1.75 miles of the finish of the marathon with my brother, Doug. He did great - his PR of 3:19 and was 5th in his division. It was kinda fun to push him for that last, hardest stretch. I ended up getting an extra 5 miles saturday, so I'll have to figure out how to add that to my mileage calendar.
My splits were:
1 - 7:13
2 - 7:04
3 - 7:11
4 - 6:55
5 - 6:32
6 - 6:39
7 - 7:03
8 - 6:28
9 - 6:54
10- 6:51
11 - 7:08
12 - 6:46
13 - 7:03
.1 - :57 (6:28 pace)
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