Since we were just coming off a marathon my friend and i decided that we should go for a half marathon in November while we were still in shape. We picked the Gobbler Grind which is run on the Indian Creek Trail and also some roads...one having a very long uphill!
Laura and i had someone offer to be ours and a couple of other girls' personal pacer for the race. We agreed upon a goal time of aiming to finish under 1:47 as my pr was 1:47:48. Jeff has been an official pacer in races before and has qualified for Boston multiple times and had just completed the New York marathon. He was gracious enough to give up this race as he could have blown it away and instead help us to try to reach our goal!
It had been beautiful weather the week before the race and then a cold front came through and race morning was a balmy 12 degrees!!
The first half of the race we did a little bit of talking. Jeff talked about how he slowly reached his goal of getting a sub 4 hr marathon which is the goal i have been chasing so it was great to hear his stories and advise. He would let us know how we were doing on time, that we had banked a little time and then when we were running the hills let us know that we did not eat up all our banked time. The last half of the race there was not a lot of talking on mine and Laura's part. We were very focused and he got grunts and short answers from us.
The water and gatorade was icy at the aid stations and i tried to get my chews out of my pocket at one of the stations and my hands were so freezing that i couldn't even get them to open my zipper...i gave up and went the whole race without nutrition which really didn't end up bothering me that much.
When we were within a mile to the finish he said "ok girls, if you can just maintain you are on track to come in under 1:45" I think i was able to grunt out "seriously?!?" I think we picked it up just a little in that last mile. (mostly because we wanted to be done so bad) Seeing our finishing time of 1:44 made me one happy chic!! I have picked up that pace bracelet at several different races but have never been brave enough to put it on and go for it. Thankfully Jeff helped us go for it and got us there well under our goal for the day!
This is not Jeff in the picture. Laura is right behind me....this is coming in to the finish withing the last half mile. I must stick my tongue out when i focus! I always take great race pictures, ha!
Laura me and Julie ( our rockstar friend who finished like 5 minutes before us!) We all pr'd so it was a great day but we snapped this picture and got the heck out of dodge because we were all frozen to the bone and they were out of hot chocolate!
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