Eight weeks of training completed on my path to Big Sur on May 1st, it's pretty standard that you test your level of fitness with a 1/2 marathon. Sunday was slated to be that day. My parents drove down so my dad & I could run the Armadillo Dash 1/2 Marathon together. In regular terms, the weather was a little cold, but in running terms, it was perfect. Mid 40's at 7 a.m. when we stepped to the line ready to compete for 13.1 miles.
I did my usual, go out way too hard the first 1/2 mile, looked down at my watch to realize I was hitting 6:20/mile pace and tried to settle into my rhythm. My strategy was get to 10 miles, assess where I was at, and finish the race accordingly. When I get to about mile 8, the section of the course that had a few good hills, I was feeling really good, powered up the hills with ease, and just felt good so I decided to give it a go. I kept trying to settle in with people that seemed to be going about my pace, but every time I did that, they seemed to fall off, or I just was ready to push the pace a little more.
Going into the race, I had three goals: finish in under an hour and a half, finish top 10 overall, & finish top 3 in my age group. I was an incredibly happy person; I finished in 1:26:17, 9th overall, 2nd in my age group.