Beat my goals in Hartford!!!

I want to thank everyone for your e-mails and well wishes from this weekend. I was ecstatic with my time and overall had a great race. It was a great day, a nice course, and I just felt"on". People have been asking for a race report....I warn you this will be a long one, but here's all the details!

The weather could not have been more perfect...what a change from last weekend in Chicago! It was about 40 at the start mid-50s at the finish, but sunny so it was comfortable. The wind picked up some in the last couple miles, but nothing too bad just annoying.The course was actually pretty nice for being in Hartford. There were about 7000 runners total but that included the 5k and half marathon. The half course split off from us at mile 3.5. It started in the city but quickly crossed the Connecticut River and headed up into South Windsor (lots of houses and farms). It was a nice, flat out and back bringing us back into the city around mile 19 where we went along the river, crossed the river, wove through Hartford some and then back into the park to finish under Memorial Arch. The first 20 was fairly flat and the last 6 had some short but steep ups and downs over bridges and overpasses.

I linked up with the 4 hour pace leader and ran with that group until about 16-17 miles. It was nice to have a group to run with and most people were talkative. Our pace leader was telling stories and joking around so it took my mind off of running. I felt great for the first half and into the second half....pace felt comfortable and my breathing was controlled. My shins were sore the first 5 miles but then loosened up and were fine. At mile 16 I noticed that we were slowing just a bit (9:10's because we were about 1 minute faster than we needed to be) so I decided to pull away from the pacer at that point and keep with the 9 minute/miles. Another girl, Sheila, did the same thing so we continued to run together for the rest of the race.It was nice to have her to keep pushing myself when I was getting tired. It felt great to be passing people during the last 10k and gave me a real mental boost! Overall I felt great and could not have run a move evenly paced race! My splits were 9:02 at 10K, 9:02 at 10miles, 9:04 at 20 miles and 9:03 overall pace...that's kind of crazy how dead on I was!!

Bryan was able to bike around and see me at multiple points....he met up with 2 other guys on bikes whose wives were also running and they cheered together. I was so confused when I kept seeing him with the same people all yelling my name!! The three wives were all within about 4 minutes of each other....but I beat the other two :) It was great to see him so many times and know how proud he was of me!

I felt so much better after this marathon than I did after Boston....I didn't feel so out of it at the end. My recovery is going well, also not as sore as I was after Boston....not sure if that's because I was better trained or because I didn't have the hills to beat me up. I am overall sore and stiff but nothing too bad.

The volunteers and support on the course were great. They had multiple Gu stops and plenty of water and sports drink. I was nervous how it would be running such a small marathon after coming off of Boston, but having the pace group was nice because I was never alone and had people to talk to. They also had bands every couple miles playing music and people were having parties on their front yards and cheering for us. Nothing like Boston, but it did put a smile on my face.

So now its all over....18+ weeks summed up into 3 hours 57 minutes and 18 seconds! I finished 693rd out of 1,571 runners and 24th out of 88 in my age group - woo hoo!! So for now I need to rest and recover...and then I can start thinking about what's next :)

I'll post some pictures soon so check back!