This was a "A" Race for me.
I rated my performance a 5 out of 5.
Race Notes: It went way better than I had expected! In January, I entered 1:32 as my target time goal, but than after pulling my quad and calf muscles on two different occasions in April and May, I changed my mindset and was ready for 1:38 or better.... so, I ran 1:33:46 and was very very happy with that! 7:10 pace!
I kept telling myself to take it easy in the first 5 miles, stick to 7:20 or so, but ended up at 28:00 after 4, exactly 7:00 pace and feeling very strong. I did slow down though, just to conserve and make sure I'd have enough gas thru 8-9-10 miles. My slowest mile ended up being 7:49 at mile 5, than 6:48 at mile 6 (there was quite a bit of downhill, hence the drop in time!), 7:11, 7:11 thru mile 7 and 8, 7:23 at 9, 7:08 at mile 10, 7:05 at 11, 6:41 at 12 and 8:30 for the last 1.1 (7:43 pace).
That last 1.1 was pretty draining and I just had to push especially after hitting that 6:41 in mile 12, so dropping to a 7:43 pace was pretty slow, even though I didn't 'feel' like I dropped that much.
The wx/temp was perfect all day, the water stations were in the perfect places and I never felt 'bad', just had to keep the momentum up thru 11 and then willed it home. I was 206th overall, 31st in the 35-39 age group.