I hung with an aggressive pace group for the first couple miles --- going sub-10 and 10 minute miles. Yay! The pacer was an ultra-marathoner who was using this race as a training run for her next distance race. There was a big group attached to her as she raced out of the start and over the causeways.
I didn't realize that the water stations wouldn't start until mile 3. I missed that critical info in the program. Oops. It was very humid in the morning (already in the 70's) and I was so thirsty. I grabbed multiple cups of water and gatorade at the first station and covered my shirt with water to cool off. Luckily as we got closer to the beach it was nice and breezy. It also started to sprinkle here and there which helped to cool everyone off.
I had a good run until mile 8 when a bad blister started nagging me. When I took my sock off after the race I confirmed that it was a nasty blood blister Gross!
At mile 10 my right hamstring started contracting very badly. I've never had that happen before. I had to stop a couple times to stretch it out. It was extremely uncomfortable and I lost a lot of time dealing with this. A woman cheering on the sidelines for the Team In Training group told me that I was close to the finish. She had this look of concern on her face when she saw me hopping by grabbing my leg.
The good news is that I was able to push forward and had a strong last 2 miles. I get jazzed up running through the cheering crowds. They really pump you up. I was psyched to turn the corner and split away from the marathoners. Man...how depressing it must be for them to see us racing toward our finish and they are only at the halfway point.
I ended up hooking up with one of my DC Road Runner coaches after the race. We showed off our spinner-rim medals. So Miami.
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