13.1 slow miles

Actually, I think it was longer than that.  I mapped it out and came up with closer to 13.5 miles when I used the actual route as opposed to the posted route.  Add in the mile walk to the start and the mile after back to my car and the half a mile of walking in circles looking for people I knew from work and it was a long night.

Made a huge mistake right at the beginning, I tried to keep pace with the 2:15 group instead of the 2:30 group.  That worked out okay for about 3.5 miles.  At that point I dropped into my intervals.  That was going fairly well.  I made sure that I was able to drop into my walks without a lot of heavy breathing.  Unfortunately, I used up too much of my legs in that first 3.5 miles so when the 2:30 pace keepers caught up to me, I only stayed with them for about a mile.  Luckily I was more than half done by then.

I think my main problem after about mile 8 I just had no idea where the turn around was anymore.  I kept thinking it had to be soon.  Part of that problem was my ipod thinking I was 2 miles further along than I was.  Some was darkness.  Some was just being tired.  It just seemed like the run was never going to end though.  Finally the ten mile turn came, and there was no water.  Water stops on the race were just pathetic.  They had them every mile or so, but they were trying to pour as you got there instead of having a bunch of water ready.  So I ended up skipping water stops and using my camelbak.  This was also not part of the plan.  I was expecting to grab a cup of water or two at every stop so I'd have plenty of water to suck down right at the end when I was really dehydrated.  Instead, I was out of water around mile 11, leg cramps started about half a mile later.

Last mile I got blocked by idiots walking 5 abreast and ignoring my on your left comments.  I finally yelled MOVE to get them out of the way.  They gave me dirty looks, but moved.  I did manage to finish on the run, about 15 minutes after I'd intended to finish.  I think I can blame a lot of it on the leg cramps in the last mile and a half. 

I'm calling it it about 13:20 a mile for 13.5 miles.  I'm going back to 10k distance, hurts a lot less.