Bellingham Half Marathon: 1:31:47

"Ok. I'll just hang on with those 5 women in front of me. They won't go that fast, will they?"

Hah. I lost them within the first 1/2 mile. Or, rather, I should say that they lost me. I couldn't see them after the first 2 miles. And I'm pretty sure I was going fairly fast in the first 2 or 3 miles. There were no mile markers until Mile 3 and, as I've shorted out my Garmin for good, I was relying on my stopwatch and mile markers to try to gauge my speed. I looked down and saw 7 minutes without seeing the first mile marker and though, "Geesh, this is going to be a long race if I feel like I'm really hauling and I'm not even running a seven-minute mile!" Similarly with the 2nd mile.
Finally, a mile marker! I was under a seven-minute average. Not too many people around: the usual couple of men who are super heavy breathers near me, who I couldn't seem to shake fast enough.
Mile 4, this woman who looked about my age, in a blue tank top, passed me and kept moving. I couldn't catch her.
Drat!
And it was humid! We had been walking around WWU in sunny dry weather the day before. Sunday, in contrast, was overcast and super, super humid. Even Jesi, who doesn't usually have a problem with her asthma, commented that she was having problems with it before the race - likely because of the cool, humid weather.
Sweat was pouring but I was feeling really good. I started singing to myself and looking at the blurry, beautiful landscape.
But, I was by myself, for the most part. So I let myself get a little lazy. By about mile 9, I realized I was right at a seven-minute mile average. Boy had I slowed myself down.
But, I caught it. Plus, I had the boost of Jesi's husband cheering for me before mile 9 and the joy of completing the first loop of the race. 4 more to go.
I was in with the marathoners now, passing a lot of them. They had started earlier, so these were the slower ones. It was hard because of the course, physically, but good, mentally.
Part of the course was on sidewalks/rain-filled shoulders with cars passing. The combination of the additional runners from the marathon and quite a few half marathoners slowing drastically made this challenging to navigate.
And, in the last half of the course, there were hills. Jesi: "I thought they were pretty easy!" Me: "They don't make hills like that in Brooklyn!"
Some of them were straight up - like the hill at the bottom of Brooklyn Heights, on the way back to the Promenade. Whew! But, I kept up my pace, at least sticking to sevens even if I couldn't raise it, due to the hills and to the extra-sharp turns getting onto the different small paths they were taking us on.
We went over a bridge around mile 11, which was beautiful, but very windy, and up, up, up, up. I still felt great.

Then, the race was pretty much over. I kept up my pace and even picked it up a bit - at least, it felt like it. Passed a lot of people who had passed me previously.

Caught up with the woman in blue and passed her around mile 12. Finished quite a bit ahead of her. Heh.
Right near the end, I got another much-appreciated boost because Jesi and the Chestershire Cat waited around a bit for me and cheered me home.

The rain started right after I finished. A great IPA from a local brewery finished off the race experience. Yum. And I never would have done this race except that Chestershire Cat suggested it. I'm glad I did it.
Everyone we knew who were racing had fun.
Plus, the race was small enough that, even though I didn't have a stellar time, I still got 2nd in my age group. Yay!
I coughed the whole time because of asthma but it never got too bad. The only negative in the race was the burrito we ate the day before the race. It hit me again at around mile 12. Ugh! Good idea for a hang-over, bad idea for race-day priming!