Worcester Half Marathon

Today was the Worcester Half Marathon and my first half Marathon ever. 14 weeks of training and now it was time to test out Mr. Hal Higdon's training guide. My friend Michele and I spent the night in Worcester last night and our friend Gail was meeting us this morning. It rained all day yesterday and all night last night and when we woke up this morning it was foggy, breezy and drizzly. While I do love the sun, it seemed like this would be good weather to run in. We were got up at 6:15 and slowly got going. I ate my toast with almond butter and Nutella, drank some water and waited for Gail to arrive. Gail finally arrived and we walked over to the race start arriving at 7:45 for the 8 am start. The gun went off and we started. Michelle runs faster than Gail and me so she went ahead. Gail and I took our time starting out, but when we realized our pace was 9:30 we knew we needed to pick it up a bit and that we did.
Mile 1 8:58
Mile 2 8:33
Mile 3 8:31
Mile 4 8:57
Mile 5 8:30
Mile 6 8:37
Mile 7 8:16
Mile 8 8:28
Mile 9 8:29
Mile 10 8:45
Mile 11 8:30
Mile 12 8:09
Mile 13 8:06
Mile .19 1:27

Our final time 1:52:20. My goal was to finish under 2 hours and that we did. I was so excited!

Now a little bit about the route. The hill at mile 3 was horrible. It went straight up and then turned and then went up again and then turned and went up again. There were many rolling hills and between mile 9 1/2 and 10 1/2 there was another hill that just went kind of forever. The last mile was so flat that it seemed as though it would never end.

Tons of water stops, tons of port o potties and the Worcester Police were out in full force to keep the course safe. All in all I would say it was a great race and I look forward to doing it again next year.