Cambridge Half

Today was the second annual cambridge half.  Early start and rain made me a little nervous heading down - but things went pretty smooth.  Parking was easy and registration was fast - so i sat in the car for a while and avoided getting wet.  It was raining all morning and rained in the starting chute and pretty much the whole race.  They start in waves.  They actually had a sub 1:30 wave.  I thought that was a bit weird - it accounts for less than 5% of the field - why bother? 

Anyway - I had to wait about 20 minutes in the rain at the start - but felt pretty good once we got moving.  I went out a bit fast - but dialed it back since I've been sick for the last 5 days - and wasn't really sure how much I was going to have in the tank.  I tried to run about 7:20s, but was a going a little slower than that: 7:14, 7:24, 7:22, 7:24, 7:29, 7:28.  Realizing I was going too slow, I made an effort to pick things up and was going pretty good for the next few miles: 7:21, 7:12, 7:15 - but couldn't really maintain that the last 4 miles: 7:23, 7:29, 7:21 and 7:34.

Overall I feel this was an opportunity lost, but I'm somewhat satisfied with the result anyway.  My initial goal was 7:30 (or under) - and my paces were set off of that.  I felt pretty good through October and lowered that goal to 7:20 - and lowered it again after a great 10k - thinking i would defenatly go below 7:20 - but that may not have been realistic.  Factoring in being sick last week - i'm pretty lucky to have been able to pull this out and run as well as I did.  The time puts my projected marathon time at 3:24 (2xHMT + 10 minutes) - which will hit the qualifying mark - but miss actually qualifying - so a bit more work to do there.  Nevertheless - that 7:45 pacing should feel a bit easier after this effort.