Newton Chilly Half
I made a last minute decision to run a local Half Mary this weekend. I needed to do an organized event before the OS kicks off.
The course is fairly hilly, and most of the climbing occurs in the first 8 miles. I made a few logistical errors in the morning, so I ended up needing to park about 0.5mi from the start, jogged to the line and arrived about 30 sec after the gun went off. This put me at the very back of the pack, but definitely kept me from getting cold before the start.
I was happy to see that my pace held fairly steady at 8:45 after the first mile, even though I could feel my legs getting tired at about mile 9, I need to push through a bit, since I'm sure my big weakness is my unwillingness to fight through the pain as I get tired.
I'll probably race one more before it gets too cold, but it was great to get back out and do a workout that wasn't on the treadmill. It was nice to see my fitness in pretty good form, but verified to me that I need to maintain one "long" run each week, year round to maintain my full endurance.