BIG SUR HALF MARATHON Well, I am unsure what to think of this performance. I know I'm upset with it but not sure how upset I should be. It's certainly not a fast course and nowhere near a PR course. It's rolling hills the entire time. You are never running flat. It was also windy once you got out on the coast. I was really mad with my time until I saw some of the struggles of the faster guys. It seemed like if you had a good day and a group to work with today you were roughly a minute back of your PR. If you had a bad day and were running solo you were 2-3 minutes off your PR. The field was ridiculously stacked, with like eight guys with 1:03 or faster PRs. I was ranked 13th with my 1:05:16 and finished 13th. The race takes very good care of the elites. They fed us last night and have another dinner set up tonight. It was interesting to listen to some of the faster guys at dinner. I sat at a table with Ben Bruce, Ian Burrell, Sergio Reyes, David Laney, and Fernando Cabado. Yeah I lost to all of them in the race. They shuttled us to the elite warm up area an hour before the race. I warmed up about 45 minutes before the start with Ian Burrell and Jeremy Freed. After I got a few bathroom visits in and then did some strides and was ready to go. Temps were 55 degrees, overcast, and typical early morning ocean fog and humidity. Wind was somewhat calm at the start and so I was very surprised to turn at 8 into a strong headwind. The race got off on time to the second and the field went out fast, likely high 4:30s. I let them go and ran by myself in 4:59. I was in like 20th at the mile. I kept the same pace in mile two although it's a tougher mile that drops down into a tunnel and then climbs back out on the other side (like running an overpass only you go down under a road first and then up). Mile 2 was also 4:59 (splits are Garmin which measured course very long in 13.33). Mile three I tried to just keep rolling at the same pace. I finally passed the first woman in mile three! She was the winner today in 1:11 and also won Grandma's Marathon in June in 2:26. I also moved up to 13th place where I would stay the rest of the race, running the whole race solo. Mile 3 4:57. Mile four has the beast hill that gains 100 feet. I was gaining on Laney and wanted to try and catch him on the hill, thinking he would be tired from going out too fast. So I pushed the pace on the hill and hit a 5:06 split. Coming down in mile five I hit 4:49. Now we hit the out and back section on the coast. You have to stay to one side of the road. This is where the Garmin really got off from the mile markers, which makes me wonder if it was certified using the full road. Because it is extremely curvy. I had closed the gap to like ten seconds on Laney but stopped making ground here. We were basically running the same pace from here until almost the end. These were very lonely miles. Laney was the only runner I could see. Miles 6-8 were 5:01 5:05 5:08. At 8 you do a 180-degree turn and are hit hard with some wind. My pace dropped ten seconds per mile immediately. Nothing happened really from 9-12. Laney stayed 15-20 seconds up and I chased. We seemed to slow on the same sections as the gap remained very even. Miles 9-12 5:19 5:07 (I tried to surge back to pace here but this mile was HARD with the wind and hills) 5:14 5:16. Doing math with a mile to go I got pretty depressed, especially with my watch being almost a quarter mile ahead of the mile markers. I was broke mentally and somewhat physically. But I tried to salvage what would technically still be an un-aided PR. Mile 13 was 5:14 and the last 0.33 I ran in 1:35 for a 1:07.53. I knew I wasn't in top shape coming in. It's something I can just sense even if workouts still look ok. Maybe it's cumulative fatigue. But I still thought I could break 1:07 here despite the tough course. Oh well, it was fun and certainly one of the most scenic races I'll ever run. There was a lot of talk this weekend about the course record going down. It's "only" 1:02.3x. But with a couple 1:01 guys in the field it held again. The elite coordinators say every year people think they can beat what they perceive as a weak record and every year it stands. I can understand why. Results: Jacob Chemtai 1:02:44 Nelson Oyugi 1:02:50 Aissa Dghoughi 1:03:20 Fernando Cabado 1:03:25 Benson Cheruiyot 1:03:37 Ian Burrell 1:03:57 Ben Bruce 1:03:58 Stephen Furst 1:04:27 Geofrey Terer 1:04:39 (out of the money!) Sergio Reyes 1:05:52 Jeremy Freed 1:06:41 David Laney 1:07:27 Me....1:07:53 PM: 4.5 mile shakeout, first two by myself then ran into Ben Bruce and did the rest with him. | 
