Monster Dash was fun!

It was a chilly morning with quite a stiff breeze out of the
northwest. I would be running with a group of friends during the
race. My goal was 2:10-2:15 for the 1/2 Marathon.
We met up with at our friends apartment and we walked about 1/2 mile
to the race start. Burr!! That wind was right in our face! As we
were walking we came up to a port o potty that had no line. I mean how
can we not captialize on that opportunity on race morning? It was
good we did. There were 5000 people starting the races when we arrived
near the start.

The race start was crowded. About 2600 people were doing the half so
the first several miles were slow and crowded. A lot of people were
in costume and I kind of wished I would have worn something fun.
Maybe next year.

The first few miles i did were at a pace of 10:20. We were laughing
and having a good time with our friends. Around mile 2-3 we all
started to find our pace and seperate into seperate pace teams. I was
feeling good. My legs were doing what they should and the weather
looked like it was going to be a nice day. But that wind was still
something else!

Around mile 5 or 6 I started to feel really good so I decided to pick
up the pace. So I trotted off to find my groove. Around mile 7 I
realized that I was running with several pace teams that had their
pace times on their backs. I realized that most said 2:00 hours. I
thought that this was crazy since I had no intention of setting that
kind of pace. However since I found myself in this position I decided
to keep up my pace and see what would happen.

I slowed and walked through two water stops to grab some hydration.
This race had plenty of water stops and they also had some hammer gel
to hand out. I don't like hammer too much so I passed on it. My legs
were still feeling good at miles 9,10, and 11.  Mile 11.5 is where I started to feel a bit tired. I believe it to be
mostly due to my body temp. I was wearing three layers. One short
sleeve dry wick. One longsleeve dry wick. And one jacket. The jacket
does not breath well and trapped in alot of heat and sweat. I
unzipped it almost all the way and ran for a while which helped but
was a bit annoying.

The final 2 miles where a blur. I was tired, warm, and ready to be
done but I had to make sure I kept my pace up. I crossed the finish
line and recieved my "gnarly" belt buckle and needed some water ASAP.
I headed toward the food tent and got some goodies to munch on. As I
headed there I almost forgot to stop my watch. When I did it said
2:00:25.  I was thinking my watch stopped or something because I must have taken
longer that 2:00 hours to finish... Nope it did not stop. My offical
time was 1:59:07

I am pretty proud of that time. It was one of my better runs and it
helps keep me motivated to pick up some speed this off season.

Until next time,
Alex