Race recap: Martian Half

Pre-race
The kiddo and I flew into Detroit on Friday night. Landing after 6pm, I was focused on getting out of the airport ASAP so we could go pick up my race packet. I got into ODP's car to discover that he'd picked it up for me; I was sad to miss the Expo but so relieved that it was in-hand and we could just go eat dinner. We headed to his place for a yummy pasta dinner with the fam. And to take this picture. Just so there's no question here, this is K-dot flipping off my shirt (which I only own to spite her) and I'm wearing a ribbon that I pulled off their birthday present to me and put in my hair to be silly.

It took a while to get the kids settled into their sleeping arrangement, and not long after, we all headed to bed for the night. I had everything all laid out so morning went pretty smoothly. Just a few minutes behind schedule, ODP, the kiddo and I were off to the start line, thanking God for the glorious weather! It didn't take long to find The Redhead, decked out in signage and sparkle as promised. She had an awesome goody bag put together for the meet-up. I'm ganking her pic from pre-race.

I pre-Gu'ed and headed to the start line with ODP and the kiddo there to see me off.

Miles 1-4
After reading good reviews online, I'd decided to use a Pace Band for this race, since, as I'd told Meg, I was going to audibly cuss if I didn't break 2 hours. Using their modified warm-up strategy, I forced myself to take it easy in the first and even second miles, settling into the race. I totally looked like a newbie with the pace band though, manically checking my left wrist to read the band and my right wrist to read my Garmin.
mile 1: 9:13
mile 2: 9:03
mile 3: 8:57
mile 4: 8:58

Miles 5-8
The pace wasn't supposed to vary much since the course was pretty flat. So I held the pace and attacked the rolling hills and felt awesome. My Garmin kept chirping away at each mile marker. Well before the turn-around I started seeing the fastest runners coming back toward us, which is fun. There were some hoots and hollers of encouragement when the first chick passed us coming back. Then this happened:
Mile 6--Garmin chirped, ran past mile marker
Mile 7--Garmin chirped
Me: "Huh, I must have missed the mile marker."
About 0.3m later, the mile marker.

I had no idea what had happened. I couldn't figure out how I'd lost more than a quarter mile between miles 6 and 7. I thought maybe the mile 7 marker was misplaced, but when markers 8 and 9 came 0.3 later than my Garmin, I was just confused. And a little worried. If I was off 0.3 miles, then I was also off pace by just shy of 3 minutes, and how in the world was I going to make that up?
mile 5: 8:55

mile 6: 9:00 (Gu)

mile 7: 8:49

mile 8: 8:44

Miles 9-12

I kept running sub-9 minute miles and I kept feeling great! I couldn't believe how easily the miles were ticking by and how much energy I still had. I had a brief moment of fatigue around mile marker 11. I backed off a few seconds then found I was ready to attack all over again. After that moment passed, I knew the remaining distance was short enough that if I felt good, I should just go for it!

mile 9: 8:41

mile 10: 8:38 (the extra 0.3 on my Garmin is in here somewhere, I'm just not copying it)

mile 11: 8:46

mile 12: 8:45

Last 1.1

I felt great! I kept looking at the total time on my Garmin, sort of in disbelief that I was going to finish under 2 hours even though I'd somehow tacked on an extra 0.3 miles. Thinking of all the times I'd envisioned finishing this race this way--under pace, in gorgeous weather, feeling great, and thrilled. 

mile 13: 8:19

mile 13.1: (0.12 actually), 50 seconds, or 6:51 pace

About that extra distance

The turn-around was in the wrong place! I wasn't crazy--the race really did measure 13.4 miles. Race officials are handling this appropriately and will issue adjusted finishing times soon. 

All the stats

Gun time: 1:59:39

Chip time: 1:58:37

My totally unofficial adjusted 13.1 time: 1:55:56, a 10:13 PR.  

Overall place: 624/1836

Age/gender division: 33/136

Post-race

The Blogger/DM meet-up was a blast. I got to meet some new people and some people whose journeys I've followed online for a while, including my bloggy friend and co-conspirator for the Martian Invasion in the first place, Jess!

The trip home

This morning. The kiddo was tired. I was tired. We were both a little cranky. It was not fun. So why mention it? Because just after we got home, ODP called asking if I had his....wait, let me look, oh I did, how did that get there? Seriously?!?

His keys. Car keys. House keys. Office keys. All his keys. Hitched a ride to MO in my purse. One overnight mail envelope to Detroit, please!