Good Day along Buffalo Creek

This will be a little quick since the PSU game's halfway through the first quarter. Michigan's up 10-0....no wait, Royster big run up the middle it's now 10-7.

Things went well today at the half marathon. It was a little chilly (low 40's), but I ended up feeling pretty comfortable with shorts, an "underarmor" long sleeve, and gloves. My cousin Karen joined me for the race and Beth met us at the finish line.

Like the Great Race, this was a net downhill course. I like those! The first 1.7 miles was on the roads, the next 7 miles were on a crushed limestone "rails to trails" and the final mile is on the roads into Freeport.

I was shooting for 6:10 pace and ended up at 6:02 pace, running a 1:19:07, finishing 11th overall out of 300, 10th male (1 woman that ended up in the 1:18's that passed me with about 1.5 miles to go), and first in my 30-34 age group. I'll have to post a link to the official results when the come up.

Here's the splits:

1 - 5:36 (road + downhill = oops, but I felt under control)

2 - 6:06; 11:42 (part road/part trail, but flat)

3 - 5:52; 17:34

4 - 5:55; 23:29

5 - 5:58; 29:27

6 - 5:50; 35:17 (started the downhill)

7 - 5:47; 41:04

8 - 6:05; 47:09

9 - 6:00; 53:09

10 - 6:10; 59:19

11 - 6:09; 1:05:28

12 - 6:26; 1:11:54 (kind of hit the wall)

13 - 6:36; 1:18:30 (a little uphill part into "town"...really hit the wall...nobody behind me...1st female long gone already...no chance to catch her)

13.1 - 0:37; 1:19:07

So, that's about it. I'll leave you with a couple of photos and I'm going back to the PSU game. 2nd quarter and they're now down 17-7 and just had to punt. Ugh! In some ways, PSU is beating themselves, but Michigan is just controlling the line of scrimmage. Maybe the D-Line concerns I had are catching up to them today. PSU may just have to outscore them today.

Beth shot this one of the Allegheny River near the finish line in Freeport, PA. She realized that she could maybe swim in the open water next summer. It seemed pretty controlled.

Me eating a bagel after the race (I know it looks like I'm picking my nose, but I'm not). Notice that I brought my "game face" with the beard. It was essentially from last week when we had last Thursday off (Yom Kippur - there's a larger Jewish population in the community) and Friday was an in-service day (no kids). So, with the weekend, I decided to let the facial hair grow, calling it a "playoff beard" for cross country season.

My cousin, Karen and I. We were both 1st in our age group. Karen was 7th female overall (1:31:xx).

Okay, let's get it going Lions!!!