St. Charles Half Marathon! Wow, in a last min decision I signed up for the Inaugural St. Charles 1/2 Marathon (just signed up last Friday!) over in Waldorf, MD! The race director was kind enough to include our fliers in the race packets, and I voluteered yesterday as well. I got up this morning and headed over following two days of Betsy being sick, three nights with a complete lack of sleep and very little training, and stretched out to get ready. I felt pretty rough, but finally got myself together and got going. Started off at about a 7:30 min/mile pace, then settled into a pace just under 8:00 min/mile. IT WAS COLD!!! IT WAS WINDY!!! Miles 4-7 and 9-11 were straight into the wind, making it really cold and really rough going, but my pace never slowed to below an 8:09 min/mile. The course was great, relatively flat with a few deceptively long grades and hills, with a nice detour through a park on a dirt single track which gave a great change of scenery. Turning back onto Piney Church Lane, I could see a runner in front of me that I had been gaining on for a while steadily. In one of my first triathlons ever I didn't give that last ditch effort towards the end, only to find out that the guy that I could have caught was third in my age group, leaving me out of the awards, I always remember that that is what happens when you don't give every ouce you have, so I wasn't going to do that this time. I steadily caught up on him bit by bit over the last two miles, but never quite caught him. A cool side note though, the race actually finished at Home Plate of the Blue Crabs Stadium! However, I did give everything I had left, so I was quite pleased with the result. Overall I finished in 1:44:05 for a 7:57 min/mile pace, coming in 21st place (out of 251) and 2nd in my age group (out of 20)! Not too bad all things considered! I think I might try to work on my half marathon time this season, I have been trying to figure out what to focus on this year and this seems like a good choice. Either that or getting my 5k time down below 20 min. Maybe both!