Fifth Third Riverbank Run

Hey Ladies, B here.  You know, Puddin's baby daddy.

Apparently AET told everyone I'd send out an update after this weekend's run, so here goes.  Since Puddin' seems remarkably comfortable in his/her personal hot tub of amniotic fluid and perfectly content to continue doing the in-belly backstroke and climbing on mama's ribs, I figured I'd go ahead and run the Fifth Third Riverbank Run here in The Rap (that's the local slang for Grand Rapids, all the cool kids are doing it).  I think AET has mentioned that I've been on a personal mission to run 1,000 miles in 2010, and I'm about a month ahead of the pace so far.  I didn't really train specifically for this race, but I was told this was the best race in town of the year, so I signed up for this:

Which has a course that looks like this:

And an elevation chart that looks like this:

Final result--- NAILED IT!!!

I've never run a half marathon or longer at a pace better than about 9:55/mile.  My time yesterday looked like this:

If you can't read the image above (I'm totally new to SnagIt), my final time was 2:19:41 for a 25k (approx 15.5 miles).  I have no idea why the powers that be in the GR running sene decided to do a 25k instead of a half marathon every year, but I look at it like a "half marthon plus a little extra."

That time equates to a pace of 8:59.  I've officially taken a full minute off my per mile pace from any other half marathon I've done (4 before this, plus last year's Chicago Marathon).

Felt great all day.  The weather was cold and crappy, which is perfect for setting a personal record on a race course.  I knew I wanted to take advantage of the downhill grade at the beginning of the course, but never really had to pull up and slow down, which made for just about perfect execution of the race.  My cousin was only 1:40 behind me, which was also a great finish for her.  I'm really proud of how hard she has worked over the last few months to get ready for this. 

A friend took a few photos afterwards, so if I can get them emailed to me or pull them off of FB in the next few days, I'll try to post them too.  If it that doesn't happen pretty soon, I have a feeling I will be posting about something else and something much more exciting the next time we chat.

So thanks to all you runner girls out there who have been encouraging through your comments, etc.  They help.