race recap: Des Moines Marathon
I'm super late in posting this. My tardiness speaks to my level of exhaustedness (is that a word?) and evidence that I ran my buns off, resulting in a 13 minute PR. Pre-race, chilly and nervous It was pretty cold that morning and when I got to the starting corral, they were all but empty. I went to stretch and warm up inside a nearby building where other runners were waiting, thinking that I could just hop into the corral right before the start. I ended up waiting a bit too long and the corrals were packed by the time I got out there. I actually ended up standing outside of the corral and had to make my way up to the 3:30 group over the first two miles. The half marathoners started with us so it was pretty crowded until mile 3 where they split off from us. The course for us heading straight up a long, gradual hill where I just concentrated on maintaining an even effort and didn't worry so much about pace. In my original race plan, I had wanted to stay with the 3:3