This was the first year for our group to act as pacers for this race, so there was definitely the possibility of a make-it-up-as-we go attitude. Fortunately Coach Manthey had it pretty well wired: he'd ordered pace bands for each of us, plus we all had our Garmins, so we would know exactly how fast to run each mile. My co-pacer for this race was Lynn, with whom I had trained for my summer race. I was confident that we'd be able to hold the pace we needed to finish in 2 hours and 10 minutes--and that Lynn would be able to hold me back from going too fast, which I sometimes have a tendency to do.
In fact the first three miles were almost exactly on pace (despite my shooting right out of the gate and pushing the pace for the first quarter mile before Lynn was able to rein me in). The next few miles, however, picked up some serious time, so that by the halfway point we were about two minutes ahead of schedule. Lynn was a fantastic cheerleader, whooping it up as we finished each mile with words of encouragement. I tried to match her enthusiasm, but was honestly fretting too much over keeping myself on pace. That's something I'll have to work on before running the Denver Rock N Roll Half in October.
Funny story: there were two young guys who ran with us as we went under the arch that marked the 10k split. Why the arch was at 10k instead of the halfway point I don't quite know; but these guys thought it was the halfway point. So when they ran under it, they started belting out Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer," specifically the first line of the chorus: "Wo-oah, we're halfway there..." They were so enthused I felt kinda bad about raining on their parade by telling them that no, we were not quite yet halfway there.
We stayed pretty consistent with our pace for the second half of the race. We were still about 2 minutes ahead of where we should have been, but at least we weren't picking up any more time. In the last 5k, and especially the last mile, I really tried putting on the brakes, but not to the point that I was going to slow us to a walk. I figured at the worst, we'd be about 2 minutes ahead of our goal time, but there was no point in stopping to ensure a 2:09:59 finish exactly. After all, this was my first time pacing a race! And--honestly--there wasn't a big group of runners that had stuck with us the entire time. This was the first year Georgetown had ever had pacers, so I think a lot of the runners didn't know about us. Lynn and I had a few runners that started with us and fell back, a few that had started ahead of us whom we caught on the course, and a few runners that started with us and pulled ahead (including the two singers). But there were only a few that ran with us the entire time. And since they all finished under 2 hours and 10 minutes, I think they were happy. And I'm certianly proud of any inspiration or leadership that I may have provided along with Lynn during the race.
Official Time: 2:08:09
YTD Race Miles: 90.2
YTD Total Miles: 806.2
Sorry, Can't Stay: Right after the race, I had to drive to Lowry for an audition. I made it just as the director was about to leave. The good news is, I'm now appearing in Spotlight Theatre's Wait Until Dark! Get your tickets here...
