Georgetown Half Marathon 2012

As in 2011, this year I paced the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon, this time the 2:05 runners with my friend Todd.  We had a good-sized group of runners with us at the start, and I'm glad to say that most of them stayed with us for the first 10k of the race.  By the halfway point, that number was down to about 8.  As we increased slightly for the next few miles, before pulling back again in the last 5k, some of those runners pulled ahead of us and some fell behind.

Todd and I were exactly on pace for the entire race, according to our respective GPS watches.  I was pleased by this, since we both had different kinds of watches--I have a Garmin, and Todd was using a new Polar.  Every couple of miles, I would double-check with him, and our respective distance markers were exactly the same.  We were also in line with the mile markers on the course, which was a nice improvement over last year when that was not the case (the only mile marker that was off this year was the 8-mile, which was at 8.25 on the course).

As we ran, I counted on Todd (who paces the 4-hour group in Runner's Edge) to keep us honest pacewise, while I took it upon myself to try to entertain those who were running with us.  I didn't keep up a running commentary for 13.1 miles--not enough wind for that--but I like to think my occasional observations, jokes, and trivia provided either a distraction or some entertainment for the runners who were with us.  Coming in to the last half mile, I thanked those runners within earshot for joining Todd and me on the journey, and putting up with my speechifyin'.

The weather for today's race was pretty much perfect:  slightly cloudy and cool as we started, with a fairly steady breeze through most of the race.  The sun really only came out for a few miles late in the race, and was considerate enough to disappear behind some clouds as we entered Idaho Springs.

Official Time: 2:05:06
YTD Race Miles: 78.4
YTD Total Miles: 881.7
"Run Forest Run": This was scrawled on the road in Gtown, courtesy of Clear Creek High's Cross Country team.  I decided it was either a misspelling of a movie quote, or a sly reference to Fangorn Forest from The Lord of the Rings.  Naturally, I prefer this more nerdly explanation.