Great race! But . . .

My goal was 1:45 and I started next to the pacer and ran near him most of the way. I would lose a bit of ground at the water/Gatroade stations, but would get back up (without sprinting) as soon as I could. I did not try to run right next to him or right on his heles, but to stay within about 12 - 15 feet. I was also watching 3 other ladies who wanted to run the same pace.

The course was a gradual uphil from about mile 3.5 to 8.5 (100' elevation agin), but then became steeper to mle 9. I was losing ground on the hill, but when we hit a turn-around and started back downhiil, I could increase my pace and I gained about half the distance back (I was maybe 15 seconds behind after being at least :30 behind). Then it was just trying to continue to gain ground, but there was at least ome more short hill, but I could still see the pacer ahead of me and my watch read around 1:34 as I went by the 12-mile marker, so I knew it would not take me another 10 minutes to finish.

My finish time was 1:44:00! My Garmin watch time was 1:43:56 and ditance was 12.91 (and I know watches and official/certified measurements are always off). So I was feeling GREAT! But then I had some dry heaves and finally lost all of the fluids and shot blosks I'd consumed on the course and hte medical people took me to a tent to recover (whihc didn't take long, I was mostly exhausted rather than having any heat problems).

But tonight, when I was looking for more complerte results than the ones texted to me, I found news stories that the course was actually short by about 940 yards. Between miles 9 and 10, there was an out-and-back along one road and they had the turn-around in the worng place. They did not realize this until at least 1:30 into the race (I went by the 10-mile mark at 1:19 according to the timing mat). So now I'm really upset becasue I wanted to use 1:44 for my half marathon time to register for NYC 2020 (they accept some entrants who have met the AG standards at non-NYRR half marathons). I ran 1:46 at Eugene last year, but hoped a 2:00 imporvement would be more readily accepted.

Based on my Garmin overall average pace (8:03), I calculated my finish time was closer to 1:45:27 - assuming I could have held that for another 940 yards.