Sunday February 5th - 1/2 Marathon Race in Huntington Beach

I survived it. I was worried about my hip, but it didn't give me much trouble after the 2nd mile. Took mile 1 out in 9:54, which made me worried that since I haven't really run for 3 weeks, that it was too fast. The next few miles I set into a pace of about 10:30 I think, maybe a tad faster. Then I just got into my groove. I felt strong and my distance background I think really helped. At the halfway mark I felt really strong and started going faster and didn't even notice. Some how between mile 6 and 7 mile pacing dropped under 10 min miles. I was even strong going up hills passing people left and right. That pumped me up more and I worked those hills. Bad thing was I felt that pain as I reached each hill top, but recovered after about a minute. There weren't that many hills, but enough in one area. It was fun seeing friends pass me on the other side of the street and me to do the same. Some how even when I felt tired, my pace still stayed under 10 min miles.
Drew and I ran mile 1 together and then he took off. He ran his race with 6 mins running / 1 min walking the entire way but still buried me. But at mile 12 guess who I caught? So we basically ran the final mile together and totally pushed it. Definitely under 9 mins for that mile.
I finished the race unofficially by my watch at 2:11:24. If I figure that correctly, I think that is just :24 off of a 10min/mile pace! I sure negative split that race then because I know at 3 and 4 miles I was like at 31:30 and 41:44 or something like that. So if I repeat that for another 1/2 marathon, that puts me at about 4:22 for a marathon. With another month of training, I think that is possible. But who knows. Oprah is at 4:29. I do know that it will be difficult to repeat that pace another way through and therefore I won't be disappointed with my results. I have 3 goals here:

Goal #1 - Finish the Marathon....

Goal #2 - Finish under 5 hours

Goal #3 - Finish under 4:30...

So any of the above goals are fine, but Goal #3 would be awesome.