I'm a little behind on posting my last few race reports. I ran the Tom Walker Memorial Half Marathon on December 1, 2012, just a few weeks before attempting my first marathon.

This race was a Florida Track Club event and this year the FTC provided pace groups. The two ladies leading the 1:30 pace group (Meredith DeFranco and Stephanie McGrail) are some of my training buddies, so my plan was to stick with the pace group for the first half of the race and then push it in to see how far under 1:30 I could get.

Here is the 1:30 pace group early in the race:


Photo by Florida Track Club

I followed my race plan and came through with a nice personal best!

Coming through the finish line:


Photo by Florida Track Club

I left everything out on the course that day. Here is the face of an all-out effort:


Photo by Florida Track Club

I placed 5th overall and 2nd in my age group (identical standings to last year!), with a time of 1:26:04 (average pace per mile 6:34). This is 3 minutes 47 seconds faster than last year's race!

Full results posted here: http://www.milestoneraceauthority.com...-marathon/

It really was a beautiful Sunny Florida day with blue skies and fall colors:



Here is the race t-shirt, my Inov-8 Bare-X Lite 150 shoes (still my favorite for road racing), finisher medal, and age-group award cup: