Recap:
I was holding a phenomanal pace at mile 3 and wasn't working too hard. I felt good and was wondering how long I could hold that pace. I knew it wouldn't be for the whole 13.1, but I was feeling good.

I hit a huge hill at mile 5 that slowed me down, but regained. I can definitely tell that I haven't gotten a good bit of hill training in like I needed.

I watered up at mile 6 and was starting to slow a bit. I walked through the water stop taking in water and trying to calm down.

Through mile 8 I was holding my actual marathon pace of 9:30 and felt pretty good. The only downfall was that we were running along the sidewalks and there wasn't much shade. Oh well.

I hit mile 9 water stop and THEY RAN OUT OF WATER. The crew was picking cups off the ground and reusing them. I got about 1" worth of water in a very large 8oz solo cup. Not what I was counting on.

The lack of water was a blow to my mental state and the lack of water was affecting my running and I knew it.

At mile 10 I was working to keep it sub 10.

At mile 11-12, I was done. I was in survival mode of run/walk and even then it wasn't pretty. I dipped into a smaller park off course just to get a drink from a fountain.

At mile 12 we popped out of the trail and I could hear the crowd. Then, just as we saw them, we turned right - away from the crowd and had to do a very large loop around the campus. That didn't help.

At 12.5 or so, we turned downhill and I just went with what I had.

I finished in 2:09:01.

Sadly, there was a minor triage area setup for people to get IVs after finishing. Lots of people were laying around with ice on them under the trees. Several with IVs under the medical tent.

Run more. Run more high intensity. Not neglect the hills.

Walked through and grabbed two waters. Sadly the race didn't have any cold and only had MGD 64 on ice. Sorry, not what I wanted.

Tried to eat some of the BBQ but just couldn't get it down. Way overheated to eat.

Went to get a massage only to find out the 1 person doing massages had stopped taking people b/c she was booked out until 2pm. I didn't bother after that.


Heat. Lack of water. A lack of taper.


This course had 3 water stops. Mile 3, 6, 9. Mile 9 was out of water. They ran out of shirts and medals for finishers too.

There wasn't anything cold for refreshments afterwards except MGD64 which was not what my body wanted.

I was not impressed with what I got compared to what I paid for the race.

The course was good and the change of scenery was definitely nice. I enjoyed the mix of asphalt and gravel. I enjoyed the houses and the campus. I enjoyed seeing parts of Columbia that I haven't seen. I would definitely recommend the course again, but maybe not under the same conditions.