Just Did It! Nike Women's (half) Marathon

Race day - hooray! I missed race days - the adrenaline, the pain, and the enjoyment of plowing through a giant breakfast after a good run. Today was the Nike Women's Marathon and Half - I had signed up for the full, but opted for the half due to lack of training.

I wound up running 1:37:56 (last year I ran 1:37:27 which was my PR). Going into the race I had no clue how fast, or slow, I'd run - I haven't run further than 6-miles in the past 9-months.

Here's what I learned:

• I need to learn to pace - I started with 6:30 min miles, then went to 8s on the hills, and averaged out at ~7:30s
• Drinking water and running doesn't work for me - I nearly choked at every water stop
• Familiar faces are AWESOME on runs! About half way through when I was questioning if I should "really be doing this" I saw Molly, a good friend from TIBCO, and felt totally invigorated to finish it out (I didn't even know Molly would be there - it was terrific)
• Cow bells are really kind of annoying in mass at mile 11
• Drinking coffee 10min before the race ... mistake
• Sleep is golden - last night I went to bed at 9, only to rise at midnight and then 3:30am for the boys, then up again at 5:30am to prep, and out the door at 6:10
• There are no taxis in SF at 6:10am - I had thought I could cab it to the start - nope! I wound up walking 1.2 miles there - not bad actually, it was a good warm up

All in all, I'm pretty happy. Sore. Tired. And happy. I can't wait for my next race ... and I don't have to wait long! Healdsburg half on 10/31, here I come!
Update - results!
The Nike half marathon results are in and updated - I came in 11th in my age group (out of 2065), and am ranked 53rd (out of 13,439). Had this been one week later (on the 25th - aka, my 30th birthday (eek!)) I would have come in 8th in my age group! The 30s are going to be great, I think ...