You feel great, it's a piece of cake!

And so was my mantra during the Nike Women's 1/2. Which was partially a lie because the terrain was a bit tough from mile 6-10 (and I say tough lightly, considering Keira ran 100 miles this same weekend on a seriously tough trail), and then my mind started to try and convince me otherwise after mile 10.
The hotel room was only a couple blocks away from the start, so I left around 6:25 a.m., and Jessica was supposed to leave at 7 a.m. to meet me at the 3 mile mark. I stretched for about 15 minutes, and it was a great idea. My knees really didn't start hurting until the 6 hour drive home. By myself. Thanks Jessica. (kidding - I'm sooo glad you went to the race with me :) ) The race started at 7 a.m, but I didn't get to the starting line until about 7:17 a.m. Then my Garmin wasn't receiving a signal in the city, so I thought I was going to have to pace myself based on my time alone. Bummer. Then we got out by the bay and it came back on so I was happy. I looked for Jessica at mile 3, but we somehow missed each other. She found a friend and ran with her, so it was all good! We ran past Alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge, and the rest of the race was a blur. Except the 6th mile, which was a big hill. The whole mile. It turned out to be my slowest mile at 10:43. And I'm no slouch at hills, but phew. They just kept coming! It was hilly from 6-10, and then it flattened out and boy was I glad. It was going to be tight for me to break 2 hours, so I tried to haul it whenever I could to make up for lost time from a couple slower miles. So I ran and ran and ran and my final time was..................
1:56:25!!!!! Yay for 2 PRs in 2 consecutive weeks! And for the Tiffany's finisher necklace :)
My fastest mile was actually mile 11 - 7:58, my average was 8:53. I placed 668 out of 12196 people :)
And now it's time for surgery on Thursday... dun dun dun!!! Hopefully I'll only be out for a couple weeks - I have the OC 1/2 to train for :)

Pointing to my name on the NikeTown wall of names.