Chilly Half Marathon Race Report

The Chilly Half lead me through my Alma Matter neighborhoods where I used to run as a college student. It's a very pretty, upscale area that also happens to be right next to the Boston Marathon hills. Yes, we did indeed get to run the Boston Marathon hills in the direction you would least expect.  DOWN them. Yup, right down Heartbreak Hill and the other two smaller hills sitting just in front of the infamous Heart Break Hill. Despite this fact this race was more uphill than downhill.

Met up with Dan, Tracey and John (GNRCers) at Vellos and off we went. This is the crew just before the race. Dan and Tracey ran together and poor John's leg cramped up at mile 8.  

The day was fabulous. Yesterday had been a complete washout but today was smiling on us with clouds and just a spit of rain towards the end of the run. I got to wear, on November 15th, a singlet and shorts.

Within the past two weeks I started second guessing myself and I was not sure if my original plan of 7:05s was going to be to difficult to achieve. I didn't feel very confident since my cross training had been way down. So I decided that my goal would be to run just under 1:35 (7:15s) . This would be equal to my performance at Bay State last October on a flat course. I figured I could be happy with that. Such a wimp hu?

Soon after I started running I realized that I felt good and went back to my original plan of 7:05s. Even with the hills I still felt strong and was so glad I had trained on hills. The hills in this race didn't leave me staggering and sloppy. I was able to pick up the pace after I reached the top.

I went for the gusto today and came away very very happy. I PRd with a 1:33:25. (7:08s) Good enough for 5th woman overall/361 and 1st in my age group/96.  In the end I was MORE THAN PLEASED

After the race I met up with Mrs. Rosginol. Just like the ski. She came in just before me. She was nice and her husband has a bike repair shop right at their home in NH. She said he is also an artist.

In other news at this race some young stud (very cute) came up to me at the finish line and thanked me for "Saving his race".. I'm not sure exactly what that means. I can imagine that he probably used me as his pacer. This happens to me quite frequently actually. I have been told that I am a good pacer. Great.

This day was absolutely perfect. Started out with a PR, had time to walk my dog, had some quality time with Kathy.  To top it off we had an excellent steak for dinner with these tiny little gold potatoes that I roasted with onions.