America's Finest City Half Marathon

A recipe for disaster
I pulled into the parking lot at about 5:20 am. It was a little tighter than I had originally planned since the final bus takes off at 6 am. I was watching the IAAF Worlds and sort of lost track of time. I was able to find my friends in the starting area which was nice. I wore my old Asics DS Trainer 11, my "peppermint shoes". I wanted to log at least a sub 2 hr half marathon in those shoes before I retire them. Well I kind of knew before the gun went off that today was going to be a hard day. I had run a hard marathon last weekend and my breathing was labored in my shakeout run the day before. But that didn't stop me from going out hard from the start which ultimately led to a rather painful grind for most of the race.

My Goals:
A: sub 1:50
B: sub 1:55
C: sub 2:00

First 10k
I ran out as hard as I could with the idea of trying to maintain a 8 min/mile pace which is faster than what I normally run. That was ok for the first 3 miles. But the huge downhill on mile 4 really done me in. My right hamstring started tightening up. Apparently it had not recover from last weekend's romp on the Extraterrestrial highway. Since I have my birthday 50k run coming up next weekend, I backed off on the pace. Periodically I would speed up to test it, but the hamstring said no. No means no and thus began the slow grind. Even though things were coming apart pretty early in the race, I'm glad that I'm still able to run some sub 8 min miles.
1 - 7:44
2 - 8:01
3 - 7:52
4 - 7:29
5 - 8:57
6 - 8:49
6.2 - 50:51

The rest
I was losing my legs really fast. I tried to regroup and speed up, but the only thing that happened was my left hip started to give out on me. It became increasingly harder for me to put weight on that leg, so once again I backed off on the pace. I did some quick math to make sure I get in under 2 hrs. I never had to work so hard just to come in under 2 hrs. After I climbed the 6th avenue hill, I saw my friend Ryan. I was able to muster up a faster pace and ran for the finish line. Good thing my left hip and right hammie allowed me to finish strong.
7 - 9:01
8 - 9:32
9 - 9:25
10 - 9:39
11 - 9:58
12 - 10:36
13.1 - 10:15 (9:19 pace)
13.1 - 1:57:25

Post race thoughts
Wow, that was not fun. Well... being at a race and seeing my friends was fun. The grind from mile 5 to the finish was rather demoralizing... definitely a "gun-to-the-head" experience. I felt like I was giving a piggyback ride to a small child. I need to be a little more wise on when I decide to run an aggressive race. I was begging for an injury running faster than I've ran in a while as well as coming off of a hard marathon. I really thought that I might have had to drop out when my left hip was dying on me. Oh well, I hope I saved enough of my legs for next week's 50k romp through the mountain of gold!