Detailed Marathon recap, before I forget! (Part 3 - Miles 9-15)

This is going to be the "boring" part of my recap. Miles 9 - 15 of the marathon stand out for one reason: they were boring.

Don't get me wrong, I am thankful for the crowds out cheering for us on this stretch of the course, but really, it was the least interesting part of the course, all building up to entering Manhattan at mile 16.

Miles 9-11 were tough because it was the first time that my knees started to hurt a little bit. It's also the time when I realized I probably wasn't going to be able to make 4 hours. At mile 10, we were supposed to increase our average pace to 9 min. per mile. This means the "windows" now became 8:50 - 9:10 per mile. Remember, I was supposed to stay within this window, but not stay on either side of 9:00 for more than 2 miles in a row. Well, unfortunately, I just could not get my pace under 9 minutes no matter how hard I tried, so I hovered closer to 9:10-9:15 for the next five miles. It was a bummer, but I wanted to be careful rather than forcing myself to speed up and pay for it later.

There was one exciting part of this portion of the race. While I didn't enjoy it very much, I'm sure you will find humor (or craziness) in the fact that I came upon a man (and blessedly eventually passed him) wearing this. IN THE MARATHON! Crazy.

Next!