City to the Sea

I ran the City to the Sea half marathon this past Sunday.  I was hoping to run a bit faster, but ultimately I am pretty happy with my time of 01:40:41. I'm not very sore and feel like I'm in a good place for the Santa Clarita Marathon on November 6th. The course was a fast, mostly downhill one with plenty of volunteers stocking the aid stations.  I typically start pretty slow.  Last year at the Santa Clarita half my first mile was around 9 minutes but my average pace ended up being 7:37.   I wanted to get out a bit faster for this race so  I didn't have as large deficit to over come later in the race.  I ran my first mile in 7:16 and eventually settled into a comfortable 7:30ish pace.  Between miles 5-9 the course got a little hilly, and I fell off the pace a bit.  Around mile ten, it flattened out again and my pace picked back up. I missed the 11 mile marker but my pace for the last 1.1 miles was back in the 7:30 range.  My overall pace ended up being 7:41.