Marshall Half Marathon

Went to Huntington WV with Kelly and Tiffany to do the Marshall Half Marathon this morning. I was very glad to have that extra hour of sleep last night as Kelly got here at 5:20am. I ate a Panera Bagel and brought a banana for the road in case I wanted it before the race but didnt. We got parked with just a few minutes to spare before the 7am start time; however, they were behind and it didnt actually start until about 7:15. It was a chilly morning-only 32 degrees and I warm up so fast but kept saying I would be done in just over 2 hours and at that time its only going to be 40 so I did wear long sleeves and a running jacket....I had to remove the jacket and tie it around my waist at mile 2. I was hoping to be able to potty and could tell I was going to have to at some point before this race was over....I really hate to have to stop on the course when duty calls but it happens. I've only done this race once and it was it's second year back in 2005...I did it as a relay with Chris, Ginny and I...I remember only a portion of the course cause I only did about 4 or so miles of the relay cause I was having shoulder surgery the next morning. I do remember it being a pretty boring course and not many spectators....this held true 6 years later! I started thinking I could go to the bathroom at around mile 6 but didnt see any potties. Some other girls running next to me start discussing they too needed to go and we were all on the look out. I almost ran across the road to a gas station and thought that would take to much time so I kept trucking along. Around mile 7 we came to a bike/run trail but it wasnt paved...it was a light gravel sand and actually I liked it. As we approached down below I noticed one loan Porta Potty....At this point I was gonna race these other gals to the potty cause I definitely wasnt going to wait for 2 people to finish and who knew if there was already a line...I got there and there wasnt a line I debated whether to stop my garmin but at this point I had been running around a 9:30-9:41 pace and thought no I wanna see what my race time is and I knew if I kept the average below 9:58 I would PR and beat Columbus time. I had my Garmin set up to tell me overall pace on the screen and at each mile it would tell me the mile pace. I went quickly but not to my expectations, the other girls were waiting outside and I came out pulling my pants up as I opened the door. Off I went and I knew I had a little time to make up cause my watch now took my 6 mile pace down from 9:40 to a 9:52. You could tell the temps got colder here also..I am wondering if its because we were running next to a small stream...it was cool enough that I had to put my gloves back on. I went pretty hard for that mile to make up time and I think it overall averaged that mile at 10:16....I prolly did close to a 9 min mile there and I payed for it the next 2 cause my actually mile pace slowed down around 10:16 or so for the next 2 miles. When I got to mile 10 I told myself only a 5K to go...lets get this....now my overall average was staying steady at 9:51 so I knew I would be super close to a PR if I pushed a little harder for the next couple miles and I did. I ended with a time of 2:09:07. Kelly and Tiffany were already done...they are super fast! I grabbed a half of a banana and saw Tiffany with a diet pepsi and that looked good so I grabbed one of those. We headed to the car and grabbed some dry clothes and went inside the rec center to change and headed home. I dont think this would ever be a course I would chose to run a full on except if I ever decide to go for the 50 states club it is probably one of the flatter courses in WV but boring!