Fool's Dual Half Marathon

Ellen and I ran the Yukan Run Fool's Dual Half Marathon in Gloucester today. This was a free entry we earned from volunteering at the half marathon last December.

It was a cold day (high 30s at race start) and the course is not an easy one - up and down hills the entire way - although it is not as bad as Yukan's Triple Threat course. Here is the Elevation Profile:

Fool's Dual Elevation Profile

I wasn't running hills training for the Myrtle Beach Marathon, and it wasn't until last week that I was fully recovered from the marathon, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Things weren't looking so good the first few miles as up through mile 5 I could really feel the hills and I was well off my typical half marathon pace. Finally in mile 6 I began to feel comfortable and felt stronger as the race went on. I managed to negative split the race and run my fastest mile at 13:

1.   7.56
2.   8:03
3.   8:10
4.   8:10
5.   8:27
6.   8:08
7.   8:19
8.   7:44
9.   8:05
10. 7:59
11. 7:59
12. 7:53
13. 7:38
13.1 1:48

Interestingly, the 1:46:18 I ran today is only about 3 minutes faster than I ran the first half at Myrtle Beach - but that was flat and better weather. Ellen hasn't been able to train a lot lately and ran 2 hours plus.