Albany half marathon

Perfect weather and great course.  As flat as you can possibly get I imagine and fair support.  Easy finish line to watch and cheer people coming in. 

Logistics can't get any easier - sat in my car about 50 yards from the starting line and walked to the starting line after a little warmup.  Looped course so it was a 5 minute walk to get back to the car to change clothes after finishing.  670 half marathoners and 610 marathoners.  Winning marathon time was 2:34:33 - on a good day, Dave-O could win the thing!  1:10:32 took the half marathon.  

I set an official PR of 1:29:03 without any consistent training - basically ran it for fun and was happy with the result.  At mile 12.3 I felt like I had been shot in the left hamstring and almost pulled up.  Limped for about 200 yards and then it loosened back up and I finished feeling OK.  Actually felt like I could of ran faster but wasn't sure how to pace myself (negative split the race which is a good thing).  After a few days and some VERY easy running, swimming, cycling and rolling, the leg feels pretty good now.  

Good times, great race.  20% of runners Boston Qualified, which is awesome.  I always hope people have a good experience here and this year was about as good as it gets.  Cheers!

Way to go John.  1:29 without any specific training is great.

Congrats, John on an excellent race!  Sounds like the weather was pretty good too from my OH friends who ran the full and expected it to be warmer.

congrats on the pr.

Congrats John.
Sorry we didn't meet up.
Ran with a friend (50 states, <4); we ran 3:21.
Which was fine with me after the Michelob Ultra Challenge (15K, 5K, 13.1M, 8K) the weekend before.

I thought the full course was OK; loved the 1/2 last year.

Maybe we can meet up next Year.

Ate at the "Farm House" BBQ about 25 mins outside of Albany on the way home.  Very good!

Great job John. Congrats on the PR. You know you have more in you too so hopefully when you can get some consistant training you'll take it down further.

Thanks all!  Gobbles, my girlfriend and I must have gone to my car to change as you came in - I thought you'd be a little later.  Sorry that we missed - one of these days!  That is great by the way to be able to do that with a friend - huge accomplishment!

T Miller wrote:Way to go John.  1:29 without any specific training is great.

Actually, 1:29 even with specific training is pretty darn impressive! Nice job.

Very nice!