It was a chilly morning and I considered keeping my long sleeve shirt on for the race ... luckily I talked myself out of that and kept it at bag check.
The race had a lot of cobblestone ... not my favorite running surface. It's unsteady and the fear of falling is usually overwhelming. Fortunately there were also sections of the race on asphalt/road.
I maintained an excellent pace per mile until about mile 10-11. I just started to get slower and slower and wanted the race to end. Around mile 12 I saw my friend Mike and that gave me the motivation to pick up the pace and kick it into gear until the end. With less than 1/4 mile to go I heard him and his wife Christina cheering me on and I sprinted to the finish. They were kind enough to wander around with me while I collected my things from bag check and grabbed a beer.
Official time - 1:45:53, 8:05 pace
12th female 35-39 years old
42nd female out of 513 finishers