Tucson 1/2 Marathon Race Report

My first half marathon: done. Woohoo! The race started as I think all races do: stumbling through the dark at 5:00 a.m. to get on an overheated school bus with a bunch of ridiculously and intimidatingly fit people to ride to the starting line, where you stand around outside in frigid temperatures waiting for your turn at the porta-potty. After the national anthem, the herd was off and although I was freezing, I did a very good job of reminding myself not to start too fast. Or what I thought was a good job. I ended up with a side stitch in the first mile, which is extremely annoying because: (1) I usually don't get them; and (2) all I had had to eat was half a bagel and a banana at 4:30 a.m. that I had to force down my throat. I definitely need to figure my pre-race breakfast issues. I usually run in the mornings before I eat. But, you can't run 13.1 miles on an empty stomach. Which requires eating. But, then I get a side stitch. So obviously I need a different breakfast and I will have to do some research on what that might be. Maybe some sort of smoothie type thing? I find it really hard to eat before a race anyway, so maybe not having to chew would work in my favor.
I also decided that for this race I'd trying listening to my ipod, since that seems to be the thing to do now. I had a Doctor Who story, narrated by David Tennant (who plays the Doctor in the TV series) that was 2 and 1/2 long-- just about perfect for the race. Unfortunately, I have no idea if this was a good story or not because I was so focused on running that I barely heard the story. I just had a vague sense of David Tennant yammering in my ear without a clue what he was on about. Which I guess answers the question of whether an ipod does me any good during a race: no.
After recovering from the side stitch issue, miles 2 through about 8 were fantastic. 8 through 10 were a little tougher both because I was starting to get tired and because there were a few long, gentle hills there. Nothing major, but hills nonetheless. And this, folks is where high altitude training totally, completely rocks. I, me, slow-poke Kerry, passed people on the hills. Oh, man that felt good. Miles 8 through 10 were also a little difficult because I had a snargler running behind me. The snargler was a rather large man who seemed to be having some kind of respiratory issue where he was sort of gurgling, sniffing, and groaning evertime he took a breath--he was snargling. And he was snargling right behind me. And snargling is really, really annoying to listen to. I think he was actually trying to pass me. I'm sorry Mr. Snargler, there was just no way I was going to let that happen.
Miles 10 through 13.1 were pretty much just hell even though I managed to ditch the snargler. I sang a little song in my head that was a variation of Dory's song in "Finding Nemo" : "just keep running, just keep running." I felt like miles 10 through 13 took as long as miles 1-10 and I just tried to focus on finishing one mile at a time. I crossed the finished line in 2 hours 21 minutes and my average pace was under 11:00 minutes, so I'm pretty happy with that. Here are my detailed stats:

Overall:	982 out of 1460
Women:	521 out of 889
F 30-34:	71 out of 106
Age/Grade:	46.85% Place: 1043
Finish:	2:21:17 Pace: 10:47
Tag Time:	2:21:17
Gun Time:	2:23:52