All of my hill training in one day.

Publix Geogia Marathon, 3:14:something, and I got all my hills training for my entire life in on one day. Very efficient of me.

I was running this race as hills training, sort of, although I couldn't really decide what I wanted to do going in. The problem is that the course is 100% hills, not a single flat meter, and I just didn't know how I'd do on hills. I run them so rarely that I just didn't know.

I had considered pacing the race for one of the pace teams - the 3:30 group was short a pacer - but when I offered I was, ahem, decidedly turned down. I got the impression that the pacers are stringently vetted. That meant I had to decide on my own pace. I decided to go for a typical long run pace, so I should be between 3:15 and 3:20. As you can see, I pretty much nailed that pace. That surprised and pleased me. I am so unsure of how to run hills that I thought I'd have a terrible time hitting the pace I was aiming for. It turns out that,while each mile split varied considerably (some of the hills were really long, over a mile), I was able to adjust for those miles at other points in the race. By the time I hit the mile 5, I could guess how to make adjustments, and I purposefully sped up in anticipation of the tough final miles (almost straight uphill for the last 5 or 6 miles). The strategy worked, I hit just where I wanted to be, and I enjoyed a less-agressive race. It was fun to feel ok at the end (although it was very hot) and I actually liked the course, even though I would certainly call it challenging.

I will do a better recap later, but for now I'm just happy to have gotten some hills in and not feel too terrible afterwards.
Huge thanks to Ashley and Vanessa for hooking me up with a free entry! My Boston training wouldn't be complete without it!