Bold in the Cold Half Marathon. As I still feel like I'm not 100% after taking some time off after SGM for my right calf to heel, I just wanted to run a solid 13.1 - shooting for about 1:40 (7:38/mi). The weather was perfect this year. About 45F at start, a little breeze from the north and cloudy. I started off in the middle of the pack. This required a lot of zig-zagging and heading off road briefly to avoid walkers and people jogging 4 across...grrr. The first mile was about 8:00. A little slow, but was probably good to get warmed up. I slowly increased my speed to about 7:30/mi for the next few miles. It felt good. I ran with some friends briefly. There was a 15K and 1/2 marathon running at the same time, and mostly on the same course. The last 2 miles seemed very tough. I had about a 7:30 average pace, but slowed considerable in the uphill sections. I even walked through the last aid station with 1.5 miles to go. With one mile to go, my running buddy Dave passed me. I had nothing left to try to hold him off, or even try to stick with him. I finished in 1:39:28 (about 10 minutes faster than I ran at the White Rock half last month). I'm happy with my results and didn't push it too, too hard. Next week at the Houston full, will be quite a challenge. I'll probably try to hold 8:00-8:30 pace there and treat it as a long training run. | 