So this past weekend I made my Marathon Debut. The weather was very nice, 40-45 deg about a 15 mph wind but most of the time it was at our backs and I was feeling good going into it. Started off with a conservative mile and then one a little quicker. Was running with another guy and we started clipping off 6 or sub 6 min miles on the uphill portion of the course. I was still feeling good but didn't want to over do it too early so I backed off and let him go and ran a 6:26 mile and the plan was to settle in at between 6:10 and 6:00. being 9 miles in i started running at or bellow 6 min feeling very comfortable and smooth. my 12th mile was a 5:57 and I was just following the two guys in front of me who were in 2nd, and 3rd place. i took a left hand turn with a lady standing at the turn. I then noticed that the arrows were going in the wrong direction but thought maybe this was the part of the course were we doubled up. then i saw the 14 mile mark facing backwards, then i passed the leader coming at me. No one along the way said anything. I started getting near the half thon mark when a lady told me i was going the wrong way. About 5 seconds later Becky yelled, "they sent you the wrong way turn around." so i stopped and turned around. After that i felt like I was just not in it mentally. All of this happened on the air force base. Nothing about the air force base was good. The water stops sucked, the course sucked. I was still maintaining around 6 teenish miles for the rest of the race but i was all alone, no fans and not even sure if i was going the right way for the remainder of the race. I ended up finishing 3rd in 2:44:10
Splits were
6:24, 6:12, 5:56, 6:00, 5:49, 5:49, 5:51, 6:26, 5:52, 5:59, 6:00, 5:57, 14:35 (sent wrong way), 6:18, 6:13, 6:15, 6:30, 6:26, 6:08, 12:32 (split and water stop in same spot), 6:25, 6:29, 6:33, 6:08, 1:13
