Colchester Half Marathon

Well, I did it again. This was my second year running the colchester half-marathon. And once again it proved to be brutal on my legs. I would say I was in slightly better shape this time around, although I did't even come close to my goal of running a couple times a week leading up to it. But I figured after a solid year of triathlon training and racing, my base fitness must be better. Well it only turned out to be 2 minutes better. I finished in 2:13:25, a average of 10:12 per mile. Once again the last 2 mile hill proved to be a killer, as up to mile 11 I was on pace for under 10 min per mile, my realistic goal, with none of previous miles over 10:35, but mile 12, I miserable plodded along in 10:45, before falling apart and walking a good chunk of mile 13 making it a 12:30 mile and coming in over my 2 hrs, 10 min goal time.
The positive is that Daniell ran it with me and it was great to "share" this with her. On the way there, she kept saying how nice it would be to run a race together. The only problem was at the first hill at mile 2, she dropped me as I had to walk a little. Then for the next two miles I watched her about 250 feet in front of me until the first water station where she kept going, (she was wearing a camelbak) and I had to stop for hydration. After that I didn't see her again until the finish line where she was waiting for me for seven minutes. Turns out she had a nice relaxing run, socializing with a few other runners! I on the other hand couldn't have talked even if they were around me, as I was giving it all out effort to try to catch back up to her. The toughest part was mile around mile 10, where there is a mile and a half stretch on a dirt road through the forest, it was the loneliest fifteen minutes for me, as no one was near me and due to the weather, it was a pretty gloomy, depressing scene.
But hey, I still had a 'great' time, and I beat my time from last year, so it was definitely worth it. Now to try and get out and do some more run training now that my legs have had a week to recover.