Stomp the Grapes & Phedippidation Worldwide Half Marathon

The weather was perfect with temperature between 54 - 59F during the race but the wind was brutal especially on the way back, gusting at 14 - 16mph. I wore my Brooks Skort, under Armour short sleeve shirt and Adrenaline 6.

Woke up at 6:30am since this is a late start (9am) did the normal morning rituals then had a slice of toast and 24oz of Accelerade, got my up and ready since he is taking the PSAT test today starting at 8:30am. I left the house about 7:05am since I was about an hour thirty minutes away, got there at 8:33am and got in line right away for the potty since there was a long line already, did my stuff then went to pick up my timing chip and long sleeve shirt, took the shirt back to the car then started warming up and walking to the start and before I knew it we were off.

The start point was between miles 11&12 on the way back and was downhill but uphill back, miles 1 and 6 were my fastest at 9:57, between mile 3 &4 and on the way back between miles 8&9 you can smell the bread baking coming from the Nickels factory I think. WE entered the Towpath around mile 6 and that was a nice run but I slowed a little around mile 7 (11:17 pace) there were some got size gravels and I was quite sure of my footing but I got more confident after a while and moved on.

I knew there was a hill at mile 10 but didn't know that the hill was from mile 10 to 13, and I was running again the wind I was moving forward 3 the wind was pushing back 1, I switch to run/walk strategic since it felt like a painful losing battle trying to push my way through the wind and up the hill.

I used one of my new water bottle and it worked great but I still got water from the water station only skipped the first one and walk through them. I ate 2 Gu triple berry flavor and was fine.

I was kind of disappointed in my time since I was expecting to finish about 2:10-2:15 but ended up at 2:20, I need to work on my pacing since my pace for this race was all over the place 9:57 - 11:33 and do more hill training. I wonder why I put myself through this (feeling the pain in my knees from the hills) but I turned around and checked out the course for the Fall Classic HM and felt better hopefully I can be faster at that since it is a flat course, this pain too shall pass.

The finish was nice, lots of food(subway, chips, crackers, cheese, banana, pretzels) and wine, it was very well organized and the volunteers did a wonderful job. Thanks

This was a small race, they are nice because you are not fighting the crowd for the first 3 miles but you basically run the whole race by yourself since there isn't that many people. I ran basically the whole race by myself unless when I pass someone and we comment for a second or two, I actually lost the trail luckily a cop was there and yell straight ahead, I was trying to keep someone in sight through out the race but in the towpath because it was winding I lot track of him for a while and was on my one.

Stomp the Grapes HM was my entry into the 2nd Annual Phedippidation World Wide Half