On Sunday I ran the Rochester Marathon for the third straight year. After being a bit disappointed in my performance in this race last year, I decided to change my strategy a bit by carrying my own water and by starting with a slower pace group. Unfortunately this didn’t really help, and my time of 5:34 was actually a bit slower than last time.
I started out with the 4:20 pace group, which is a slow start for me, but after the second hill at mile six I started to fall behind. I finished the first half in 2:17 which is the slowest opening 13.1 that I have ever run. The second half of the race was mostly just dragging myself to the finish line. Hopefully I can get things back on track for the Canandaigua Lake 50k in October.