Last month, I ran the Buffalo Marathon again. It’s been kind of a sluggish year running-wise, since I’ve been traveling so much, but overall I’m happy with my performance. That said, it was my slowest marathon since my first, the 2007 Thunder Road Marathon in Charlotte (stupidly running injured), and was a few minutes slower than my first go-round on the Buffalo course. 
2007 Thunder Road: 4:23:07
2008 Buffalo Marathon: 3:44:15
2009 NYC Marathon: 3:36:18
2011 Empire State Marathon: 3:34:36
2013 Buffalo Marathon: 3:49:55
The story those times don’t tell is how quickly I ran the first half this year (nearly my fastest ever, I believe:1:38:33 ) and how abysmally slow my second half was (I’ll spare you the math: 2:11). Just realized my fastest half had been 1:37:46 from the 2008 Buffalo race.
The day was pretty perfect; it started out in the mid-30s and eventually broke 50. I could tell it was going to get pretty warm, so I decided to just go all in early and see if I couldn’t do at least a half I could be proud of. Luckily, I found myself running alongside a 
woman who was consistently holding at about 7:30, so I just challenged myself to stick with her until the half. Then, after mile 14, I spent a little more time at the water breaks hydrating and getting stiff. The last few miles were mostly painful in my feet. My fastest mile was 7:23 (#3), and my slowest was 11:12 (#23)– part of a 5-mile double digit stretch at the end. Oof. The highlight was being featured on the Buffalo News website in my Longhorn gear. It pays to have a friend manning the cameras!
Now my plan is to work on speed and drop some weight over the summer and run a brisk fall half-marathon, shooting for a PR.