I ended up wearing the running tights, long sleeved shirt with short sleeved shirt over it, baseball hat with gloves and a neck gaiter. The gloves were annoying because they felt like they were going to slip off so I tucked them in my belt. This was perfect. My clothes got sweaty so when it warmed up the temperature balanced out. The neck gaiter was perfect to keep the cold from irritating my lungs. I took some puffs of albuterol before the race began.

I put both Preparation H and body glide on the balls of my feet and between my toes to prevent blisters. This was effective.

I got to the race about 45 minutes early and got my bib and filled up with water. I also did the warm ups I could remember. I opted not to take my phone as headphones weren't allowed. Though I did see runners wearing them.

They had signs at the start to help us line up far enough from the start. So way far away we heard the starting gun and meandered to the chute.

I followed Maru for the first two miles as he was drawn on the back of a hoodie jacket. Eventually he pulled away. Soon I noticed that a Galloway runner was running at about my speed. She'd drop behind me on the walk but pull ahead on the run. I introduced myself. Her name was Jackie.

At mile 7, I had to walk for a bit. I caught back up with Jackie and asked if I could run/walk with her because otherwise the last couple of miles would be brutal. We ran together until the last half mile when I could smell the finish and didn't stop. Jackie said it was ok. I ended up finishing a whole minute in front of her. I really, really appreciated her help in keeping together. I was both faster and in less pain than any of the training runs over 7 miles. As a matter of fact, I felt pretty good. For my part, I pushed her just enough that she did faster mile splits - she'd never been under a 13 minute mile. So that was 31 flavors of awesome.

I fueled with Bloks every other mile and took some Gatorade at mile 11. I had my fuel belt so I didn't stop for any water.

I'm really happy with the race and would recommend Galloway to any new runner (under a year) that is not winning age group awards but wants to test themselves against 13.1 miles.

My official time was a decent 2:39:34.