So what did I learn?
Don't pack 5 minutes before leaving because I forgot my honey packet for the midway point and my contact lenses.
The English emcee does it all as he was at packet pick up at the ever conveniently located Rhode Runner (with wife manning the t-shirts?) and indubitably emcee'ing. Sick shirts since there were no sponsors on the back.
I didn't run the Rock n' Roll half but I assume it was the same path, even down to having some bands on the course.
Running three in Barrington the afternoon before, there were wild notions of 1:45 but that was soon corralled when I woke up at 5am.
I got to the start (or what I thought was the start) at 6, plenty of time to enter the stadium and bump into the kid with the most thankless but important job; stocking the men's bathroom with non-1 ply tissue. I
had to pee all race but my politeness kept me from pulling to the side and peeing on a tree (which there were plenty of spots to do so as I imagined myself doing it multiple times).
Twenty minutes before the race it was announced that the half started in the streets. And ten minutes before, we were told to stand on the other side of the banner. This must be a Rhode Island half marathon tradition.
As the English emcee talked about how Rock n' Roll had abandoned Providence and how they quickly organized this, the play button was hit on the CD version of the National Anthem (maybe this was the first time I noticed, but did previous races have runners that clapped when the CD hit the high notes?)
We passed by the golf course that was the beginning of the bike path, turning left and running on...the road and not the bike path.
Only half was on the bike path, wasn't too hilly save for the beginning when you go up the street parallel to the bike path in East Providence (that I randomly ran up a couple times) as you head towards Bradley Hospital and the hill right towards the end where we used to park when we ran this path.
The course itself was pretty ho-hum save for the neighborhoods in Riverside that face the water. Somewhere in the 'hoods, an orange shirted runner and I almost got run over by a car so we sarcastically bonded over that. The only other vet move was watching out for Gatorade in non-Gatorade cups. From there on out, Brett the chiropractic and I paced each other, using the better half as our carrot on the stick.
He was in pursuit of a blue tanktop runner so I told him to chase her and he took off. Somewhere around 8 and 9, I caught up as he told me to go ahead. I said that this was just in prep for another race.
As we ran towards the old parking lot of the path, I couldn't help but want to stop like the walkers that hit the wall. I still had that incessant brain versus heart face off where the brain tells my body it's ok to walk at the end. Much easier when the gas tank isn't on E. Oh there was one more hill going back up to the stadium. Approaching the stadium was odd since I didn't know how much was left. We hit the track with about .2 miles to go. As my body still somehow knows when it's time to give up and yak (no gag reflex this time!), I was instructed to go after the guy in front of me which I obliged as always.
1:52:37.
At around 75-80% effort. I had some left in the tank as I was able to muster a relatively devastating kick that would've fit in at a 5k. As I passed a guy right at the end as we finished in the stadium, I sprinted to the dismay of the announcer as she knew I didn't throw it all out there today.
As I got my customary medal, the chiropractic let me know I was rabbiting for him, 5 seconds behind the whole way. Then he went to check on his patients in the race, so Rhode Island.
My yellow Nike Frees which led me to my 1:40:45 half last year are retired after this race. Yellow shoes do pretty well for my PRs; note to self on the next splurge.
1:45 for Hartford.
