Bottom Line: it was a beautiful Spring day for a run and I'm always pleased with a PR. Fitness-wise I feel on track for a big improvement in London. But, the fact is, all of the little things went wrong today. No need to dwell on it too much, but there are definitely lessons learned. All these little problems were my fault and avoidable.

First off, I ate dinner WAY too late last night for such an early start and ate an irresponsible amount of meat for some odd reason. So, needless to say, the bathroom timing was troublesome (no details needed but I was concerned about a potential YouTube moment for much of the race). 1st time I've ever had that problem. It was a miracle that I kept it to one bathroom stop. Consequently, I didn't take my 2nd gel for fear of exacerbating the problem.

Secondly, it was a smaller race than I'm used to so the water stations were smaller than I'm used to and I missed one or two.

Thirdly, I missed at least 4 mile splits because the mile markers were kind of low to the ground and I wasn't paying close enough attention. So, I lost track of my race plan pretty much.

Finally, this race was on my home turf so there's really no excuse for not knowing the course, but I have to say that there were a lot more little hills than I was expecting (I wasn't expecting any!), so that messed with me a little bit.

All that said, I pressed through the GI situation at the end and ran a sub-7 minute 13th mile and felt fine. So, that's encouraging.

All mistakes I will never make again. Onward to London.