Parkersburg Half Marathon - Review

As improbable as it may have been, I managed to finish the Parkersburg Half last Saturday without walking. A consistent, steady pace helped me overcome a lack of preparation, and I was able to trump my only other half marathon experience from two years ago in the Marshall University Half Marathon. Back in November 2010, I was confident in my training and let out of the gate at my normal 10k pace. This proved disastrous late in the race when I pulled up and walked the entirety of mile 12. That was a mistake I wisely avoided this time around.
Though I missed out on crucial training, I made sure that the day before race day went by the book. This consisted of filling up at the pasta dinner and getting a solid nine hours of shut eye. I booked a hotel just north of town to avoid driving an hour and half from Charleston the morning of the race. That was the best decision I could have made. For breakfast I downed a Powerbar two hours before the start. Then, I jogged around the hotel room to loosen up a bit (weird, I know). I packed up and drove down to the start where I was greeted by the Parkersburg High band (I'm assuming).
Then, it was race time. The weather was a beautiful mid-60s with overcast skies. I began at a trot and only slowly passed those in my vicinity. I used the Nike+ GPS app on my phone to track the run, which started fairly accurately, but wound up overestimating my distance by a mile at the end of the race. The first three miles felt great. I kept my pace steady and enjoyed the views, crossing a bridge to leave downtown and hit more rural scenery. I was warned by locals the night before that there wasn't much to see along the course. While true, at least it wasn't an ugly looking route.
After two miles right at an 8'40" pace, I dropped to 9'17" on mile three due to some inclines. I polished off the first 10k around 55 minutes. My mantra during this section was "save it for the back half". I felt like I could easily pick up the pace, but again, I didn't want to commit the error of overestimating my endurance. By the time I entered the 7-10 mile range my mantra changed to "save it for the home stretch."
After mile 10, I hit the proverbially wall. The feeling is almost indescribable, but I'll give it a go. No single muscle, bone, or joint aches, but the body itself hurts. Your brain thumps away. Your mouth is dry and stomach empty, but you don't want food. All you want is to stop. That's where the kind organizers of this race decided to stick a steep incline. On mile 12 you run for less than 0.2 miles up a hill that stopped at least half of the people I was running with. It reduced much of the field to walking. Somehow I managed to summit it. After doing so, I knew I had to drag my limp corpse all the way to the finish.
Even after that, I did want to walk, but made it to a straight-away where I could see the finish line. It's common sense that you can't pull up in sight of the finish line. But neither could I gas it up for a dramatic finish. A couple hot shots behind me decided to do that and sprinted past me at the line. Whatever guys. Enjoy the added soreness from taking 299th place instead of 300th. Groggily, I walked forward and was donned with my finishers medal.
Then came the best part of the day. I shuffled to a small leafy area with stone seating and chugged a water and some Powerbar gel. Sitting there reflecting on what I just did and knowing that somewhere people were rolling over in their beds sleeping the morning away felt pretty sweet. Without serious training I had ran thirteen miles nonstop.
Here's how ugly I looked after 13 sweaty miles:

Get the stretcher ready

My final stats for the run were as follows:

Distance - 13.1 miles. Net time - 1:54:30. Avg. pace - 8:44/mile.