More on Med-City Marathon

Since I had to fax in my registration earlier this morning, I called this afternoon to confirm that they actually received it. Especially since it contained my credit card information!

Rental car and hotel (Marriott Courtyard, of course) have been reserved, and all systems are go. (Not sure if I'll run Run The Woodlands 5K on Saturday morning or not. Common sense would be "not to", but that never stopped me before.)

Of 310 marathon finishers with a half marathon split, only 18 (5.8%) had a negative split.

This was a comment about the course on marathonguide.com:

The 2007 (12th annual) edition of the Med-City Marathon featured a new and more interesting course. Although this new course is more physically challenging (first 8 miles has several hills), it is easier to "stay in the game," with its elevation changes and the elimination of the previous course's second-half section. There are plenty of aid stations and the volunteers are as good as any you will find.

If you looked at the amount of time that a person fell off in the back half of the race, the distribution went pretty much like a bell-shaped curve.

+ 55 runners had their time slip five (5) percent or less
+ 64 runners saw their time drop between 5 and 10 percent (2:29:43; 2:44:35 - 5:14:42)
+ 80 runners fell between 10 to 15 percent (2:22:55; 2:49:12 - 5:12:19)
+ 50 runners fell between 15 to 20 percent (2:16:35; 2:48:58 - 5:06:31)
+ 16 runners fell between 20 to 25 percent (2:22:45; 3:07:27 - 5:30:53)
+ 17 runners fell between 25 to 30 percent (2:19:43; 3:18:25 - 5:38:58)

I was just kind of surprised since the first eight miles are a bit more difficult than the last 18.