Phew! Tougher than I expected, with a decent range of elevation over long spaces, but I got wrapped up in about 33'. A very lovely ending, with the steepest decline in the entire race, and a curve. You can almost here the Chariots of Fire song.
A lot of interesting dimensions to running with such a big group of people... the sing the Star Spangled Banner, fire the shot, and everyone stands still. The front of the pack pulls out and creates a bit of space, with the fast runners passing up those they can, and the whole pack attenuates over the first few minutes. I think I walked the first block.
Just in general, too, it's pretty remarkable to see the range of people running. Some clearly terribly out of shape, some in amazing shape, old and young, pregnant and pushing strollers. No bananas that I saw, but with something like 7000 people, I might have missed her. When the pack does start to spread, there is the interesting experience of simultaneously passing people up and being passed. I would say, too, that being surrounded by a relatively dense pack was disorienting with respect to pacing myself. I couldn't tell if I was running faster than my normal moderate pace. I guess with roughly 11' miles, I couldn't have been going that fast!
In any case, it was good to have done it!
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