Shamrock Half Marathon

For my first race of the season I decided to compete in my first half marathon. I stayed with my buddy Mike and his friend Todd. The morning of the race it was disgusting...rain, huge gusts of wind, about 35 degrees...yuck. But around 6:30 or so the rain stopped and the winds died down a bit. Schoener, Nally , and C. Healey were also running, and the plan was to start with Nally and Chris and see how it felt from there. We went out at what felt like a pedestrian pace. The first 2 miles were in 11:28, and I was working well with a pack of about 10-15 guys. We tried sharing the lead a bit, and mile 3 was a 5:40, hitting 3 miles in 17:08. I felt very comfortable, and my right knee was doing fine. Once we got onto shore drive, we were slightly more protected from the wind, so the pace dropped a bit, going through in 5:30, and then 5:31. These 2 miles strung our pack out a fair amount, and there were only about 5 of us at the 5 mile mark. I decided to keep the pace there or even a little hotter, and Nally was feeling good, so we more of less took off. mile 6 was 5:28, then 5:21 for mile 7. These two miles completely separated us from our pack and we were on our own. I was still feeling decent...legs were a little tired, but otherwise fine. Breathing was good. Mile 8 was a 5:21, and this mile I started developing a side cramp...not severe, but bad enough where it was a discomfort, and required that I work on it to try to alleviate some of the discomfort. Mile 9 was another 5:21, but after this mile, Nally took off, and I could not match his increased pace. I hot mile 10 in 5:27, mile 11 in 5:25, 12 in 5:28, and 13 in 5:23 before finishing in 1:11:58. I was 22nd place overall, and placed 3rd in my age group.
I was also the leading member of the Colonial Road Runner team that won the team competition.
It was a solid first race. I think I'm in shape right now to run about a 1:11:00, perhaps slightly faster (1:10:45ish), but with the cramp, I was not able to showcase my fitness level like I have the capability of. Still, breaking 1:12 for my first time at the distance is satisfying.
I still need to focus on clearing up my knee problem over the next week, and hopefully get into some regular training in the next couple of weeks.