I went out aggressively for a couple reasons. Before the race, I decided to start with the 3:05 pace bunny and try to hold on; with the forecast of high winds and wanting to get into a rhythm early on, I figured that running with a group would have its benefits. When I got to the corral in the morning, I was late and pushed to the back. It took me a while to get up to the pace bunny and when I started running with the group, I realised that they were under pace, at times doing 4:15/km. Sure, it felt okay for the first few kilometers, and sure, the prospect of running an unexpected sub-3 marathon was blindly exciting; I stayed with them for a while, especially since the high buildings and my Garmin were not making friends, but as the pace showed no signs of leveling out to an actual 3:05 finish, I bailed on that group and decided to run my own race.

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