Hospital Hill

Long time no post. Eh.
Ran Hospital Hill today and posted a 1:49:04 officially. I started the run thinking I couldn't expect much because most of the last 6 weeks of training suffered from complications from a cold and three weeks of a sinus infection.
I've felt pretty good during the taper weeks (last two weeks), though. And, in the past week, my legs have recovered. They have felt sore and tired through most of May. I was afraid they might not be there today, but about five mile in I began to think that maybe I really could treat HH as a race, and not just a run. I felt good, my legs weren't tiring, the weather was fairly good. Shoot, why not?
So, I resolved to maintain an easy pace for the first 7 miles - maybe a shade under 9 min. per mile, and then run hard the rest of the way. In the last 6 miles, I had three sub-8 min. splits, and slowed only a bit on the uphills, one of which was about three-quarters of a mile long and the last only about a block but straight up.
Final overall pace was 8:20, and I placed 16th out of 66 in my division (men 55-59). I was 547th out of 2389 finishers.
All in all, a decent race for me.