Fitness checkpoint - Parks half marathon and training update

Yesterday (Sunday 9/13) was the first race in a while. I thought that with top 5 money and a sizable East African population nearby this race would be really competitive up front. Not this year. I came pretty ready to go but ended up having no competition and ran a controlled 1:08 to win. The weather was good but not perfect - much better than it has been for most of the summer. The course was net downhill by about 90 feet, judging by the course profile, but the first 11 miles (and very much the first 2 miles) are downhill and all of it is made up in the last 2 miles. Thus, I positive-split but my effort remained pretty level, maybe I ran a little harder in the last 5k but very controlled. 

This was a good hard workout that should not knock me out of normal training. I expect to be mostly recovered by Wednesday and I'll try to resume normal workouts then. Coupled with the good weather over the next week, I think this is a good time to really start getting after the workouts before 10/31. These last 6 weeks before Philly are when the specific work counts and I need to focus on maintaining the workouts that I've been doing lately and doing what I can to do my very best and see if I can get under 1:05.