Having just recently experienced the blue mile in San Antonio Marathon, I found out quickly the ex-military running community made the field at Washington DC marathon pretty deep with another blue mile on course, which was really inspiring to run through up the first of 3 killer hills.
The course generally does a big clockwise route around the white house, and then once nearing the finish area at RFK Stadium a further out and back for the second half of marathon, with hills at 12K, 26K, and 37K.
This was one of my coldest marathon of recent memory. There was even a touch of slush the night prior, luckily the roads were clear during race time. I used a few runners to pace along the hills. There were a few quicker legs I could follow. Inevitably came the last dreaded hill, everyone man and woman were left fending for themselves. I even saw a little kid crying on the side of the road near 3k to the finish. Marathons are a seriously tough business. The steep up and then down made it worst.
Overal, I was quite pleased with my time. My 4th quickest 3:03 with a 1:29 half split.
