My internal pace clock

A bit of an aside: I have a rather amazing internal pace clock. I run a very certain speed very consistently. I don't have a GPS and Michael does and on numerous occasions we have been out running and I have looked at my watch and said "so we should be at five miles?" and lo, we are. Michael has admitted that it's a bit freakish.
Anyways, at one of the last aid stations the kilometre sign they had put me around 36 kilometres. That meant I had 6k to go which I figured would take me another half hour. My watch said 3:15 so I was looking at a 3:45 marathon time which would make it one of the slowest marathons I'd ever run, and would also make it questionable as to whether I would even make the Boston marathon cutoff.
I was a bit disappointed because I'd trained really hard for this particular marathon. I just thought that maybe I wasn't tackling the hills with the aplomb necessary to obtain a better time and yet I really did feel that I was pushing it.
Regardless. I powered through it to the best of my ability. Eventually Leon passed me - and with an amazing surge of speed - and it spurred me on a bit as we headed into Ucluelet.
I ran past the motel we were staying at and I sort of thought Michael might be there but he wasn't, so I figured he was at the finish.
I still wasn't entirely sure how the course wound up as we headed away from the finish line, and then we were turning back towards the finish and I could see the church for sale in the distance and I knew that was very close to the end and then all of a sudden it was the end and they were announcing my name and I was crossing the line and I looked at my watch and it was 3:33 which was 12 minutes faster than what I thought I would be and which also was my second fastest run - a couple of minutes faster than the Okanagan marathon which was dead flat and Michael was nowhere to be seen and it was because I was way faster than either of had supposed.
I saw Leon shortly after crossing and congratulated him on a truly excellent first marathon and he gave me a hug and he said that yes, he had been following me for the vast majority of the marathon which was funny to hear. We chatted for a while and then I wandered away to find Michael and bumped into Barb who was so excited to see me at the finish and admonished me to go get a bagel with peanut butter on it and she congratulated me several times.
For a marathon where I didn't "know" anyone, it was neat to see the same people at the finish as I had at the start. A couple of women congratulated me on my run and I asked if they were the ladies that I had seen on bikes on the course but no, they had been shuffling relay runners around and had taken notice of me during the race and said I had looked very good and strong and I was really surprised and stunned that anyone had noticed me at any point doing anything, really.
Eventually I found Michael who was both very happy to see me but sad that he had missed me crossing the finish. I showed him my time and we were both tapping my watch and shaking it and shaking our heads, incredulous. How. How indeed?
After we finished laughing and re-capping (he finished first in his age/sex category for the half marathon - even after getting lost briefly) a guy grabbed me and said "you know, I think you won" and I said no, that wasn't possible. He said there had been some confusion as some of the marathoners that had started very early in the morning had crossed the finish line before me, but that I should check the standings.
I checked the standings.
I won my age/sex group.
I won first female overall.
I checked the standings like four more times.
I got on the podium twice a few hours later to accept a two different awards.
The third female overall was Heather, who I had randomly met a few hours earlier through Barb. I turned to her and she recognized me and we both had a little laugh as we accepted our beautiful bouquets of flowers and had our pictures taken.
Yeah. So, yeah. How weird is that?