What a race! I didn’t quite make my goals, but I had a good time and it made for a wonderful training run. This was an out and back - mostly - starting, ending, and benefiting the Hays County high school (see map for details - not to scale). My goals going into it were a 2:30 if everything was perfect (not expecting it), but I mainly wanted to keep it under 2:40 total.

We got down to the course a little late, with about 50 minutes before the gun. After doing a little loosening up, I headed out into the bitter cold for a half mile warmup run. Oh, did I not mention the weather? When the race started it was 32 degrees outside with a NNW wind gusting about 14mph, for a wind-chill of about 25 degrees. Brr!

Anyway, I met up with my friend Ted before the race for a little stretching, and then we moved on out to the track. I’d shed my wind pants, but was still wearing my jacket over a long-sleeved shirt and shorts. Anyway, one of the unique features of this race is that it starts and ends with about 300M on the high school track. I’d had a small clif bar on the drive over, and ate a second one as we waited for the start. I really didn’t want to bonk on this run.

And we’re off. And we’re cold! The first four miles were done mostly downhill and basically straight into the wind. Even with the jacket, earwarmers and gloves, I was really pretty cold. The plan here was just not to go out too fast. There was a decent amount of foot traffic, including the governor, many of whom we passed - still, it slowed us down. I took a little longer in mile four because I dropped my jacket and gloves before they got too warm.

8:33 - 9:00 - 8:32 - 9:04

I’m now down about a minute from where I was hoping to be. That’s fine though, since between the cold, the wind, and the fact that we wanted a slow start, that’s just fine.

The next five miles took us around a rural loop and up to the edge of a subdivision. I had my first Gu at the mile six water stop. Mile seven had a pretty steep hill in the middle of it, which slowed me down a bit since I went up onto my toes to save my achilles, even so I’m surprised to see how long it took. Just before the eight mile marker I had to duck into a restroom but that only cost me maybe 30 seconds. At about the 8.5 mile point I saw the pace truck coming back the other way with the leaders coming up on mile 14. Yeah, 14. Let’s just say that I’ve got a lot of room for improvement!

8:27 - 8:17 - 9:11 - 8:46 - 9:16

The best explanation that I have for that mile 9 time was that I was taking it just a little bit too easy. I was concerned about finishing well, and I think I just slowed down too much because of that. Ted had headed on while I had my restroom break too, so that was probably part of it as I tried to find my pace again.

The next four miles took us on an out and back route around a subdivision. These were slower than the should have been as well, consistently about 30 seconds too slow in fact. Again, I don’t really have a good reason for this. I remember thinking that I was maybe going a bit too slowly, but again my fear about a bad finish kept me at at most a 3/3 breathing pattern until the half marathon point. I my a second Gu at mile 10.

8:44 - 8:50 - 8:57 - 8:42

I passed the half marathon point at 1:55, which was only 75 seconds slower than my half marathon PR. Its funny, but this felt a whole lot slower than that did - ah, well. Anyway, the next five miles were the final stretch, and since I was passed 13.1, I was a bit more willing to speed things up.

The next three miles were relatively flat, and all in a straight line heading down FM 1626. This time the wind was at my back, and I could just concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. My last Gu was at mile 14, and they seemed to be doing the trick as far as keeping me fueled to the level I needed to be. I was feeling a little down about my overall time, but by breaking into a 3/2 breathing pattern my speed was once again where it needed to be.

8:16 - 8:28 - 8:23

Now there were only 2.64 miles to go, and the uphills were back with a vengence. I didn’t have a lot of problems with my left achilles although it was a little sore, but the ball of my left foot started to ache on me - probably because I was holding it stiffly. I was feeling pretty good from a cardio standpoint, and had plenty of energy, but I really wanted to make sure that I didn’t hurt my ankle again - especially since I figured out passing the 25K point that I’d need an 8:00 pace to hit my original target.

9:02 - 8:51

Passing the 18 mile mark felt pretty good. I was smiling, enjoying myself, and quite honestly looking a lot more comfortable than 80% of the folk I was running with. Still, there was no reason not to pick up my feet a little as I came up on the stadium. With a quarter mile to go I made the turn onto the track and was hit by the wind! Yes, after a 180 degree turn I was heading into the cold 16mph wind again after several miles of having it at my back! That, combined with my time, pretty much sapped my desire for a really strong track run until I turned on the backstretch when I couldn’t resist a nice fast finish across the line.

5:13 (8:08 pace)

Even with all of the sloth, at least I ended up with negative splits by a couple of minutes. I hit the halfway point right around 1:22, and my final time was 2:42:44. That’s not exactly what I was looking for, but I’m feeling good really looking forward to Freescale a month from now.

How would I compare this to last year’s race? There really is no comparison. This time I was pretty close to 100% healthy, had much better training, and a lot more experience. I think that’s apparent in the fact that I was an unbelievable 1:40:56 faster today, and by the fact that this time after the race was over and I’d rested up a little, I happily did a one mile cool-down instead of asking Stephanie to bring the car up to pick me up. Practice is paying off.

Oh - and a big shout out to Alex who broke into the top #100 with his 2:18:01 time. Way to go!

Popularity: 10%