I was a little unsure about this morning’s run. My right foot is still gently letting me know that I’m not yet back to 100% after NYC. I seem to be coming down with a cold. I hadn’t eaten very well the night before - just a couple of margaritas and some chips/queso, to be honest. Oh, and I hadn’t done more than about 14 miles for the last six weeks. To add one more item of interest, I seem to have misplaced my bodyglide since I did Decker, which was my last significant long run, so chafing was definately on my mind.

I woke up early, about 4:30, in order to get out to RunTex by 5:30 to meet up with the Gazelles. From there we carpooled (thanks, Jay) over to the start, near the four mile mark of the new and improved Freescale marathon course, just North of where Jollyville road starts. After a little grumbling about the cold and a quick pep talk from Coach, we took off into the night.

From the start, I wasn’t excited about this run. I settled in with Jay who set a very comfortable 9:15 pace, a little slower than I had originally wanted to train at this time around but since this was a new course for me, and I hadn’t been doing much in the way of training, I figured it was for the best (and it worked out pretty well).

We chatted for a while, also with Rachel who had just been talked into the group by Gilbert and had never done a run with us before, then I settled back and just ran within myself for a few miles. As we ran down Jolleyville I couldn’t help but thinking that this was a big mistake. I started to sweat, and felt generally weak, congested and warm, as if I was getting a low-grade fever.

This kept on pretty much until our first waterstop about 4.5 miles into the run. For those of you not familiar with the new course (remember, we’re just doing miles 4-24 today) we ran the length of Jolleyville Rd, turned East on Great Hills to cross 183, North on Stonelake and then East again on Breaker; Coach met us shortly before we got to MoPac. I drank 4-5 glasses of Gatorade and started to feel a bit better - possibly I was dehydrated to start?

9:16 (161) - 9:26 (152) - 9:08 (159) - 9:21 (161) - 11:13 (154)

Well, with the first few miles out of the way I was feeling a bit more chipper. Ever since we turned onto Stonelake we’d picked up the beginning of the old Freescale course, which was very familiar territory from all of my 20 milers this summer. We crossed over MoPac and turned South onto Burnet, taking advantage of the grassy verge to stay out of the heavier-than-normal traffic, then ran a shorter path through the industrial park than I was used to until we popped out onto the 183 frontage road.

By now I was much more like my old self. My foot was giving me a very faint dull ache, but it didn’t seem to be getting any worse and I was able to ignore it successfully. It was odd not seeing Gilbert at his old-course point when we turned onto Shoal Creek, but I know that all of the good waterstop places need to be adjusted. We did catch up to him further down the course, at about mile nine.

9:10 (162) - 9:14 (162) - 9:05 (160) - 12:17 (151)

That was a much longer waterstop than we probably should have taken; we didn’t need to wait that long, just ended up chatting and joking around. I did take a Gu at this point, one of the two I’d brought (less than usual, but it wasn’t a big deal). Shortly after this stop we jogged West and ended up running down Great Northern, which can either be one of the most peaceful or most boring parts of the race, depending on your perspective. You’re running pretty close to MoPac, next to the tracks, and there are houses on your left but open sky to the right. Its a nice gentle downhill, but that describes the whole course for the most part. Still, bouyed by the good weather and the breaking dawn, we picked it up a bit.

8:55 (162) - 8:38 (162)

The end of this section was a little different than I’m used to as well. We cut over on White Rock to get back to Shoal Creek, then ran all the way down to Hancock Drive and turned left, curving around to put us out onto North Loop Blvd. We had to wait for a light at Northland which cost us some time, but nobody was paying much attention.

Unfortunately mile 13 was a long, slow uphill - my foot was not very happy. It wasn’t hurting precisely, but throbbing a fair bit and I was running quite gingerly. This is also exactly the kind of hill to really sap your strength between miles 16 and 17 of a marathon. Something to watch out for, which is why we run the course so often. My heart rate went up a little, but we didn’t let it slow us down.

Northland took us all the way over to Duval, where we turned South to head towards downtown. At this point we’d done well over a half marathon, always a point I like to notice on these before-breakfast runs.

9:46 (160) - 9:16 (168) - 9:01 (164)

Duval has some rolling hills, but its a great place to run anyway. Fun houses, good bike lanes, and not too much road camber. We started at 53rd and took it all the way down to Dean Keaton where it entered campus. About a mile into it we met with Coach for the last time. He offered vaseline - oddly enough even without Bodyglide I didn’t need any - and passed out some Clif bites and a few bottles of PowerAde to go since this was the final stop. I took the time to down my second Gu here as well. We were told to pick it up once we hit the Capitol and run the last 5K in at or under our goal pace. Once we took off again we ran down into campus, then picked up San Jacinto and kept on towards the Capitol, after getting stuck at a light where only half the group made it across.

8:53 (164) - 11:41 (158) - 8:22 (174)

Jay made sure that everyone knew where to turn (12th St) and started to pull away from the pack. I let him go for a minute, then shook my head and caught back up with him. I’d been going back and forth trying to decide whether to do the full 20 miles or “only 17,” heading down Congress all the way to the trail and cutting back to RunTex that way. We talked about it briefly, then I had to fall back running uphill at about 14th near Waterloo park. That started to get a little painful, and the shorter distance started feeling better, as I followed Jay down 12th and into the Capitol grounds for a lap of the grand old building.

My GPS readings broke down after here, running through the city on the sidewalks, but between MotionBased and the ForeRunner itself I got a pretty fair idea. We had to wait for a light at 11th, but got lucky for the rest of Congress as we ran down to 2nd St. At this point it was Jay, Shannon, Amy and myself running pretty much together. I sighed and turned West with the rest of the pack, figuring that I needed the 20 more than I needed to take it easy - my foot wasn’t hurting that badly. Jay and Shannon made it through a light that Amy and I had to wait at, then we kept after them down 2nd, onto San Antonio and across Cesar Chavez to pick up the trail heading West.

By now, of course, my foot was throbbing and I was regretting my decision to push on through. Still, ignoring the foot I was feeling pretty good and I tried to catch up with Jay again. We got to the Pfluger bridge and I cheated a little, taking the stairs slowly rather than facing that inclined ramp, and met them at the top. They were turning in a good pace, and I couldn’t quite keep it up. I mean, I had the stamina to, but leaning forward to increase my speed made the ache worse so I settled back for a comfortable finish as we headed back towards the zero marker. I actually ended up working harder than I wanted to, trying to run fast without ideal fast form, but didn’t feel too bad doing it.

8:05 (183) - 8:25 (stairs) (185) - 7:58 (pace) (186)

And that was it. Somewhere between 19.6 and 19.9 depending on whose GPS you follow, close to 20 according to Google Maps. The others still had room for a cooldown lap to get over 20, I decided that I was close enough especially for running injured. After a few minutes I went over to do my strides, but only got about 3 steps into them when the bending was just too painful, so I didn’t bother. I stretched for a while, then headed for home and a welcome ice pack.

My foot was swollen when I got home, but not badly. Its still healing, even as I do stupid things like this kind of run. I’m going to try to stay away from hilly workouts until its completely better, even though that will sap some of my strength (so I need to make it up in the gym), and just concentrate on getting to the Freescale start line healthy and fit.

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