Sunday was the 5th annual San Antonio Rock n Roll marathon and 1/2. After 2-3 months of training, the day had arrived for Britt to run her first half marathon. I'd promised her that I would pace her the whole way. So, we were able to run maybe 5 training runs together over the past couple months. The night before the race we got some homemade spaghetti and meatballs. (I did pretty awesome if I do say so myself.) Britt came over and brought her husband, daughter, friend, and our friend James. Everyone took off by 10 and I got in bed a bit before 11. You know I wasn't sleeping. It's the same thing as before karate tournaments. I just get so hyped that I can't sleep much. Maybe not always the best thing for me. I got up around 4:45, I got maybe 4 1/2-5 hours off sleep. After getting my stuff together, well most of it, I headed over to Britt and Pat's.
We got downtown around 630, about an hour before start time. Being all the way back in corral 18, we had to walk a bit to get to our spot. We walked past the long lines for the portapotties knowing we'd be there in a minute. We ended up waiting in those lines for about 30 minutes. Good thing we were in that corral 18, because we just barely caught up to our corral before the start. We saw Pat and Blake at the start and then took off.
Britt was shooting for a 2:20 finish time. To get her there I planned on pacing us at 10:45. Problems started right off the bat. I do not understand what was going on, really. There are corrals for a reason. I don't know whose fault it is, but we spent our first 6 miles just weaving through traffic. There were so many people walking right in the middle of the road and moving in large packs that we probably ran an extra half mile. I was so annoyed/angry. Did people lie on their forms? Or did the marathon just screw up in the corrals. Through 10k we were dead on pace. But, to get there, we probably had to run at about a 9:45 pace. I just don't get how hundreds of people that were walking from mile 1 were placed in front of us. I'm not annoyed that there are slower people than me at a race or that people are walking. Just annoyed that there were literally hundreds there. So, like I said, we were right on pace through 10k, even at 8 miles we were only 30 seconds off pace. Unfortunately, Britt's knee started up around mile 7. She put some gunk on it that made it feel better for a couple miles, but it wasn't enough. We had to slow down. I was so proud of Britt. She kept trucking. Of the whole race, she walked for maybe 3 minutes. She just gritted her teeth, muttered curse words at me, and kept going. We finished in 2:31:12. In 7401 and 7404 out of 16372. Britt sprinted up the last hill to the finish line. I'm so proud of her!
Today started training for the 3M half marathon in Austin on 1/13.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Twitter Road Race #3/training run w/Britt
Yesterday I did my third Twitter Road Race. I had forgotten about it
until Friday night, but I've done the first two, so why not do the third?
Plus Doug Cassaro donated $1 per finisher towards Hurricane Sandy relief.
I mean, all I had to do was run 6 miles. Plus, I'm tapering for next
weekend's San Antonio Rock and Roll 1/2 marathon. I had planned on doing
a 5 mile run today (Sunday). Well, as things are turning out I did the
10k yesterday and running with Britt on a 5 miler in a little bit today.
This run was an ego check. I listen to the Trail Runner Nation podcast regularly and I was reminded of a recent episode while struggling through. An ultra runner on there said that you have to respect the trail, always. Because if you get cocky and think "I've done this before, I don't have to worry" that's when it comes back to bite you in the butt.
That is exactly what happened. It was a combination of a bunch of things that led to a horrible run. There was the dumb decision to buy Taco Cabana at 1 am after picking up my wife from work. There was the fact that I only drank 1 bottle of water the day before. And, I also decided to wait around the house until 11 am before running. But, I digress, let's start from the start.
If you have never been to San Antonio, you have never been lucky enough to see the greenways we have here. San Antonio is a sprawling city, taking up more land area than even NYC. The one closest to me follows the dried up, overgrown Leon Creek. Obviously, it's been a long time since there was ever any creek there. However, it's a nice swath of green running through the city. You can actually run up to 25 miles without having to do laps and they have run 100 mile races out there. The longest I've gone there was 15 miles. I chose the mainland entrance because that's where the mileage posts start in both directions. Here are a couple shots of the entrance:
... well this is frustrating, it keeps refusing to accept my pics. Guess you'll have to go to my Anyway, so I started off great. My goal was sub 56 minutes, which would have been a 7 minute official PR. My unofficial PR is 55:50, but that was on a muddy, rocky, hilly, trail. So I figured that I could comfortably come in under 56. I started off strong, too strong. My first mile was 8:01 and I felt great. At 1.75 I was at 14:07. And then everything went downhill. My calves seized up. I ended up taking breaks to walk to try and work them out and it just wasn't getting better. But, I was at 29 flat at the halfway point. I didn't think it was too unrealistic to still get my 56 since my calves were starting to feel better. But, that Taco Cabana reminded me of its presence. It turned out that I struggled through most of the second half, finishing it in like 39 minutes. Add to the fact that I got the famous bloody nipple. I must have looked a hot mess shambling those last two miles with blood running down my white shirt. overall, I ended up in 29/41. Nowhere near what I was hoping. While I'm not happy with my result, it's good that it happened. It will help me keep a smaller ego.
Today went better. Britt burst in the front door at 9 am singing "Happy Birthday." After sitting and talking for a bit, we went on a five mile training run. She's a bit slower than me but I enjoy our runs because we talk a lot. It makes the time go by. We ended up running 5.04 miles. My brother has gotten her to change up her stride a bit so she had to run a little bit slower to concentrate on how her foot was landing. Next week should be fun!
This run was an ego check. I listen to the Trail Runner Nation podcast regularly and I was reminded of a recent episode while struggling through. An ultra runner on there said that you have to respect the trail, always. Because if you get cocky and think "I've done this before, I don't have to worry" that's when it comes back to bite you in the butt.
That is exactly what happened. It was a combination of a bunch of things that led to a horrible run. There was the dumb decision to buy Taco Cabana at 1 am after picking up my wife from work. There was the fact that I only drank 1 bottle of water the day before. And, I also decided to wait around the house until 11 am before running. But, I digress, let's start from the start.
If you have never been to San Antonio, you have never been lucky enough to see the greenways we have here. San Antonio is a sprawling city, taking up more land area than even NYC. The one closest to me follows the dried up, overgrown Leon Creek. Obviously, it's been a long time since there was ever any creek there. However, it's a nice swath of green running through the city. You can actually run up to 25 miles without having to do laps and they have run 100 mile races out there. The longest I've gone there was 15 miles. I chose the mainland entrance because that's where the mileage posts start in both directions. Here are a couple shots of the entrance:
... well this is frustrating, it keeps refusing to accept my pics. Guess you'll have to go to my Anyway, so I started off great. My goal was sub 56 minutes, which would have been a 7 minute official PR. My unofficial PR is 55:50, but that was on a muddy, rocky, hilly, trail. So I figured that I could comfortably come in under 56. I started off strong, too strong. My first mile was 8:01 and I felt great. At 1.75 I was at 14:07. And then everything went downhill. My calves seized up. I ended up taking breaks to walk to try and work them out and it just wasn't getting better. But, I was at 29 flat at the halfway point. I didn't think it was too unrealistic to still get my 56 since my calves were starting to feel better. But, that Taco Cabana reminded me of its presence. It turned out that I struggled through most of the second half, finishing it in like 39 minutes. Add to the fact that I got the famous bloody nipple. I must have looked a hot mess shambling those last two miles with blood running down my white shirt. overall, I ended up in 29/41. Nowhere near what I was hoping. While I'm not happy with my result, it's good that it happened. It will help me keep a smaller ego.
Today went better. Britt burst in the front door at 9 am singing "Happy Birthday." After sitting and talking for a bit, we went on a five mile training run. She's a bit slower than me but I enjoy our runs because we talk a lot. It makes the time go by. We ended up running 5.04 miles. My brother has gotten her to change up her stride a bit so she had to run a little bit slower to concentrate on how her foot was landing. Next week should be fun!
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