Today I had possibly the best race I've ever had. The 3M half marathon in Austin, TX is noted for it's average 0.4% drop throughout the course, leading to generally quick times. About three months go, my supervisor asked me to help her and two others to prepare for this race. I agreed and a couple of weeks into training, decided to do it myself. I searched online and found Hal Higdon's training plans. I printed out the beginner and the advanced. I was going to try and keep on the advanced plan and put the girls on the beginner program. The interesting part was trying to match up to two when we trained together, which normally happened twice a week. I tried to make it interesting by changing in track workouts, hill sprints, long runs, trail runs, and road runs. It gets fairly cold here in Texas, but never really too cold to not run outside. Anyway, on to the race. We arrived in Austin yesterday afternoon. After checking in, we went straight to packet pick up and the "expo." Unfortunately, it was the smallest expo I've ever seen. There were maybe 10 vendors. Barely any of the freebies you typically see at these events. I at least picked up some sunglasses and a flyer for a race here in San Antonio in March. From there, we stopped quickly at the hotel and then left for dinner with the rest of the team. We had dinner at Romano's Macaroni Grill. It turned out to be average. Except for the amazing operatic singing of the hostess. She was surprising and awesome. We didn't stay out late before returning to the hotel and tried to get to sleep early. But, it was the night before a race. Of course I didn't sleep. That 0445 alarm came really early. had my breakfast of a banana and orange juice and we took off. It was 38 degrees and windy. I wished that I would have brought along my pants. But it was shorts with some spandex underneath and my shirt from the 2012 San Antonio Rock N' Roll. We met up at a Panera bread that was nice enough to open their doors early just so we could warm up and use the restrooms. Everyone made the last bathroom breaks before taking a pic:
We said our good byes to our awesome support team
and then headed to the starting line in the cold and dark morning.
We got there shortly before the start time so I had to start very far back. My original gameplan had been to stick with the 2 hour pacers until at least 6 miles and see how I was feeling at that point. However, I started pretty far back. I started off quickly. I was at 3 miles in 25 minutes. Around that point I caught up to the pacers. There were so many people packed in around them though, I couldn't even run comfortably. Numerous times I had to shorten my strides, be careful not to trip on someone, or get pushed off the road. So, at around mile 4 1/2, I took off ahead of them. I was still feeling very good and couldn't stand being cooped up. In any event, they were going faster than the pace. The mile I could time was at 8:45, 24 seconds faster than the proposed pace. I hit the 10k mark at 52:57, 10:36 faster than my PR and was starting to feel a little tired. At mile 7, I stopped for a Gu and a drink. It did not settle too well right off. From miles 7-9, my stomach was upset and it felt like it was trying to decide which end it wanted to empty it's contents out of. At this point I walked for about 45 seconds, up a hill. While doing that the, the 2 hr pacers showed up. That spurred me on. A couple seconds later, I was feeling better and seemingly caught my second wind. I picked up the pace and mile 10 might have actually been my fastest of the whole race. Mile 12 was sadistic. After a nearly all (if only slight) downhill course there were three short but steep hills. But after them, a downhill and a left turn to the finish. I sprinted home and it felt fantastic. We ended right before the Capitol building.
The cold that had felt so good while running was suddenly biting. I checked the results and read 1:54:35! 28 minutes faster than my previous official PR. (My first half of the AF full had been my unofficial PR, at 2:10) We waited around for the rest of our team in the cold and cheered everyone on. Thankfully the sun came up and temps rose all the way to 45. It was great seeing those girls finish their first race, much less a long one.
The course itself wasn't very scenic. The coolest part was running past UT's football stadium. Other than that, we were kind of out of the way. Just want to say thanks to the girls for putting up with me, and great job!
