Houston Half Marathon 10/25/09

This morning I ran my first half marathon, and it was a day of many 1sts. Not only was today my first half marathon, it was my first race of any kind other than a 5k. Generally people take some stepping stones, a 10k, a 12k but I missed the 10 for Texas race a couple weeks ago, so I went straight from 5k to half marathon. Its also probably a little strange that my first half marathon is also the longest distance Ive ever run; training, race or otherwise.

Preparation for this morning actually started a couple days ago. Ive been reading about the right way to carbo load, and if its even really worth it. There are lots of methods and suggestions for how to do it, but what I basically did was start eating a little more carbohydrate in my regular meals, rather than just piling on one full meal of tons of carbs. Other than maybe making my meals a little heavier than normal, this wasn't a difficult task. I woke up at 4:00 this morning, which is my usual long run time anyway so that I can eat breakfast and hope to give it time to make some natural courses before running time. I had everything laid out, so after getting dressed and eating some oatmeal, I grabbed my bag, a banana and a G2 and headed out for the race.

After a bit of a fiasco of parking even an hour before race time, I made my way over to the In Flight (my running club) tent. I walked around for a bit, said hello to some running friends from other clubs and basically let myself get appropriately nervous. With about 15 minutes to go before the start we took off on a little warm up jog. The weather was probably already in the 70's, much warmer than ideal, and it was frankly pretty humid, shocking, I know, for Houston. I probably said, and heard, ten times "why couldn't we have run this yesterday when it was 15 degrees cooler in the morning?"

After a little warm up it was time to take my place in the mob. My only goal time wise for this race was to finish in about two and a half hours. Most of the running calculations Ive been looking at were telling me a 5 hour marathon was within grasp so I was hoping for half of that. To break it down further I wanted to run it about an 11 minute per mile pace, figuring in my head that that would get me pretty close to 2:30. I lined up what I thought was about 1/2 way back, looking around to hopefully see people who looked like serious runners, but also weren't, as my sister calls it "too in it to win it" looking. I felt pretty comfortable with where I was until literally the gun went off and I looked to my left to see my friend Lisa just a few yards a way who is waaaaaay faster than I am. It doesn't really matter other than I didn't want to have to worry about getting in the way of runners who were a lot faster than me, because I know how frustrating that is. Luckily it wasn't ever an issue and the start when off really pretty smoothly, except for the group of about 10 walkers who decided to start at the front and get in EVERYBODY'S way. I like walkers fine, they don't bother me, but etiquette just says you should start further back.

Today's course was 3 loops of a little over 4 miles each. Its not ideal because frankly it gets a little boring, but it wasn't too bad. It was mostly dark for the majority of the first loop, so the second loop really almost felt new, but the third was brutal.

So, now for some things I did right, and some things I did wrong.
1. One thing I did right is that I didn't start too fast. Ive done it before and I frankly do it too often even on training runs. I get caught up in the excitement or just the idea of having a good run and I blow out half way through and the rest of the run is a struggle. I knew that at some point this distance was going to require a certain amount of "gut it out" running, but I was hoping to delay that feeling as long as possible. I'm lucky that I didn't really feel like I was gutting it out until about mile 9 or 10, and even then it wasn't even as painful as I was expecting. I was tired, I was hurting, but I "conserved" enough to be able to really run hard the last 2/10 of a mile, you know, so I looked good coming across the finish line :)

2. One thing I did wrong was say to myself "You know, I kind of like these hills, they break things up and keep it interesting." You just dont play with the universe like that. As I said this course was 3 loops. Each loop had 2 underpasses on each leg, meaning that I ran up and down 12 underpasses. On lap one and even two, they did kind of give a change of pace and I was feeling good enough that I made this assanine statement to myslef. On loop number 3, these hills were not my friend. The last one positively made me want to vomit blood on my driveway. (sorry, you have to listen to the radio station I listen to in order to get that reference, but dont worry, I dont really vomit blood.)

3. I somehow did a pretty good job eating and drinking on the course. With as warm as it was and the distance, it was important that I not only drink water, but also take some electrolytes, carbs etc. Im really not a fan of gatorade, especially while running because during a race its that hand mixed, over concentrated endurance formula junk that stays in your mouth for twelve hours and... well I dont like it, so I opt to bring little shot blocks with me, which are basically energy gells in gummy form. The only problem with these things is that they are sticky as all get out and so they are hard to get out of the baggy and when you do you better have some watter to wash them down or you will be chewing on them for days. On the last loop around mile 10 when I was feeling pretty tired, I figured Id take a cup of gatorade to hopefully get a little boost from it. I shouldnt have let me talk myself into that because of course, the guy handing off the gatorade spilled it all down my arm so I finished the race with the taste of that mess in my mouth and a sticky right arm and hand. Luckily I was sweating like a pig and it didnt stick around too badly.

Some of the funny things I heard on the course today:
- From a spectator sitting on the curb downtown, "Good job runners, yall look a lot better than the people that just ran by a few minutes ago, seriously!"

- From anothe runner on her third loop "How can these hills only go uphill, doesnt physics demand they go downhill at some point?"

- "GO WILL!!! MAN YOURE SKINNY!!!!" Thanks Anna. Ok, maybe thats a little self serving, but hey, I just ran 13.1 miles.

- "Youre almost there!" Said someone standing literally next to the 5 mile marker.

- A time/pace caller tried to tell me I was running at a 7:04 pace and got mad at me when I told him he was crazy if he thought I was running that fast.

All in all I had a really fun race, I came in unnoficially at 2:20:29 so I came in a little under my goal. I ran an average pace of 10:37 per mile which was a good bit faster than I expected. I realized about mile 6 or 7 that I was running that pace consistently and several times thought I had slowed down, but I actually ran it pretty consistently. My fastest mile split was 10:12 and slowest was 10:53. Other than those two, every one was right around 10:30. One of the coolest things was that I got my first piece of "hardware" today. Every race up to this point just gave a t-shirt. Today I got a medal and a running singlet. Cool bonus fact, they designed this medal to be a piece in a set. If I run this race three years in a row, the medals actually match up to form a bigger medal. Cool huh?

If I had been smarter

If I had thought about it, I would have kept a log of all of my marathon training for posterity's sake, but I haven't. However, as Ive learned, and keep learning, its never too late to start anything.

For more than one reason, September, and now October, have been my hardest training months. In September I really had to figure out how to train, eat and work at the same time. Being a teacher and having summers off makes summer training pretty easy, well at least the scheduling of it. In the past on those many, many days that I would finish school and just feel completely worn out, I would leave school, head to a drive through, gorge about 1500 calories, and take a nap until it was time for dinner, gorge another 1500, then come home, watch TV and go to sleep. Granted, this is even hard to type because its so embarrassing to admit, but in addition to being horrible for me it was SO EASY! Now, even when I do get worn out or have a bad day, I still have my running to do. Luckily, running is still fun for me, and I don't see it as just another thing I HAVE to do, its something that I get to do.

NOW, that being said, running is hard. I'm a running fanatic, I think about it, do it, research it, talk about it, etc. as much as anyone I know, but its still stinking hard. Ive written before about settling down and really feeling like a runner, well I realize that feeling like a runner actually entails a good amount of redundancy. I run over and over and over. Same places, same distances, same times, etc. When I first started I was breaching huge milestones, running races, confetti was plentiful, the world was fresh. Well I haven't raced since August, so for two solid months its been train and train and train. Luckily I have my first half marathon next week, and I'm hoping it will provide a much needed boost to my running. For me at least, I realize that racing regularly will be important. I'm not trying to win anything, but getting out there in the spirit of race day has a very specific effect, and its an effect that I need to keep going.

I am still hitting distance milestones. Every week in fact. My first ten miler was about 3 weeks ago and tomorrow I will run 12. My weekend long runs are still going excitingly well, but the week days are getting harder and harder. My running partner, Anne, has developed our new Mantra, "Crappy weekday runs make for great weekend runs."

I'm already having really crazy thoughts about what to do after my marathon is over. On one hand I guess that's good because it means that I'm not even considering if I finish the marathon, but when. As hard as all of this is, I'm confident in the fact that I am being consistent and working hard. Save an injury, which could always happen, I feel like Ill be ready for January. Houston half marathon next weekend, San Antonio half marathon in Nov. and then the big one on January 17th, It will be here before I know it.