Houston Race Report

Be sure to check the previous post for more details about Houston. Here's a narrative of the race:

Houston was a GREAT race for me. Everything came together very well. Perfect weather. I ran my first two miles in 9:45 and 9:30, slowly warming up and making sure I was ready to pick up the pace. Somewhere in the first five miles, I caught and passed the 4:15 pace team.

This was also the largest marathon I ever ran (15,000 between the full and half marathons). I ran several miles under 9:00 as the race continued. I remember passing a guy who looked like Elvis, someone dressed like King Tut, and a guy with a HUGE cowboy hat. Fun times.

I was also impressed with how there was no waiting at a lot of the portable restroom stations. At mile 13, I stopped for a quick break. I didn't *have* to go, but the opportunity was there, and I knew I'd feel a lot more at ease for the rest of the race. I finished the first half in about 1:59:30.

Everything was going VERY well until I hit mile 21. I could feel the tremendous strain on my body. I had run 20 miles at 9:10 pace before, but never beyond that. After finishing mile 21 in 9:22, I tried to pick it up in miles 22 and 23, turning in splits of 9:02 and 8:59.

Then, mile 24. Never have I felt my body telling me in so many ways to slow down. "You're going to set a PR. You can walk the rest of the way. Don't worry about the four-hour mark. It's not like you need it for a BQ or something." I took an extra walking break during mile 24, and I walked for longer than usual at the rest stop in mile 25, turning in splits of 9:56 and 10:17.

As I crossed the mile 25 banner, I checked my Garmin forerunner. It was close to 3:49. I thought to myself, "If you push it, you might make four hours." The mind battle raged on, but not for long. The runner in me said, "After the next 1.2 miles, you're done. It'll all be over before you realize... Go for it!" I barely looked at my forerunner for the next 10 minutes, just trying to keep moving.

The finish line crept closer and closer. I peeked at my forerunner while weaving through traffic, counting down the seconds to the four-hour mark. "10... 9... maybe I can make it... 7... 6... almost there... 4... 3... 2... okay, only a few seconds over... DONE!" I forgot to smile when I finished. I was too focused on stepping on the finish mat, because I had no idea if my forerunner was perfectly accurate or not. I soon found out that my time was 4:00:03. CLOSE ENOUGH!

This was an almost perfect race for me. For that reason, you won't see me out on a marathon course for at least four months. Probably more. I'm going to keep training, but I'm going to work on shorter races for a while.