Aramco Houston Half Marathon Trip/Race Report
I flew out on Saturday night and got to the hotel around 10:30 and pretty much went straight to bed.
On Saturday morning I decided to mix in my pre-race shakeout run with picking up the packets for my wife (who couldn't com) and myself. I jogged a few minutes to get to the expo, picked up the packets and jogged back to the hotel, then tacked on a couple of more miles afterwards. I then had lunch with a friend who lived in the area and had some extremely delicious but greasy fried seafood. I relaxed for a couple of more hours and then met up with
WorrieKing for dinner at his hotel. The service in the bar/restaurant was atrocious and it took forever to get someone to take our orders or to bring the check, but luckily neither of us seemed to be hungry and both enjoyed the conversation the extra time provided, ranging from mostly running to football and our group here. (Another plug for the fantasy football league for the regulars in this thread next year) When the check finally came they gave us
Worrieking's discount from his hotel AND forget our appetizer, so we had about 65% taken off our bill, which
Worrieking generously picked up, thanks man!
On my way back to the hotel I thought about grabbing some snacks for the early morning, but didn't see any stores or bakeries open where I can quickly get something for later. However, I walked by the bar in my hotel on the way to the elevator and felt that I wasn't quite full, so I went in and grabbed a table. 20 minutes later I had another plate of pasta and some artichoke spinach dip in my stomach. I made it upstairs, laid out everything for the next day and then after talking to my wife for a bit went to bed.
I never sleep well pre-race and this night was no exception, maybe 4-5 hours tops. The difference from most other races was that I woke up with little trouble and felt energetic and ready. I headed out the door for a quick shake-out run, then came back to my room to get my gear on. I was warned by
Worrieking and others that the corral can get a little crowded so I got there a good 45 minutes ahead of time. While it felt sufficiently warm on my shakeout run, I guess it's a different story when you are standing around as I started shivering a bit. Mercifully the time went by quickly and before I knew it they were marching us up to the start line behind the elites/sub-elites. I think I was about 3-4 rows back and it was a huge mess for the first 1/4-1/2 of the race as usual. I did see some of the lead female marathoners and knew I should definitely be ahead of them so I threw in one surge and settled in behind some marathoners with double-digit (elite) bibs. One of the marathoners was wearing a Hansons singlet so I KNEW he had to be running at least sub-2:20 pace and probably going for the trials qualifier of 2:18. Shortly after I realized he was the guy who wrote this book -
http://www.amazon.com/Hansons-Half-Marathon-Method-Your-Best/dp/1937715191/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1390228543&sr=8-2&keywords=hansons+marathon+method ... I couldn't see my watch for the first 2 miles or so, so the onlyl things I could really rely on were the clocks at each mile mark and how I was feeling.
Race Report - Mile-by-mile replay:
Mile 1 - 5:12 - I didn't see this split but the pace felt comfortably hard.
Mile 2 - 5:15 - The two American marathoners started chatting about whether they want to pick it up. I felt good so I took over the lead for our pack here
and led mile 3
Mile 3 - 5:05 - I didn't see this split on my watch either so I didn't freak out here, either the clocks were off or it was still dark but I thought this mile was more in the 5:10 range.
Mile 4 - 5:10 - The marathoners took over the lead here and I decided that since there were 5 of us I probably don't need to lead for more than 1-2 miles before we split of so I just tucked in.
Mile 5 - 5:15 - I have never actually run under 26 minutes for an 8K before. So it was amusing to see the clock in the 25:40s when I passed the 8K mark and 25:50s when I passed 5 miles. Still feeling good though.
(New 8K/5Mile PRs ~25:47 / 25:57)
Mile 6 - 5:08 - Shortly after 6 miles I came through 10K with a 23 second PR for that distance. I am also feeling the pace a little bit but I know the full/half
guys split around mile 8 so I decided it's probably worth it to sit on these guys for a little longer and have them break the wind for me and run a little faster than I probably should.
(New 10K PR - 32:09)
Mile 7 - 5:07 - I am questioning my decision to stick with the pack but I know it's only one more mile or so.
Mile 8 - 5:11 - The marathoners split off but I find that the view is much nicer now with a string of bunhuggers in front of me out to the horizon. I am
picking off the girls in the half marathon championships one after the other, I am getting a little tired/tight at this point too but I know there's no way
I should be settling in behind any of them if I want to run a good time.
Mile 9 - 5:12 - Still plugging away. Course has been going downhill for the last couple of miles too so it's easy to keep this momentum going. I also never really counted/tracked 15K PRs, but I am doing the Gate River Run / US 15K championships so I wanted to see what kind of a time I can do here.
(15K PR - 48:14, 10K PR of 32:08 from 5K-15K mark)
Mile 10 - 5:18 - The course levels off and there are a few turns. I set a PR by about 1.5 minutes at this checkpoint (never broke 53:20). (
New 10-mile PR - 51:53)
Mile 11 - 5:11 - Must have been another net downhill mile because the effort didn't pick up. I did some quick math and realized I needed 2 more 5:11s to
have a shot at going under 68 but I am getting pretty damn tired.
Mile 12 - 5:19 - There was a long gradual climb here that killed my momentum, and when I hit 1 mile to go I knew sub-68 was out the window. But I also
had some rivals/friends that had run low-68s so I made it my goal the last mile to run as fast as I can to get a PR faster than these guys.
Mile 13 - 5:12 - Passed Sara Hall and some other pretty big names this mile but didn't realize it at the time. I had jogged the last half a mile or so
of the course the day before though so I knew exactly when I can start my push for home. I came around the last turn with 0.1 left and gave it
everything I had. Last 0.12 - 37s -
68:14 on my watch but 68:12 officially - 4th overall / 1st American. New HM PR by 2:21.
It was an amazing feeling once I caught my breath and realized what I had just done. Training has been going extremely well lately as I was running close to my old workout times from when I was living at sea level, but to have everything come together on race day and to execute my race plan as well as I did was tremendously satisfying. (well, I would've liked another 1s/mi somewhere, but hopefully that'll happen later this year). I had people telling me that I might have gone faster if I was in the championship race since it looked like I basically ran all alone in the results. (3rd place was
over 30 seconds and and 5th place finished 2 minutes behind). But I think the race unfolded in a way that gave me someone to run with or chase the whole way. It also helped that these people basically ran the tangents perfectly the entire way as the 13.12 on my garmin is one of the shortest measures I have gotten on a HM since I started racing with GPS watches 2 years ago. (there were a couple of 13.11-13.12s where the course was basically an out-and-back, but on a loop course like this one I usually expect to get anywhere from 13.15-13.20)
This weekend pretty much had everything, running, racing, PRs (I counted 5 for the distances that I track) and finally meeting someone from this group. Thank you guys for the support along the way and I hope I'll get to meet at least a few more of you guys in the near future.
Are these the trails you typically train on? Awesome run considering your taper week was spent in the bars of Atlanta.Had a pretty solid week of training. Legs are starting to come around again. The training for this 50k calls for a day off in the middle of the week and I'm liking it. Train pretty hard M-T, W off, hit it hard again Th-F-S, S off. Today was LR day with it preview run day for the race. Had a decent 
WOW!! Nice work Steve.
) but overall it's 2 steps forward and 1 step back for the past few months.
