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Ran a 10k - Official Thread (10 Viewers)

Thanks, guys. Appreciate all the kind words here. I was thinking of you, especially on the last 10K. Once it was clear that **** wasn't going to hell, the encouraging texts really pushed me to DBAP and close as strong as I could. That NYC qualifier is all because of you.

Just got home to DFW, after a four hour drive. Pro tip: Do not sit immobile for 4+ hours after running 3.25 hours at a pace you rarely ever run. Holy hell everything is locked-up.

Really, really happy with the result today. Was worried about the temps, but cloudy skies for 90% of the race kept things tolerable. Wind thankfully wasn't much of an issue. Getting that Tailwind bottle (and a kiss!) at Mile 12 from my wife I think was the difference-maker. As usual, me drinking at aid stations is always Striker-style, so the only way I was getting meaningful water was with the bottle I got. And it was great.
 
Thanks, guys. Appreciate all the kind words here. I was thinking of you, especially on the last 10K. Once it was clear that **** wasn't going to hell, the encouraging texts really pushed me to DBAP and close as strong as I could. That NYC qualifier is all because of you.

Just got home to DFW, after a four hour drive. Pro tip: Do not sit immobile for 4+ hours after running 3.25 hours at a pace you rarely ever run. Holy hell everything is locked-up.

Really, really happy with the result today. Was worried about the temps, but cloudy skies for 90% of the race kept things tolerable. Wind thankfully wasn't much of an issue. Getting that Tailwind bottle (and a kiss!) at Mile 12 from my wife I think was the difference-maker. As usual, me drinking at aid stations is always Striker-style, so the only way I was getting meaningful water was with the bottle I got. And it was great.
Absolutely awesome. Congrats!
 
2023 Chevron Houston Marathon Race Report

TL;DR
: Despite temps a bit higher than optimal, the race went according to plan. Discovered that the last 10K doesn't need to be a total meltdown, if properly fueled/hydrated. 3:13:06. Got the primary goal of a BQ, and managed to push enough to squeak by with a NYC qualifier, too.

Prologue

Haven't run a street marathon since 2019. Did my first and second that year. Sub-4:00 on both, but the last 10K of both were horrible. As such, really didn't have much interest in running another, ever, and figured I would just stick with trail racing, which I find to be much more enjoyable.

But 2022 was a good training year. No injuries. Bagged my first and second 100Ks. A 1:32:31 HM early in the year. 5,000km/3,000mi in total volume for the year. After my R2R2R in Oct, I thought to myself that I was at peak fitness, and who knows if I would run the same volume ever again. Or stay uninjured. So, if I ever wanted to qualify for Boston, it seemed like it was "now or never". Further, I'm 49 years old, but because the window was open for 2024 Boston, I could go for a qualifying time in the 50-54 group.

So I signed-up for the Houston marathon. For the same reasons I made it my first marathon: Flat as a pancake. January race date. I lived 11 years in Houston, so it had some nostalgia. And the first time I ran it, I found it to be incredibly well-organized.

So my wife and I packed-up the car, and drove south from DFW.

Race Morning

Left the AlphaFlys at home. Didn't like them on the test run. Went with the Saucony Endorphin Pro, which were great for my HM PR.

Got up, pooped, had a bagel, half a bottle of Tailwind, a couple Naproxen, and got ready to head out of the hotel room. If any of you run Houston, staying at the Hilton Americas is about as convenient as it can get. Before leaving the room, had a second poop for good measure.

Got out of the hotel, crossed the street to the start of the route you need to take to get to your corral. 2,000 steps by the time I got there! Had another quick poop at the portapotties by my corral.

The plan was to open the first 2-3km with the 3:25 pacer, and then speed up to 4:40/km (7:30/mi) after that. If I could hold that pace, I would have about 5-7 minutes of buffer to my BQ time (3:25). Once I got to 32km/20mi, I would see if I was a miserable heap of staggering flesh, or if I could actually keep running. If the latter, and feeling good, perhaps push the pace to qualify for NYC (3:14). If somewhere in-between, just try to hold as fast a pace as I could and not eat into to much of my buffer.

In the race corral, I found the 3:25 pacer, and asked him if he planned to open "at pace" or "something else". The former. All good.

National anthem, wheelchairs go. Then elites. Then the corral starts to move and across the start line I go. I fail to check what gun time is at that point, which I would regret later.

First 2K/1.5mi, 4:45/km - 7:40/mi

Lost the 3:25 pacer briefly, as the metered start spread the runners out. Quickly found him and stuck with him for 10 minutes. Big gang of runners around him, which I found annoying. After 2K I had enough, and picked up the pace a bit. For this part of the race especially, I was all over the road (adding distance) to find some breathing room.

2K/1.5mi to 19K/12mi, 4:33/km - 7:19/mi

This was faster than the plan. But I knew that my watch paces were off because of my terrible course running. This race is so well-organized, and one aspect of that is that they have every km of the course marked. So I knew exactly how much distance my circuitous running was adding compared to the perfect line. So I wanted to stay under 4:40/km for good measure. Plus, 4:30/km was feeling pretty easy at that point.

Somewhere around the 10K point, the half-marathoners peeled-off, leaving much more space for me. And less-circuitous running. I was passing quite a few people at my pace, and getting passed once in a while.

19K/12mi to 32K/20mi, 4:36/km - 7:21/mi

The 19K point was what I was looking-forward to for the whole race to that point. My wife was going to meet me at a pre-designated point, and hand off a water bottle to me. Caffeinated Tailwind. 200calories, 700ml. Sport top, so much easier drinking. I had been trying to take a sip or two at water stations prior to this point, with terrible results. She texted me about 10 minutes before I got to that point that she was waiting for me on the median. And when I got there, I saw her in the distance, and it gave me a boost. Got my bottle, and a kiss, and kept running. It took me about 6km (4mi) to drink the entire thing, but it was great. So much easier than cups from water stations.

The running was still feeling good. The course was routing through some nice parts of Houston, and it was spacious and enjoyable.

The weather up to that point, while warmer than I would choose (14C/57F at start, 18C/65F by end), had been tolerable. It was very cloudy, keeping the sun at bay. Still a little humid, but without the sun beating on me, it wasn't oppressive. The wind also was behaving.

At about the 28K point, the sun started coming out. Could definitely feel that. But thankfully it wouldn't last, and it got cloudy again just after the 32K/20mi point.

While I wasn't using the water stations for drinking, I had been using them to cool down. Every station, I would grab 1-2 cups of water and dump them on my head. The water was really cold, and I had a mesh top to my hat, so it was very effective at cooling me down. This, combined with my new/better hydration strategy, kept the temps from impacting me too much through the race.

<snip>
 
32K/20mi to Finish, 4:34/km - 7:21/mi

The plan was to get to this point and see how I felt. In my prior two marathons, everything fell apart here. It was truly grueling then. This time, a universe different: Sure, I wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, but that "you should walk" voice in my head was just a whisper, and not a screaming banshee. On my prior races, my mind was all about coming up with excuses for explaining why I failed. This time, my mind was "my friends are watching, they're seeing the splits, I need to SPEED UP and DBAP!!!".

Many of you texted me during the race. My wife was texting too. On my watch I can see the first few words, and every time I got one, I would look down to see @bushdocda saying "Go Z finish it!" or @gianmarco saying "Killing it". My wife with "6K left, POWER THROUGH". Many others as well. Knowing you were watching gave me energy to push, and keep the "you're sore, you have the BQ in the bag, feel free to walk a bit" voices at bay.

The NYC qualifier (<3:14) was never really in the plan, so I never really did the math to know what pace I needed to keep to hit it. But as I cross timing mats, I can see the gun clock at each mat. And in my head, I'm trying to do the math. How much distance left, and how fast do I have to run to hit 3:14? The last time I ran Houston, my chip time was 1-2 minutes behind gun time, so I assumed the same to be true here. And of course, for whatever reason, I didn't have my watch set up to show total elapsed time. Just paces. So I had no idea if I was close to a NYC qualifier or not. But with all the encouragement I was receiving via text, plus the energy of the crowd (this race gets a fantastic spectator turnout), I was going to SPEED UP DAMMIT!

Looking back at my paces, I wasn't speeding-up nearly as much as I thought I was. While the course is super-flat, what hills exist are at the end. Plus, I was getting a bit of a headwind. And finally, the paces of my surrounding runners was dropping like a rock, with lots of walkers, and those who were running I was passing easily. So I definitely felt that I was going faster, even if I wasn't really.

Looking at my HR progression, things were awesome until the 32K point. You can see that the slope of the line changes and my HR was climbing at a faster rate than prior. But as long as I didn't get to 160 (my barf point), things should be OK. And I never looked at my HR through the whole race. I just didn't want to know. I usually run by feel, and did this entire race as well.

As we swung into downtown, I knew I was in the homestretch. There's a sea of half-marathoners on the other side of the street, but they reserve my side of the street for marathoners (again, awesome organization). So I had plenty of space. I was blowing-by other runners (who were more running slow, than me running fast). The crowd was huge and loud. People (and this was throughout the race) were seeing the name on my bib and yelling "Go [Zasada]!!!". I was giving it my all. At that point I was saying to myself "You don't want to find out you missed NYC qualifying by 10 seconds and you had more left in the tank -- DBAP!!!".

I crossed the finish line at 3:16:30, gun time. I thought my chip time was max 2 minutes behind that. So, while I'm dry-heaving in the chute, I do the math and think I missed NYC by about 30 seconds. But I wasn't mad, because I knew I didn't let up on that last 10K, and never slowed to make things easier.

But then I looked down at my watch. Which I had stopped, and now showed total elapsed for the first time: 3:13:xx. What?! NYC! Yes!!!

My wife texted "YOU ****ING DID IT!".

I regained my composure, and progressed through the chute. Medal, chocolate milk, shirt, and then finally, my wife. What a race.

The results

Unofficial time 3:13:06. 43-minute PR (very stale). BQ with an almost 12-minute buffer. NYC qualifier by 54 seconds. 12-second negative split (my first ever in a race).

656/6088 overall
524/3902 gender
46/490 AG

Epilogue

Clearly such a high-volume year, even if run at slow paces, made a big difference. Thomas Callahan's quote of "Quantity has a quality all its own", really rings-true here.

But I think the biggest driver of success on this race was the hydration strategy: That bottle of caffeinated Tailwind was fantastic. Kept my energy up, and kept me hydrated. The sport-top made it drinkable while running. I used aid stations for cooling only. My wife had to really go out of her way to make this happen (getting out of downtown Houston on race day is a nightmare with all the road closures), and I'm forever grateful to her for doing that.

Finally, all the encouragement from you. All the pre-race texts and posts here. The texts during the race. Knowing I had spectators really raised the bar. Thank you.

Who wants to run Boston in 2024????
 
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Just an awesome race and report @Zasada .

An incredible year for year capped off by THAT effort. Very happy for you. And you had a triple poop. Epic delivery there.
 
Great race report and congrats on the BQ, NYQ and the negative split. Not many people can claim that.
Also, has anyone else ever had a mid race kiss? I think I once had a girl cheer for me but it was for the runner behind me.
 
Great race report and congrats on the BQ, NYQ and the negative split. Not many people can claim that.
Also, has anyone else ever had a mid race kiss? I think I once had a girl cheer for me but it was for the runner behind me.
My wife yelled at me once that I looked like I was running with a stick up my butt.
:trailing runner sees shovel head attached:

“That’s no stick, lady.”
 
32K/20mi to Finish, 4:34/km - 7:21/mi

The plan was to get to this point and see how I felt. In my prior two marathons, everything fell apart here. It was truly grueling then. This time, a universe different: Sure, I wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, but that "you should walk" voice in my head was just a whisper, and not a screaming banshee. On my prior races, my mind was all about coming up with excuses for explaining why I failed. This time, my mind was "my friends are watching, they're seeing the splits, I need to SPEED UP and DBAP!!!".

Many of you texted me during the race. My wife was texting too. On my watch I can see the first few words, and every time I got one, I would look down to see @bushdocda saying "Go Z finish it!" or @gianmarco saying "Killing it". My wife with "6K left, POWER THROUGH". Many others as well. Knowing you were watching gave me energy to push, and keep the "you're sore, you have the BQ in the bag, feel free to walk a bit" voices at bay.

The NYC qualifier (<3:14) was never really in the plan, so I never really did the math to know what pace I needed to keep to hit it. But as I cross timing mats, I can see the gun clock at each mat. And in my head, I'm trying to do the math. How much distance left, and how fast do I have to run to hit 3:14? The last time I ran Houston, my chip time was 1-2 minutes behind gun time, so I assumed the same to be true here. And of course, for whatever reason, I didn't have my watch set up to show total elapsed time. Just paces. So I had no idea if I was close to a NYC qualifier or not. But with all the encouragement I was receiving via text, plus the energy of the crowd (this race gets a fantastic spectator turnout), I was going to SPEED UP DAMMIT!

Looking back at my paces, I wasn't speeding-up nearly as much as I thought I was. While the course is super-flat, what hills exist are at the end. Plus, I was getting a bit of a headwind. And finally, the paces of my surrounding runners was dropping like a rock, with lots of walkers, and those who were running I was passing easily. So I definitely felt that I was going faster, even if I wasn't really.

Looking at my HR progression, things were awesome until the 32K point. You can see that the slope of the line changes and my HR was climbing at a faster rate than prior. But as long as I didn't get to 160 (my barf point), things should be OK. And I never looked at my HR through the whole race. I just didn't want to know. I usually run by feel, and did this entire race as well.

As we swung into downtown, I knew I was in the homestretch. There's a sea of half-marathoners on the other side of the street, but they reserve my side of the street for marathoners (again, awesome organization). So I had plenty of space. I was blowing-by other runners (who were more running slow, than me running fast). The crowd was huge and loud. People (and this was throughout the race) were seeing the name on my bib and yelling "Go [Zasada]!!!". I was giving it my all. At that point I was saying to myself "You don't want to find out you missed NYC qualifying by 10 seconds and you had more left in the tank -- DBAP!!!".

I crossed the finish line at 3:16:30, gun time. I thought my chip time was max 2 minutes behind that. So, while I'm dry-heaving in the chute, I do the math and think I missed NYC by about 30 seconds. But I wasn't mad, because I knew I didn't let up on that last 10K, and never slowed to make things easier.

But then I looked down at my watch. Which I had stopped, and now showed total elapsed for the fist time. 3:13:xx. What?! NYC! Yes!!!

My wife texted "YOU ****ING DID IT!".

Regained my composure, and progressed through the chute. Medal, chocolate milk, shirt, and then finally, my wife. What a race.

The results

Unofficial time 3:13:06. 43-minute PR (very stale). BQ with an almost 12-minute buffer. NYC qualifier by 54 seconds. 12-second negative split (my first ever in a race).

656/6088 overall
524/3902 gender
46/490 AG

Epilogue

Clearly such a high-volume year, even if run at slow paces, made a big difference. Thomas Callahan's quote of "Quantity has a quality all its own", really rings-true here.

But I think the biggest driver of success on this race was the hydration strategy: That bottle of caffeinated Tailwind was fantastic. Kept my energy up, and kept me hydrated. The sport-top made it drinkable while running. I used aid stations for cooling only. My wife had to really go out of her way to make this happen (getting out of downtown Houston on race day is a nightmare with all the road closures), and I'm forever grateful to her for doing that.

Finally, all the encouragement from you. All the pre-race texts and posts here. The texts during the race. Knowing I had spectators really raised the bar. Thank you.

Who wants to run Boston in 2024????
Love this and so happy for you. I’ve never met you, but you just seem like an awesome person. I think we all knew you were capable of this race, but you went out and proved it to yourself. You are a BMF.
 
Juxtatarot’s post run smoothie:

Can’t post measurements since I don’t measure but…

Banana, chickpeas, natural peanut butter, soy milk plus you choice of vegetable(s) (celery, zucchini, spinach, broccoli, etc. — avocado if you want more fat).

Nutritious with a decent amount of protein, delicious and relatively inexpensive.

You’re welcome.
 
So today officially starts my Half Marathon training. I'll be doing the Hal Higdon plan this time to try and ease back into it - at least for the first month and see how it goes. Race is April 8th.

I'm driving home from the running store last night after trying to buy some new shoes (they didn't have the ones I use), and this song pops up on a new random playlist I picked on Spotify.

It's a sign. From The Lord. :lol:
 
Just returning to the thread after a weekend hiatus due to packing kids up for college. Definitely missed some BMF-ery.

@Zasada, awesome performance. As others said, it definitely seemed like you were/are on the cusp of some huge breakthroughs, and it's so cool to see all of your effort and dedication pay off. Congrats on a well-deserved result!
 
Juxtatarot’s post run smoothie:

Can’t post measurements since I don’t measure but…

Banana, chickpeas, natural peanut butter, soy milk plus you choice of vegetable(s) (celery, zucchini, spinach, broccoli, etc. — avocado if you want more fat).

Nutritious with a decent amount of protein, delicious and relatively inexpensive.

You’re welcome.
Mine = almond milk, 1/2 banana, 1/2 cup frozen berries, peanut butter, ice, and one scoop chocolate protein powder.

Basically PB&J. :)
 
Just returning to the thread after a weekend hiatus due to packing kids up for college. Definitely missed some BMF-ery.

@Zasada, awesome performance. As others said, it definitely seemed like you were/are on the cusp of some huge breakthroughs, and it's so cool to see all of your effort and dedication pay off. Congrats on a well-deserved result!
He probably secured the most memorable race experience in mid-January. Good luck everyone else one-upping that, but maybe @SayWhat? will emerge from his slumber and knock out a Western States qualifier on 14 miles of bear attack-filled training.
 
He probably secured the most memorable race experience in mid-January. Good luck everyone else one-upping that, but maybe @SayWhat? will emerge from his slumber and knock out a Western States qualifier on 14 miles of bear attack-filled training.

Would love to see @SayWhat? and @SFBayDuck start knocking-out more trails. The latter was recently active on Strava again for a couple of hikes. Hopefully the start of his comeback. It's lonely here being the only trail guy.
 
He probably secured the most memorable race experience in mid-January. Good luck everyone else one-upping that, but maybe @SayWhat? will emerge from his slumber and knock out a Western States qualifier on 14 miles of bear attack-filled training.

Would love to see @SayWhat? and @SFBayDuck start knocking-out more trails. The latter was recently active on Strava again for a couple of hikes. Hopefully the start of his comeback. It's lonely here being the only trail guy.
Duck's been having too much fun going back to college. Jerk.
 

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