Great run. Great weather. Nice course. LOTS of Striders and bloggers in attendance.
I'll start with the obvious. Race distance PR! Yeah for me. Also did a better job of placing myself in the starting line, which helped.... kind of. I may have been too far up, because there was a steady stream of runners passing me. That was mentally hard on me. On the first loop I was giving "shout-outs" to all the runners I knew. The yelling got me a bit winded, so I was more selective with the comments on the last two loops.
Within the first two miles I met up with Mario. He's a Strider and a super nice guy. We were running a similar pace. For 90% of the run we were within 100 yards of each other. It was great to have a familiar face to talk to.
I did ok until the last four miles. I had maintained a 9:20ish pace. The muscles around my hips and down the side of both legs started aching. I maintained the same effort but the pace slipped to 9:45's. My response to the slower pace was thirty second pick-ups at the end of each mile.
Matt Wright, who had already finished found me falling apart with 1.5 miles to go. He ran me in. I'm SUPER thankful for his help. I was losing control of my pace. Matt helped me dig deep for a solid finish. Thanks Matt!
I did my "usual" 100 yard sprint to the finish. I'm probably doing something wrong, because I'm barely able to stand after my "finish-line" effort. I feel like a DRAMA QUEEN when I'm sitting or lying there in pain. I'll reconsider my finishing effort in the future, before I get some god-awful WCRH.
I'm proud of my time and effort. I was shooting for 3:00 hours. Last months 1/2 marathon was an ALL-OUT effort. Nothing was left on the course. I knew I couldn't maintain the same pace for another three miles. The McMillan calculator predicted a 2:24:47 25k. I wasn't too far off with a time of 2:26:06.
Saw a ton of people I knew. Too many to mention, but I want to say: Thank you for the generous support!
Activity: Race
Mileage: 15.61 miles
Time: 2:26:06 -- 9:21 pace
Splits:
10:00, 9:30, 9:24, 9:18, 9:34,
9:20, 9:10, 9:22, 9:13, 9:12,
9:24, 9:02, 9:13, 9:24, 9:57,
4:56 (0.61 mile)
Location: Houston, Texas
How I Felt: 9.0
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7 comments:
You know it's a good race when you feel like nothing is left. Great job on a race day that preceded a "semi-long" run.
Good to seeya out there today! Look at al them 9's!!!!
seeing everyone do so well this morning makes me smile!!!!
good to see you out there!!
I would not reconsider your finishing strategy at all. That is your last opportunity to drain the tank and leave it all on the field (wow...that sounds like a high school football coach getting his players pumped up for homecoming at halftime!!). So, cliches aside, I would not call you a Drama Queen...you look more like a King!!
So great running out there today Mr Bill "Drama King" Cox! I look forward to your next production...the 30km?!!
DRAMA KING, DRAMA KING, DRAMA KING...
Steeeve
PS - Good running, DK ;-)
Great to see you out there Bill. Guess I'll never get to see one of your finished 'cause you'll always be there before me.
Great race! Super proud to know you.
Way to go Bill, nice run, and nice seeing you this morning!
Nice to finally meet you today. Great run too!
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