Day 52: Taming The Beast

Well, today was the big day, and a day of firsts:

• First official race
• First official Half-Marathon
• First Personal Record (PR)
• First time to run over 10 miles
• First time eating a Snickers Marathon Energy Bar (I’m sure that’s what saved the day)

The race went really well, I think. I had several goals in the order of difficulty: #1 – survive, #2 – be under 2:30:00, #3 – be under a 10 minute pace (that’s 2:10:00), and #4 don’t let a girl beat me. I achieved all but the last one — there were several ladies ahead of me. My five year old son let me know that getting beat by girls means you’re slow. Thanks, son. Hopefully by next year I’ll be able to preserve my dignity.

I really didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know how many people would be there (dozens? hundreds?), how many water stations there would be, or where exactly the course started and finished. We ended up having 48 runners in the Half-Marathon with about 5 relay teams. They had water available every two miles and restrooms about ever five miles. Luckily, I only needed the water.

The race started at 8:15AM. They were hosting bike races today as well (35mi & 65mi). I think they started at around 8:00AM. I didn’t think to check the temperature this morning, but it was probably around 45 degress or so. I wore a pair of Russell Dri-Power workout pants while waiting for the race to start and then just threw it (along with all the grass burrs it had accumulated) into the car when it got close to race time. The hardest decision I had to make this week was what to wear! We starting with temperatures in the 40’s and should have finished in the 60’s — that’s pretty cold for us West Texas folks. I ended up going with a Champion compression shirt as my base layer (don’t worry it’s one size too big so all the ladies wouldn’t be tempted by my curvy gut). Over that, I wore an old long-sleeve Starter workout shirt that’s been in my closet for years. It’s from the pre-”wicking” days. I don’t know if a wicking shirt would have helped, but I sure would have taken that thing off if my little runner number thing hadn’t been pinned to it.

I started out at what felt like a really slow pace. Within about a mile, the pack of runners was pretty spread out, and I was clearly toward the back. Part of my plan was to take it easy until Steamboat Mountain on mile 6. I didn’t want to run too hard and use up all my energy before I got to “the Beast.” I stopped to walk for a few seconds at the water station at mile 2 — took a couple sips and then started running again. At mile 4, I took some sports drink instead of water. It turned out to be waaay to strong, so I turned around and went back to get water. I probably lost about 15-20 seconds doing that, but I also forgot to punch my lap button on my RS100. If you look at my lap times online, I just took mile 4 & 5 and split the time evenly between the two miles.

At the base of Steamboat Mountain, I stopped to walk for about 10-15 seconds to catch my breath. The steep incline on Streamboat is about three tenths of a mile long, and the elevation change is about 300 feet. I think I probably ran about three-fourths of it. I ran about a third, then walked for a moment; ran some more and then walked; and then ran up the rest of the way. It was harder than I thought, but I did better than I thought, too. I definitely need to do some hill/strength training for next year.

At the top of Streamboat was more water and a transition point for the relay teams. I ended up running the next two miles with a relay runner before we gave up and started walking. I tried to cheer him on to keep going, but he just couldn’t. It felt good being able to keep going because I was that guy 7 weeks ago — 2 miles was hard, especially at a sub-10 minute pace. Those two miles were the only time I actually ran with someone, and it definitely helped push me a little harder.

The last three miles were hard. I hadn’t run over 10 miles before, and, even then, there wasn’t a big mountain in the middle of the course. I was glad the the last 3 miles were pretty flat. We ended up running through “downtown” Buffalo Gap. A couple people passed me coming into Buffalo Gap, but I eventually caught back up with them and stayed ahead of them until the end. I had expected to have a little more kick at the end of the race, but I think I left my kick on Streamboat Mountain. It felt like I wasn’t going very fast, but I was giving everything I had — mainly because there was a girl behind me, as you can see below:

I was hoping for a Rookie of the Year award, but they didn’t have that. Maybe next year…oh, wait. The photo below is from after the race with Brandon & Mya (left) and Travis (right). Travis was 9th overall and actually got 2nd in his age group. Brandon was 27th overall, and I ended up 35th overall.  Full results are posted here. You can’t tell from the photo, but my forehead was covered in salt after the race. I know that hasn’t happened since high school.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun. Burned 2200 calories. Got to spend some time with friends and meet some new people. I’m thinking this is going to be a yearly thing for me, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how I do next year with a lot more training under my belt.

So, that settles it: you can go from the couch to a Half-Marathon in 8 weeks.

Stats: 13.1mi in 2:08:41 @ 9:50 pace