Rock 'n' Roll San Antonio Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

I'm most proud of how smart I ran the race. This wasn't an "epic" race and there wasn't any drama. I just went out there and executed my plan. I knew that the heat and humidity would be my biggest challenge and that if I went out too fast it would catch up with me by mile 7 with a spectacular blow up around mile 10 (ala the 2009 RnR SA race). So this time, I focused on two things.

First, I had to keep my pace under control even when everyone around me was taking off. Until mile 10, I kept making myself back off the pace and take a few deep breaths. At mile 10 I saw that I had 24 minutes if I wanted to achieve my goal of breaking 1:40 so I finally relaxed and began pushing the pace a little. I knew that I add been maintaining a pace in the mid 7's for the entire race and my heart rate felt under control and sustainable so I knew that if I just kept doing what I had been doing I would make it.

Second, the heat over the past 6 months in Houston has taught be a lot about training the in heat and how my body reacts. I knew that if I got too warm early on, I probably would not be able to cool off. So starting at the first water station, I dumped a cup of water on my back at every station. I also got water or cytomax at the station also. Finally, I slowed a little whenever I got water just to allow myself to actually take a drink. The 5 seconds I gave up to drink was totally worth getting to drink.

Really not much. I could have gone faster but the cost would have been running less smart.

Walked around for a bit and eventually walked back to the hotel after meeting up with the family. Had Cytomax, bagel, banana, and oranges immediately after the race.


Most definitely the weather. If temps had been in the 40s-50s, I possibly could have been up to 5% faster.


This is my third time doing this race. RnR does an excellent job staging races and I will continue to do their races in the future.