San Antonio Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon


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San Antonio, Texas
United States
40F / 4C
Sunny
Total Time = 1h 35m
Overall Rank = 254/17033
Age Group = F25-29
Age Group Rank = 11/1769
Pre-race routine:

Sat: Drove to San Antonio with my friend Tia, went to the Expo to get packets, linked up with one of my USMA classmates Emily and her mom and went to a place to eat on the river walk. Then it was just chilling at the hotel till we went to Chick-fil-A to grab some dinner. Was in bed by around 9:30PM.
Sun: Up at 0530, dressed, ate a banana and Clif bar. Tia and I met up with Emily and her mom and mom's friend to drive to the Start Line. We got dropped off at the start line around 0610. It's a good thing we did as everything backed up after that. We made our way to the bag drop off place, but weren't ready to strip down to race gear, too cold. We huddled around, then finally went and dropped off the bags at the UPS trucks that were supposed to take them to the finish. Porta potties again, then back up the street to get to my corral. There were 32 of them, I was thankfully in #2. I had an Espresso GU 20 minutes prior to the race.
Event warmup:

Trying to stay warm...walking back and forth a lot. Yep, that's it.
Run
  • 1h 35m 7s
  • 13.31 miles
  • 07m 09s  min/mile
Comments:

Thankfully, being in the 2nd corral meant I didn't have to work around too many people the first mile. I wanted to make sure I didn't go out too quickly, but keep a good pace. Miles 1-5 went super fast. I reached the 5K mark I was feeling pretty solid and the pacing was good. Mile 5 had the only noticeable "hills" (inclines) that I had to work past. In the first 5 miles I passed several women with the "Military" tags on their backs. Didn't know if they were 1/2 or Full Marathoners, just picked them off. I had my speed belt with two bottles of NUUN. I took my first Roctane at 4.5 and my second one at 8.5. Mile 6 was a lot of downhill, and I took advantage of it, and all the downhills. Flat and fast for the most part. Lots of spectators at various locations. I was feeling really great and often had to slow a little cause I knew holding 6:50's wasn't going to get me to the finish without some significant slow down in the last few miles. But, I was feeling great. Never needed anything from the aide stations with what I had. I wore a short sleeve shirt with arm warmers and my BT shorts and throw away gloves and my Newton racing flats. I threw my gloves at around 3 miles. When I hit the 10 mile mark at 1:11/12 something, I knew I could finish strong. All race I knew it was going to be a PR, I just didn't know how much. From 8 forward I kept telling myself, keep the pace, keep the cadence, good form, good turnover. And I just kept going. Mile 12 was actually a little tough and I could feel some of the juice going, but then I saw another military gal ahead of me, and I was going to pass her. In the last 1/4 of a mile, I did. There was a hill going up to the last turn for the last 200m and I was afraid she'd catch me on it, but she didn't and when I saw the finish I pushed it in pretty hard and I was done!
What would you do differently?:

Nothing...there is nothing that I think I could've done to be faster. I really pushed it well, hard, and think I left it all on the course. No collapsing at the end, but more sore now than I've been in a long time after this distance.

Military Division: 2/305 women
Age (F25-29): 11/1739
Sex: 38/11389
Overall: 254/17033
Post race
Warm down:

Slowly walked through food area and picked up some snacks; made my way to the bad drop, no one was around and thought it'd be fast. Not so much so...waited, and waited, then went to find friends at our meeting spot, found, then more waiting, then trying to find if any results would be available, still more waiting for bag...yeah, took 2+ hours to get the bag. Thankfully they finally found it. Got a picture with the HEB Buddy just for my brother...he is a big HEB fan!

What limited your ability to perform faster:

Umm, I don't know, slimming down some more would be the only thing I could point the finger at.

Event comments:

Expo was too crowded--they had more space to open it up some. Pre-race on site, no worries, lots of porta potties. They did pick up the gear bags by last name, yet everything else we had was by #'s, #'s were even by corral. Why not bag pick up? Would've been MUCH better organized as such. Post-race: didn't stay for the big concert, but the area was SO packed, and the UPS gear bags were so utterly disorganized, not to mention the shuttle pick up area had no organized line of getting to it. This was very disappointing and frustrating due to the fact that this RD does this in mutliple locations across the US. Even though it's an inagural for San Antonio, I'd definitely give it several more years to mature before doing it again.

Race course was great, no concerns at all...fast and the weather was great, but the immediate post-race organization made me insane.




Last updated: 2008-09-18 12:00 AM
Running
01:35:07 | 13.31 miles | 07m 09s  min/mile
Age Group: 11/1769
Overall: 254/17033
Performance: Good
My Garmin had it at 13.31 miles...here is the data I have from it: Lap Time Distance Pace/Speed AHR MHR 1 07m 23s 1.00 miles 07m 23s /mile 155 166 2 07m 10s 1.00 miles 07m 10s /mile 169 176 3 07m 08s 1.00 miles 07m 08s /mile 173 181 4 07m 15s 1.00 miles 07m 15s /mile 175 179 5 07m 24s 1.00 miles 07m 24s /mile 178 182 6 06m 59s 1.00 miles 06m 59s /mile 176 183 7 07m 07s 1.00 miles 07m 07s /mile 179 182 8 07m 01s 1.00 miles 07m 01s /mile 178 181 9 07m 04s 1.00 miles 07m 04s /mile 181 182 10 07m 10s 1.00 miles 07m 10s /mile 180 182 11 07m 09s 1.00 miles 07m 09s /mile 181 182 12 07m 15s 1.00 miles 07m 15s /mile 181 183 13 07m 01s 1.00 miles 07m 01s /mile 182 183 14 02m 01s 0.31 miles 06m 29s /mile 184 187
Course: Downtown San Antonio, past major locations, fairly flat with a couple of inclines, and one last hill headed up to the finisher chute turn.
Keeping cool Good Drinking Just right
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall: Good
Mental exertion [1-5] 5
Physical exertion [1-5] 5
Good race? Yes
Evaluation
Course challenge Just right
Organized? No
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities: Average
Race evaluation [1-5] 2