login
 Run
Comments: The mob had started and it took about 5 minutes for me to get to the start. We finally get going and it's absolutely elbow-to-elbow, toe-to-heel for miles it seems. First miles ticks off and my Garmin shoes 9:03 and I start making a better effort to pass people. I zig-zag through people and even jumping on the sidewalk here and there. I'm constantly passing people and I'm feeling good. Somewhere between mils 5 & 6, I'm finally in the group where I probably should have started. I also found a good pacer and we are still passing people, but not nearly at the rate I was before. I'm still feeling good, although the climbs are taking a bit out of me. We branch off from the marathoners to an out and back (Matilda?) and this is where I begin to realize I'm not going to be able to hold my pace and I walk my first aid station. I realize that I've not gone under 8:00 on any miles and I've completely dismissed my 1:45 goal. At this point, the plan was to try to hold 8:30 miles to the end. Around this time, I got a nice charge from Doughboy & jcagg90 who were riding the course yelling out encouragement. Well, that didn't last too long and I started realln hurting. There wasn't really any one thing that was unbearable and my legs were okay. I was getting side stitches and cramps in both shoulders. I tried a few things to deal with these, but ultimately, I cracked mentally and had to take a few 30" walk breaks over the last 5k. I was never so relieved to see a finish line in my life. What would you do differently?: I should have thought to find the pacers when staging in the corral.  Post race
Warm down: Grabbed my stash from the food tent, sat on the curb, took off my shoes and vegged a bit. I don't know why, but my feet hurt tons more than they ever have before and for the first time I got a few blisters. Then, wandered over to the marathon finishing line with my parents to cheer on those finishers. What limited your ability to perform faster: It just wasn't my day. Overall, I'm happy with the results and have learned alot about running a HM. Event comments: This was my first big race and half marathon. I really wasn't experienced or prepared for all of the little things involved. The only thing I can think of that I did right was taking the Dart rail from Plano to downtown. I would have been stressed sitting in traffic to get to parking. Overall, this was a good race and things were run well. Improvement needs to be made on the event shirt pickup (45min wait after I had my bib) and I was disappointed with the post-race food. Last updated: 2008-11-11 12:00 AM
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
View profile
Add to friends
Go to training log
Go to race log
Send a message
View album
CONNECT WITH FACEBOOK
United States
Overall Rank = 808/5788
Age Group = M35-39
Age Group Rank = 102/421
Woke up at 5am, took a shower, and headed to the Dart station for the ride to the race.
My goal was 1:45 and the plan was to not worry much about the first mile but try to get it in around 8:30 and the next 4 miles in the 8:00-8:10 range. The next 4 around 7:50-8:00 and whatever I had left for the 5k.
Walked around a bit inside the AAC, found bag drop off and the starting line. Short and easy warmup jog to the bathroom, then made my way back to the starting corrals.
I was in corral A, but not real sure where I should have been in the A corral. I looked at the people around me and thought I was about in the right spot, so I just hung out. The wheelchair racers went off first, then I noticed I was about in line with the 4:30 marathon pacer. By now, the corrals were packed and there was no way I'd make my way up to the 3:40 pacer where I thought I should have been.