We started out at the back of the pack. As we were jogging to the start line we heard the gun go off - not very well planned by us! It probably took 2-3 minutes for us to get to the timing mat. My guess is that about 1700-1800 people were participating.

We zigged and zagged and after 2 miles found some open road and it was a nice easy run from here. Around mile 3 Annie was struggling with her breathing due to the cold weather. Us Texans are not used to sub-30 degrees - don't laugh you Yankees because we would smoke you in 90 degrees with 80% humidity (-:

She started to feel better and get control of it when the sunny came up shortly after. At mile 6 I had to find a porta potty and unload some gatorade. I told Annie to just keep running and I would catch up. This gave me a chance to stretch my legs a bit and it felt really good. I caught up to her right before mile 7.

At mile 7 I was still feeling really good and told Annie I wanted to run a little harder, she agreed and I upped my pace to 8-8:15/mi right around the 8 mile mark. At this point I passed a ton of people and bumped into a couple of guys I did the Texas Trail run 50k with. They were doing the full marathon. We talked for a few minutes and then I took off again.

According to the Garmin my finish time was 1:55:05. I had forgot to turn the auto-pause off and it probably paused when I made the bathroom pitstop so it might be a minute or two off.

Annie found a second wind and finished really strong at 2:02:33. She had a big smile on her face crossing the finish line and I was really proud of her. She did awesome and is ready for the Austin Marathon.

Nothing really, except get our pansy butts out of the heated car sooner and get to the starting line in time. But it was sooo warm in the car!

Got our finshers medal and long sleeve tech tee and headed back to the hotel for a warm shower and an awesome brunch. We chowed at the brunch!!


Nothing.


Overall the race was good for it only being in it's 2nd year of existence. They had an awesome group of volunteers and the police were everywhere controlling traffic. The hotel we stayed at was the "Host Hotel" and we paid a couple extra bucks to stay because we thought a shuttle was available and a pre-race breakfast. Well, the shuttle didn't provide service to the race and the breakfast didn't open until 7am which was the start time of the race. Would have stayed at a cheaper hotel otherwise. But still had a great time!