Let Me Roll It [3M Half Marathon]

Today was the first time in four tries at the 3M Half that I was able to really run the race. In the past, it's been a week closer to Freescale, and I either used it as part of a longer training run (back in Galloway days), or I was under orders to run it at MGP and no faster since it was close to the marathon. This time, Gilbert had told me to run the first 5 miles pretty easily, and then I could do whatever I wanted for the last 8.1, but I still wasn't supposed to go totally all out. I arbitrarily chose 8:15-8:30 for my opening pace, and then I figured I wanted to run the last 8 miles at 8:00/mile pace or so. For time goals, I hoped to set a new "Masters" PR, beating my Motive Half finish time, and for a stretch goal, I'd like to break my lifetime half marathon best, a 1:44:04 run back in 1993 in the Atlanta Half Marathon. For that, I'd have to race my much younger self.

The day was near perfect running weather, in the high 40's as we warmed up and did our pre-race drills, and once the sun came up, it warmed to the low 50's. Nice. There was minor confusion finding the gang for the pre-race warmups, but we managed to mostly get together for a nice trot of about 2 miles. We did our drills and some minor stretching, and then I had to get going. I visited an interesting shrubbery there at Gateway, and went to my car for last-minute stuff. I took a GU, a little water, and decided on a singlet today. I had my 2004 Decker shirt on as a warmup, and planned on ditching it along the way. Dropped off my post-race clothing bag with the truck, and I was ready to go. I had forgotten that this is a much bigger race than most of the other DC races, and had to wait outside the fencing until the horn sounded. I started off with Jennifer from our group, and we eased into the crowd without much trouble. About a minute and a half later, I finally crossed the start line. Off we went!

I eased through the crowds for that first, mostly moderately uphill, mile, and turned onto Braker. By now, the sun was peeking over the trees, and it was a pretty picture seeing all of us run along. I passed a bunch of people I used to run with back in the day, and with a brief word to them, I moved on. Turned back onto the access road along 183, and over to Mesa. I skipped the first water stop, but took a little water at the stop at mile 4. My pacing was slightly erratic, as I was running by feel, but I wasn't able to lock into a steady pace early on. To my chagrin, I had to make a hydration adjustment stop at some port-o-johns during mile 4, which cost me maybe 30-40 seconds. That's the first time this racing season that I've had issues there, so I'll guess it was a fluke. Anyway, I guess I was hurrying to catch back up, and I caught Jennifer again during mile 5. We passed the bagpiper guy right before crossing over Mopac, and went past the mile 5 marker on that overpass. Time to have fun, according to Gilbert. I was feeling great, and after stripping off the Decker shirt, I was ready to run. Rock and roll!

Splits, miles 1-5: 8:53, 8:15, 7:58, 8:44 ("rest stop" in here), 7:41. Overall pace 8:18, more or less right on target, even with the wasted rest stop time. I relaxed at this point, figuring that I'd just run how I felt from there, and see how it went.

The portion on Shoal Creek to Great Northern is imprinted in my memory from a zillion training runs and races, and I sort of went on autopilot through there. I pulled away from Jennifer a little bit in there. I took a GU at the next water stop, somewhere around mile 5. We cut across a neighborhood, and then after negotiating the relay transfer point, it was time to head towards Burnet for the long straight trip down that road. Mile 7 was probably a little short-marked, and mile 8 probably included a tiny bit of extra distance as a result. I got tickled when the course monitors warned us about the speed bumps going towards Burnet. We were running well, but I don't think we were going to go airborne or anything if we hit those. Once I got on Burnet, I caught up with Richard around mile 8 or so. We chatted very briefly, and I just kept on moving. I was feeling really good through here, and even though it looked like it, I really wasn't trying to race Richard. I was just running my race. I kept hearing him back there, though, so he was tagging along nicely. Miles 9 and 10 were rolling down Burnet and Medical Parkway. All systems go! There was a fun rock band along Burnet as well as a steel drum guy, and even a Dixieland band. That was unexpected and welcome entertainment. I noticed that I was whittling down my deficit to my 8:00 overall pace, and I didn't feel like I was working super hard, so that was very cool. I took my Enervitene at the water stop between miles 9 and 10 or thereabouts, and Richard went past me while I was juggling all that. I caught back up with him pretty quickly, and we ran more or less together for a bit. Just 5K to go!

Splits miles 6-10: 7:47, 7:10 (probably fractionally short), 8:05 (fractionally long), 7:53, 8:00. Overall pace had dropped to 8:03. I was definitely on Masters PR pace by a bunch, and if I could pick it up late, I had a shot at my lifetime best. Cool.

Mile 11 featured a minor uphill on Guadalupe after we went up a shorter little hill on 38th St. Again, the course monitors warned us of the "tight turn" onto Guadalupe, which was funny. It was just a right hand corner, after all. Jennifer zoomed past me right at the mile 11 marker, saying that she was "dropping the bomb" at that point. She zoomed ahead. Richard and I slowly rolled up to Jennifer during mile 11, and by the mile 12 marker, I had passed Jennifer again. I figured that it was time to go ahead and let it fly, so I really went after the last mile. I passed a ton of folks during mile 13, including my massage guy, Ron, and a bunch of strangers. I was finally running pretty hard, but it didn't feel crazy or anything. Turning onto 12th, we rolled down and up and then down again, cruising to the finish. I saw Jason on the sidewalk there, and kept on going. I took a split at mile 13, but didn't look at it, and just focused on running through the finish line. I knew from my mile 12 split time that I had a really good shot at a lifetime best, and didn't want to leave any wasted time out on the course late. The finish line seemed to come up quicker than I expected, and suddenly, I was done. I took a little time to catch my breath, but I wasn't as wasted as I was at the end of Motive or Decker (or the 20 Miler). That's very cool.

Splits miles 11-13.11: 8:01, 7:43, 7:00, last .11 in 0:42. Final time 1:43:53, pace 7:55/mile. Although I didn't know it for sure at the time, this was a new lifetime PR by 11 seconds, beating 33 year old Jay. Broke my Masters PR time by 4:12, and this was my best 3M Half by a big 13 minutes. No matter how I look at it, it was a really good race, and it truly felt comfortable the whole way, except for maybe the last little bit.

I saw Frank right away, and we gathered up Amy (who had a fabulous race), Brian, and Richard for post-race cooldown running. We were all grinning ear to ear, and I think pretty much everyone had a great race. Lots of PR's today. We did an extremely slow cooldown trot along Shoal Creek, looping through a park just north of the finish line area, and that really helped to relax the body after our efforts.

After picking up our gear from the truck, it was nice to get warmer clothes on. I drank my Endurox, and then headed into the football stadium there to get some food and to enjoy the post-race scene. 3M puts on a good show, and it was really fun to hang out and tell our race stories to each other. I think our entire gang is really excited about Freescale now, and I know I am. The weather was spectacular by now, and just soaking up the sun was truly wonderful. It was one of those "This Is Why We Run" deals...honest physical effort, good friends, simple pleasures of warm clothes and free food. I was glad to hear that Alex had a solid race and was pain-free, and Richard reported that his foot ailment seems to be in the past, too.

Anyway, we finally headed to the shuttle bus (Brian, Amy and I), and made the journey back up to Gateway and our vehicles. What a great day! Even the fact that I had guitar orchestra practice this afternoon didn't dampen my spirits one bit. :-)

Congratulations to my pace peeps Shannon, Amy, Brian, Charlene, Richard, Jennifer and Rachel, who all had great races. Shannon, especially, had a monster race, exceeding even Gilbert's wild goal time for her. Jennifer blasted her PR, too. Now, a few days of easy running, and the Taper Begins!