3M Half Marathon [Entered 1/29/07]

Sunday was our fastest local half marathon, the 3M Half Marathon. I've run a bunch of them, and we have been blessed with good weather every year for it. This year was no exception, with a sparkling clear morning, 40 degrees, and what wind there was came as a tailwind. Could not ask for a better day, that's for sure!

My friends Jeff and Andy were in town for the race, making a trip from North Carolina, so it was a fun weekend regardless of the race results. We were well-behaved on Saturday night, getting plenty of rest and avoiding a visit to some purveyor of a well-stocked beer selection. Even so, getting up at dark:30 was tough, but other than that, we got down to RunTex in plenty of time to pick up some members of the running tribe (Alex, Frank, Brian, and Emily) to carpool back up to the top of the course.

Andy was injured, so in order to avoid further pain and damage, he decided to walk a slightly shortened version of the official race course. He left from the start area right at 6:00am, to get a head start, and although he cut out a few of the early bits, he still ended up with something like an 11 mile walk. He finished about when I did, and had a pretty fun stroll through Austin anyway.

Brian helped find a great parking spot (I was probably a little too impressed with it, but it was, as Bob Uecker would say, "...in the front rooooowwwww!"), and after we made the usual pre-warmup stops, we were off for our warmup routine. We probably had 15 people with us as we toured the first mile of the course, into the wind, and then turned around and headed back. A nice 2 mile jog at just over 10:00/mile pace. Amy was there, but she had a serious game face on, and I was not to see her again until after the race was complete. (Foreshadowing...). We spotted Gilbert around that time, and our little group disintegrated. Some went to do drills, some went to huddle around the outdoor gas area heater near the big pre-race tent, and some of us went back to the truck to get down to our race clothing. I did a few drills and strides in the parking garage, and then we all got ready to race. There was much back and forth about last-minute clothing changes, but I stuck with my notion of wearing shorts and two shirts, with gloves and a hat. It was just under 40 degrees, and chilly when you were facing into the breeze. I figured even with the breeze at our backs, it would be nice to be warm enough on top. We shall see...

Anyway, after dropping my backpack at the baggage claim, and after checking about five times to make sure my GU and Enervitene gels were safely stored in my shorts pockets, it was time to get in line. By now, it was maybe 10 minutes to the race start. I made my way around the median, and worked my way into the crowd, but I was a bit dismayed to find myself 30 yards or so back from the start line. There was absolutely no one that I knew in my vicinity. Oh, well. I half expected to have Sue find me during the first miles of the race, but that was not to be. :-) I knew that the first mile, at least, was going to be a mental challenge, trying to find a balance between getting up to speed and not wasting too much energy weaving through the crowds. Groan.

Oh, yeah, pre-race goals: After sifting through the many versions of our suggested race plan, I decided to run "comfortably hard," figuring that if I ran about like I did at Motive, effort-wise, I'd PR today on this easier course without having to really blast it. I'm trying to stay focused on the marathon, so today was not a day to run like the wind. I hoped to be around 8:00 pace very early, then shift to something around 7:45/mile and hang out there, and then doing the usual "GO!" at mile 10 to try to bring it home.

Soon, the horn went off, Evel played the Tom Petty song, and...nothing happened. At least where I was standing, nothing happened. Time passed...we walked a few steps. Stopped. More time passed...more walking, two steps of a jog...and we stopped. Rinse, repeat, etc. Finally, some 2 minutes and change after the horn, I finally broke into something like a jog/run, and crossed the starting mat. I felt fine, but it was a drag to negotiate that first mile. I was all over the place, darting in and out of the folks lined up ahead of me. Lots of very slow runners who had badly misplaced themselves in the crowd, as well as assorted other slower folks. With all the maneuvering, it was very difficult to establish a good initial pace, and I was slightly concerned that I was messing up badly, but I just tried to settle down and pick good lanes to run. At the first corner, up on Braker, it got much better, and I actually passed Jennifer early. I was so intent on getting onto pace that I convinced myself that it wasn't her, and didn't say anything to her. She saw me, too, but we were both busy at the time. :-)

My first mile split was way off any pre-race plan, which was frustrating. I had to fight off a lot of negative thoughts from that mile marker through the next 3 or 4 miles. During mile two, I tried to pick the pace up, hoping to really be able to run by mile 3. I grabbed water at that first water stop, checked that split, again too slow, but better, and moved on. Mile 3 went up and across Loop 360 on the access road, up to Jollyville Rd. and then turned onto Mesa. I was steadily passing people at this point. I felt like I was running much better by then, and waved to Sarah's friend's family (that's a complicated phrase, isn't it?), and to Kenny, and even passed Javier, who had lined up ahead of me, obviously. The mile 3 split was a little bit too quick, as I was making the rookie mistake of trying to catch up all my lost time too fast. I settled down a little, I thought, relaxing a bit, but I was still in passing mode.

We turned down Spicewood Springs for the bombing run downhill, and as I passed the mile 4 marker, I started playing a math game (yes, I was and am a math geek), totalling up the number of seconds above (or below) an overall 8:00/mile pace I was at each split. How do you do that, you ask? You keep a total in your head of the number of seconds over or under 8:00 for each split, and manipulate those numbers. So, for my first four miles, I had a +35, a +8, a -22, and another -22. Altogether, I was at +1 seconds after four miles, or right on 8:00/mile pace. To get to my PR pace of 7:49/mile, I had a lot of work to do. I had to make up 40-something seconds over the last 9.11 miles of the race...40-something seconds UNDER that PR pace. 4 or 5 seconds per mile faster. Well, I had lots of time to work this out, and I had nothing else to occupy myself, except for running, so why not work the brain, too? :-)

Splits miles 1-4: 8:35, 8:08, 7:38, 7:38. Overall pace 8:00/mile.

I took a GU at that water stop, and continued on downhill. I tried to keep Gilbert and Pete's advice in mind to control my downhill run on that steep downhill, but I was only partially successful. More passing of people, and that part of the deal was pretty cool. It's always good to be going by folks, especially when you can hear some of them working pretty hard, and you're running at something like a controlled pace. The first music was at the traditional spot, in the median as we climbed the bridge on Spicewood going over Mopac. The bagpipers did their bagpipe thing, and as usual, the non-rocking music actually boosted my spirits. I was constantly telling myself to relax, to just run and not worry about the pace situation, blah, blah, blah, but I wasn't always successful convincing myself that it would work out.

Up and over that bridge, and we settled into the middle miles, largely flat as we wound through and around a neighborhood behind Northcross Mall. I think I sort of went to sleep in these miles, with none of my usual running buddies around to pace with, and my pacing became somewhat erratic, I thought. Mile 5 was a little too fast at that point, mile 6 about right. I almost messed up around the relay exchange zone, when a couple of people around me picked it up a bit to look good for their relay partners. I started to stay with them, but realized it soon enough that they weren't continuing at that pace, but were stopping. I took more fluids at the water stop at mile 6, and we turned onto Burnet for the long straight stretch down to North Loop. That part is a gentle downhill trend, and with the wide open roads, it was pleasant running. However, mile 7 and 8 on Burnet were off the pace. I relaxed a little too much, even though I was still catching and passing folks. I saw a band with horns sort of milling around on Burnet, but they weren't set up by then. What were they waiting for? Another band was camped out at Amy's Ice Cream, I think, playing "Brown Eyed Girl." Pretty sparse entertainment, but I'd take what I could get. Down to North Loop we went. The real race was starting now, as we hit the only real hilly part of the whole course....

Splits miles 5-8: 7:29, 7:45, 7:53, 7:56. Overall pace 7:53/mile. At this point, I was wrestling with whether to push hard enough to go for a PR or whether to just cruise it in, running in the 7:45-8:00/mile range for a quality training run. Believe me, it was a spirited internal conversation. The math game showed that I was going to have to get on my giddyup horse to catch my PR pace. Oh, well, I'd just keep running, push through the hills, and see where I was at mile 10 after we turned onto Duval.

Miles 9 and 10 had the uphill bits of North Loop, but there were plenty of downhill and flat sections through there as well. We know those hills extremely well, so I didn't fret about them, but just shifted into hill-climbing gear, and proceeded to pass even more people. The uphills didn't bother me much, but I was a little disappointed in my splits for those two miles. I had really dug myself a deep time hole for the last 5K of the race. I needed a bunch of time down Duval to run a PR, and I wasn't sure I was feeling it today. At least it was some good downhill running to the finish!

Splits miles 9 and 10: 7:49, 7:59. Pretty average running, given my fall race results, but I was still moving pretty comfortably, and the weather was still great, and the hills were basically over. Get going, Jay!

I knew that Richard and Stephanie were spectating at something like the mile 11 mark, just after a short hill on Duval, so I wanted to look like a runner going by them. That helped get me out of my doldrums a bit, and my mile 11 split was better, but by now, I had a huge amount of time to recover in the last couple of miles. I needed to recover some 33 seconds over the last 2.11 miles, and that would require some awfully peppy running. As a result, I just stopped looking at the watch, and just focused on running quickly and efficiently, reasoning that if I just ran, I'd get whatever I got, and maybe I'd get my brain to stop fretting so much.

I've probably run down that stretch, Duval to San Jacinto, through the UT campus, 50 times or more over the years, so it was like a friendly home course to me. I pretty much have all the bumps, inclines and downhills memorized. Probably could run it in the dark...come to think of it, we did run it in the dark (and rain and gloom) a few weeks ago on that crazy training run! I passed Christine and Banjo cheering for us with a Gazelles sign, and that was great to see. More running, more passing. I was actually working my eyes pretty hard looking for the mile 12 marker, and it was great to see it right at San Jacinto. Now, with a mile to go, I started putting even a little more effort into my race. The downhills were finished, and I just had that last flat mile to go. There was a mariachi band in there at the bottom of campus, and some sort of accordion and guitar ensemble before that, but it gets blurry now, thinking about it. I got into a pitched battle with a guy in a black shirt, and we took turns pushing the pace. He'd go around me, and pull away a few steps, and then I'd feel better, and put on a sustained burst, going around him, and so on and so forth. We passed the talking oil derrick, and continued onto Trinity for the homestretch. I could see way ahead the finish arch, but I must admit I was bird-dogging it a bit looking for that mile 13 marker. (That's an expression meaning that I had the excellent vision of a good bird dog, scanning the grounds for a quail or dove, or in this case, a mile marker). I heard Evel announcing people's numbers, and I put on a last burst once I passed the mile 13 marker, and was excited to see the finish line clock ticking away with a number that meant "PR," final time to be determined. Whoosh (or whatever sound I make when going through air), and I was done!

I thanked Black Shirt Guy for the spirited battle (I beat him, by the way), and saw the good news on my watch. A big PR (well, a significant PR, but not when compared to some of the other Gazelles...) was in hand.

Splits miles 11-13.11: 7:40, 7:19, 7:14, and 0.11 miles in 0:41, or 6:13/mile pace for the killer sprint. Final time 1:41:43, a PR by 37 seconds over Motive, and I guess I really only ran super hard the last couple of miles. I wasn't dogging it before that, but I was sort of erratic without a Gazelle buddy to share the day. Overall pace 7:46/mile.

I am happy with my day, especially the quality miles to finish off the race. It was a great feeling to have that sort of speed left at the end of a half marathon, and I was able to fight off some mental dullness today. I almost let the early running traffic jam annoy me to the point of quitting on the race effort early, and I'm proud that I did not let that happen. I settled down after the three snappy miles leading up to mile 5, was strong in the North Loop hills, and was fiesty down the stretch. All in all, a good day, and it was my sixth consecutive half marathon race PR (well, the first 3 were "Masters PRs," but it's been six consecutively faster halfs). I can live with that sort of consistent improvement!

I got my medal, starting drinking water, and found Alex right away. He pointed me to the baggage truck, and after getting my bag (a much improved baggage claim this year, by the way! I had zero trouble getting my bag within 30 seconds of walking up to the truck), I wandered back into the post-race hubbub to find my peeps. It was great to see everyone, and it seemed that virtually everyone had either run a massive PR or had at least run a race that matched up with their expectations and race plans. I got some food at the HEB tent, finished off my water, and started on Powerade. By then, I had hooked back up with Frank, Brian, Amy, Jennifer, Colleen, Venus, and a host of others. I found a nice spot in the sun to sit down and put on my post-race warmer clothing, and that felt really good. I saw Jeff and Andy around that time, too. After the folks had gotten all the breakfast tacos they could stand, and we had all gotten ourselves ready to go, it was time for the cooldown jog to RunTex.

I strapped the backpack up, and it actually rode pretty well, using the chest strap as well as the regular shoulder straps. There was a lot of chatter as we jogged back, but there was not a lot of speed. :-) We averaged a robust 12:30/mile for our 1.5 mile journey up to and down Congress Avenue, but it was a nice bit of recovery for our downhill-burnt legs.

Gilbert showed up as we got to RunTex, and we chatted with him for a bit. I did just a little stretching while we were getting ready to go, and then it was time to get driving north. Frank was nice enough to drive Jeff, Andy, Jennifer and me back up to Gateway, and after a few last words of congratulations, we all went our separate directions. The Carolina boys and I went to Einstein's (with apparently 50 other runners with the same idea) for post-race bagels, and then we found our way home after loading up on baked goods.

The day was polished off with a somewhat traditional Mangia pizza festival, as we dove into those seriously thick Chicago-style pizzas. Frank's family and my own joined us, along with Brian, Richard and Stephanie, and we had a grand time taking over the place, yakking away for quite a while. The two Live Oak beers weren't quite enough, so Jeff, Andy and I drove over to Ginger Man for a last quality draft beer experience. I had a Black and Tan, because Guiness is always appropriate. :-) The serious food and beer had mellowed us out considerably, especially when combined with the early morning wakeup call. It was a pleasant drive back home after that, and we were pretty much falling asleep by 9:30.

So, it was a great day at the running office. From here on out, it's tapering/peaking with a vengeance, and only a few snappy workouts remain between here and our date with the AT&T marathon. Awesome.

Monday is an officially sanctioned day off (per Gilbert's instructions on Sunday after the race). I plan on enjoying that!