San Antonio half marathon 2009 race report.
Short version: Goal not achieved, PR achieved. Sort of. (More on that later.)
My heart and my head weren't in this race. I'm so focused on Houston, and I had such a good race at the IBM 10k, I just couldn't get excited about this half marathon. I'm not comfortable with my half marathon goal pace, I couldn't even consistently hold it for 4 miles, typically, and it just sounded like almost 2 hours of pure misery. But I tried to stay as positive as I could, tried not to think about it too much, and tried to just go out there and do my best.
I slept poorly both two nights before and the night before the race, which didn't put me in a great place at 4am on Sunday, but Andi, Belle and I (who were all rooming together) got up and got ready and met folks down in the lobby at 5am. We had about a mile walk to the bus, maybe 5 minute wait for the bus, then another hefty hike from the buses to the start line (and our first portapotty trip, with no lines). Sat around a while, dropped our bags, did a short warmup, then back to the portapotty, this time with tremendous lines. And not much time to get through them. We were still in line with about 3 minutes before the race was to start. But we finally got through and had another nice warmup run from corral 19ish up to corral 3, where we were to start.
This was my first Rock and Roll Marathon event, and man, it was overwhelming. Thousands of people. Biggest event I've ever done. But it was very well organized, and I was very impressed. In order to reduce start line congestion, they asked for your estimated time and seeded you into corrals. There were something like 33ish(?) corrals, with the slowest folks in the last corrals, and the faster people in the first ones. And I was in corral 3. Which seemed like a horrible oversight on their part. Too close to the front! I didn't belong there. But 3 they said (based on my 1:45 goal), and so 3 we got into. Or so we thought..
The corral in front of us took off, and as we moved up to the start line, they said, "Okay, corral 4, are you ready?!" And that's when we realized we were in corral 4. Oops. No wonder we hadn't been able to find Mike, Brian, Lori.. But no big deal. It's chip timed, so our time would start when we crossed the line, didn't matter what corral.
Our race started, and we took off. The corrals worked perfectly, and we didn't have to dodge and weave around slower people, and it was beautiful. Except that I felt awful. Immediately my breathing was incredibly labored. Did I mention it was warm (mid 60s) and humid (like, really humid, like near 100%)? Yeah. Humidity's hard to breathe. But I figured.. early in the race, not really warmed up, it's not gonna feel good. Just try to stay with Andi and Laura-Kate and let them pull me. Andi immediately started trying to catch up to the 3:40/1:45 pacers ahead of us (we could see their balloons), and I tried to cling to her heels. And failed. She took off and I couldn't keep up. And Laura-Kate pulled ahead and I couldn't keep up. 3/4 of a mile in, and I was ready to quit. Like, seriously ready to quit. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't run fast, I was miserable and had over 12 miles to go. There's no way I could do this. I was trying to figure out if I could come up with a compelling story to tell Karen to excuse my DNF. I couldn't. I started trying to figure out if maybe I needed to throw up, or something else that would be a valid excuse for stopping. Looking for potholes I could twist an ankle in or curbs I could fall off of. Major pity party. But it wasn't entiiiirely in my head.. the conditions really were crappy physically.
But I thought, "Okay, I can't justify quitting when I'm not in any real physical distress. I'll keep running as long as I can. It doesn't feel like I could possibly get another mile, but I'll keep running." I lost sight of Andi, she was so far ahead. I was falling further behind the pacers. It wasn't getting any easier. Miles 2 and 3 were just more of the same. How could I possibly do 13.1 miles of this horrible misery?
Once I passed 3, I thought.. well, at least I'm in single digits. And that's when I gritted my teeth and told myself to shut up, that to DNF was not on the table unless I really had some valid reason that I wouldn't hate myself for later, and that if I needed to slow down in order to finish, I would, but I would finish. So I just kept running. I would run as fast as my body felt like it would allow me to run and still finish 13.1 miles. Sometimes it felt kinda fast. Sometimes it felt very slow.
I caught up to and passed Laura-Kate. About a mile later, as we went through a water stop, I caught up to Andi, who had slowed down a bit to get water. We started running together again. We exchanged a few quips, but otherwise there was no talking. She acknowledged she'd been very aggressive at the start, and wasn't feeling good now. Neither of us could understand why we felt so very crappy.
Kris caught up to and passed us. We told her she was doing great and watched her run on by us. I knew I couldn't stay with her, but I tried to use it as motivation to keep my pace up, and stay close to her. Did that for a while, then gained ground on her and passed her, then leap frogged with her for quite some time, while Andi had fallen back behind me.
Now we were getting into the later miles.. 8.. 9.. I wasn't seeing any scenery.. I have no idea where we were or what we ran by. I was just staring at the backs in front of me and trying to keep my legs moving. My breathing felt better at this point, and I felt so much better than I had at mile 1, which I found amusing. My legs didn't feel great, but again I was just moving them at whatever pace was the most I could do without thinking, "There's no way I can finish at this pace."
Passed mile 10, and then came the split for the half and full. I felt so bad for the full people, because the weather was bad enough for running at all, but awful for a full marathon. But I dutifully turned left and continued on the half marathon course. Shortly before the turn-off, Andi's husband Ryan and his mom were out cheering, and that was a nice pick-me-up (though I could tell Ryan was wondering where Andi was, and I didn't think until after I passed by to tell him she was right behind me). In the next few miles, I saw Ryan and his mom.. 3 more times? A lot. Never saw them until they were cheering for me, and then it made me smile each time, which I really needed. I kinda tuned out during this entire race, not smiling at the crowd, not cheering, not paying attention, which is very rare for me. So them pulling me out of my head made a big difference. Priscilla was also out cheering at two spots, and I had no idea she was out there, so that was a big boost, as well. Thanks, Priscilla!
Got to the mile 11 marker and knew I could gut out two more miles. I knew I was slowing down, but I just did what I could. I passed Lori, and then Barbara, right at the same waterstop. Mile 12, one mile to go, and I could see the Alamodome in the distance, and knew I'd make it. As I was running down the road, staring at the feet of the person in front of me, I heard someone say my name. I looked over to the side, and Josh was walking along there. Noooot good. Josh is way faster than me, and it looked like a repeat of the New Mexico Marathon. I told him to stay with it, and then told him to stay upright. :) A couple minutes later, he ran up beside me and said I couldn't have all the fun. We ran together for a bit, and I tried to make him do a race photo with jazz hands with me. Hamming it up for the photographers finally, I must have been feeling better. Having the end in sight was good mentally.
Looped around the Alamodome, I was feeling good because perhaps I hadn't even noticed that hill people say is at the end! Then we turned a corner and I saw the hill. Unkind to put it at the end.. everyone's cheering for you, and you're slogging up this giant (okay, not giant, but it sucked at the end) hill. But the mile 13 marker was there, and I knew the end was close.
Turned the corner, and the finish line was right there. I picked it up as much as I could (not much) and glanced up out of the corner of my eye at the finish line clock. It didn't yet say 2:00, and I knew I started several minutes after the race clock started, so I was VERY happy to see I hadn't fallen down so far that I came in over 2 hours. At least there was that! And then I crossed the finish line.
The boys of our sub-team, who did amazing, were there waiting and cheering, and I joined them to cheer in the rest of our people.
Final time: 1:52:29 (8:35/mile)
My previous official half marathon PR was at the Moe's Better Half Marathon earlier this year, 1:54:40, so this was an official PR. I just barely missed out on beating my unofficial half marathon PR, which was actually at the Houston Marathon halfway point, 1:52:23. Curse you, 6 seconds! And 7 minutes off my goal time.
I knew pretty immediately my goal time wasn't happening today. I felt awful right from the start line, and even though in the end I managed to hold it together, I held it together at paces like 8:20 and 8:40, not paces like 8:00, which was my goal pace. Just wasn't happening today.
I'm actually happy with my time, given the conditions. Sure, I'm bummed I didn't hit or get closer to my goal, but it sounds like most people out there had crappy races due to the weather, so at least I was in good company.
If you'd asked me in 2008, when I'd never run a sub-2 hour half marathon and didn't think myself capable, if I could be upset about a 1:52 half marathon, I would have laughed at you. It's funny how quickly we forget where we came from.
1:52:29 is awesome, and I'm incredibly proud of myself for holding it together when I wanted so badly to give up. I may not have hit my goal, but I gained a lot of valuable insight into how to hold it together when everything falls apart.
Splits:5 Km6.1 Mi15 KmFinish
Times:26:0352:061:19:401:52:29
Pace:8:238:248:338:35
My heart and my head weren't in this race. I'm so focused on Houston, and I had such a good race at the IBM 10k, I just couldn't get excited about this half marathon. I'm not comfortable with my half marathon goal pace, I couldn't even consistently hold it for 4 miles, typically, and it just sounded like almost 2 hours of pure misery. But I tried to stay as positive as I could, tried not to think about it too much, and tried to just go out there and do my best.
I slept poorly both two nights before and the night before the race, which didn't put me in a great place at 4am on Sunday, but Andi, Belle and I (who were all rooming together) got up and got ready and met folks down in the lobby at 5am. We had about a mile walk to the bus, maybe 5 minute wait for the bus, then another hefty hike from the buses to the start line (and our first portapotty trip, with no lines). Sat around a while, dropped our bags, did a short warmup, then back to the portapotty, this time with tremendous lines. And not much time to get through them. We were still in line with about 3 minutes before the race was to start. But we finally got through and had another nice warmup run from corral 19ish up to corral 3, where we were to start.
This was my first Rock and Roll Marathon event, and man, it was overwhelming. Thousands of people. Biggest event I've ever done. But it was very well organized, and I was very impressed. In order to reduce start line congestion, they asked for your estimated time and seeded you into corrals. There were something like 33ish(?) corrals, with the slowest folks in the last corrals, and the faster people in the first ones. And I was in corral 3. Which seemed like a horrible oversight on their part. Too close to the front! I didn't belong there. But 3 they said (based on my 1:45 goal), and so 3 we got into. Or so we thought..
The corral in front of us took off, and as we moved up to the start line, they said, "Okay, corral 4, are you ready?!" And that's when we realized we were in corral 4. Oops. No wonder we hadn't been able to find Mike, Brian, Lori.. But no big deal. It's chip timed, so our time would start when we crossed the line, didn't matter what corral.
Our race started, and we took off. The corrals worked perfectly, and we didn't have to dodge and weave around slower people, and it was beautiful. Except that I felt awful. Immediately my breathing was incredibly labored. Did I mention it was warm (mid 60s) and humid (like, really humid, like near 100%)? Yeah. Humidity's hard to breathe. But I figured.. early in the race, not really warmed up, it's not gonna feel good. Just try to stay with Andi and Laura-Kate and let them pull me. Andi immediately started trying to catch up to the 3:40/1:45 pacers ahead of us (we could see their balloons), and I tried to cling to her heels. And failed. She took off and I couldn't keep up. And Laura-Kate pulled ahead and I couldn't keep up. 3/4 of a mile in, and I was ready to quit. Like, seriously ready to quit. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't run fast, I was miserable and had over 12 miles to go. There's no way I could do this. I was trying to figure out if I could come up with a compelling story to tell Karen to excuse my DNF. I couldn't. I started trying to figure out if maybe I needed to throw up, or something else that would be a valid excuse for stopping. Looking for potholes I could twist an ankle in or curbs I could fall off of. Major pity party. But it wasn't entiiiirely in my head.. the conditions really were crappy physically.
But I thought, "Okay, I can't justify quitting when I'm not in any real physical distress. I'll keep running as long as I can. It doesn't feel like I could possibly get another mile, but I'll keep running." I lost sight of Andi, she was so far ahead. I was falling further behind the pacers. It wasn't getting any easier. Miles 2 and 3 were just more of the same. How could I possibly do 13.1 miles of this horrible misery?
Once I passed 3, I thought.. well, at least I'm in single digits. And that's when I gritted my teeth and told myself to shut up, that to DNF was not on the table unless I really had some valid reason that I wouldn't hate myself for later, and that if I needed to slow down in order to finish, I would, but I would finish. So I just kept running. I would run as fast as my body felt like it would allow me to run and still finish 13.1 miles. Sometimes it felt kinda fast. Sometimes it felt very slow.
I caught up to and passed Laura-Kate. About a mile later, as we went through a water stop, I caught up to Andi, who had slowed down a bit to get water. We started running together again. We exchanged a few quips, but otherwise there was no talking. She acknowledged she'd been very aggressive at the start, and wasn't feeling good now. Neither of us could understand why we felt so very crappy.
Kris caught up to and passed us. We told her she was doing great and watched her run on by us. I knew I couldn't stay with her, but I tried to use it as motivation to keep my pace up, and stay close to her. Did that for a while, then gained ground on her and passed her, then leap frogged with her for quite some time, while Andi had fallen back behind me.
Now we were getting into the later miles.. 8.. 9.. I wasn't seeing any scenery.. I have no idea where we were or what we ran by. I was just staring at the backs in front of me and trying to keep my legs moving. My breathing felt better at this point, and I felt so much better than I had at mile 1, which I found amusing. My legs didn't feel great, but again I was just moving them at whatever pace was the most I could do without thinking, "There's no way I can finish at this pace."
Passed mile 10, and then came the split for the half and full. I felt so bad for the full people, because the weather was bad enough for running at all, but awful for a full marathon. But I dutifully turned left and continued on the half marathon course. Shortly before the turn-off, Andi's husband Ryan and his mom were out cheering, and that was a nice pick-me-up (though I could tell Ryan was wondering where Andi was, and I didn't think until after I passed by to tell him she was right behind me). In the next few miles, I saw Ryan and his mom.. 3 more times? A lot. Never saw them until they were cheering for me, and then it made me smile each time, which I really needed. I kinda tuned out during this entire race, not smiling at the crowd, not cheering, not paying attention, which is very rare for me. So them pulling me out of my head made a big difference. Priscilla was also out cheering at two spots, and I had no idea she was out there, so that was a big boost, as well. Thanks, Priscilla!
Got to the mile 11 marker and knew I could gut out two more miles. I knew I was slowing down, but I just did what I could. I passed Lori, and then Barbara, right at the same waterstop. Mile 12, one mile to go, and I could see the Alamodome in the distance, and knew I'd make it. As I was running down the road, staring at the feet of the person in front of me, I heard someone say my name. I looked over to the side, and Josh was walking along there. Noooot good. Josh is way faster than me, and it looked like a repeat of the New Mexico Marathon. I told him to stay with it, and then told him to stay upright. :) A couple minutes later, he ran up beside me and said I couldn't have all the fun. We ran together for a bit, and I tried to make him do a race photo with jazz hands with me. Hamming it up for the photographers finally, I must have been feeling better. Having the end in sight was good mentally.
Looped around the Alamodome, I was feeling good because perhaps I hadn't even noticed that hill people say is at the end! Then we turned a corner and I saw the hill. Unkind to put it at the end.. everyone's cheering for you, and you're slogging up this giant (okay, not giant, but it sucked at the end) hill. But the mile 13 marker was there, and I knew the end was close.
Turned the corner, and the finish line was right there. I picked it up as much as I could (not much) and glanced up out of the corner of my eye at the finish line clock. It didn't yet say 2:00, and I knew I started several minutes after the race clock started, so I was VERY happy to see I hadn't fallen down so far that I came in over 2 hours. At least there was that! And then I crossed the finish line.
The boys of our sub-team, who did amazing, were there waiting and cheering, and I joined them to cheer in the rest of our people.
Final time: 1:52:29 (8:35/mile)
My previous official half marathon PR was at the Moe's Better Half Marathon earlier this year, 1:54:40, so this was an official PR. I just barely missed out on beating my unofficial half marathon PR, which was actually at the Houston Marathon halfway point, 1:52:23. Curse you, 6 seconds! And 7 minutes off my goal time.
I knew pretty immediately my goal time wasn't happening today. I felt awful right from the start line, and even though in the end I managed to hold it together, I held it together at paces like 8:20 and 8:40, not paces like 8:00, which was my goal pace. Just wasn't happening today.
I'm actually happy with my time, given the conditions. Sure, I'm bummed I didn't hit or get closer to my goal, but it sounds like most people out there had crappy races due to the weather, so at least I was in good company.
If you'd asked me in 2008, when I'd never run a sub-2 hour half marathon and didn't think myself capable, if I could be upset about a 1:52 half marathon, I would have laughed at you. It's funny how quickly we forget where we came from.
1:52:29 is awesome, and I'm incredibly proud of myself for holding it together when I wanted so badly to give up. I may not have hit my goal, but I gained a lot of valuable insight into how to hold it together when everything falls apart.
Splits:5 Km6.1 Mi15 KmFinish
Times:26:0352:061:19:401:52:29
Pace:8:238:248:338:35