The San Antonio Half Marathon was Team Rogue’s first race of the season. I arrived the day before just in time. I got to the hotel and walked about a mile to the Alamodome to pick up my packet, and they closed five minutes after I got there. Whew! No Expo for me. That was close. The half marathon was medium hard. All the training, all the distance, and all the early mornings have paid off.
But let me back up… The day before on my 7-10 mile long run I had to stop after about a mile. A muscle or two in my lower abdomen (groin?) suddenly started to burn going up Comal. I tried to walk it off, but it kept up, so I stopped running and walked back to Rogue. I was dumbstruck – what just happened. So I was very concerned. The race was tomorrow. I felt that my plans to push the half marathon the next day might be too much. So all I could do was say to myself – Take it easy and see how it feels in the morning. That night I was feeling OK, but sitting on the bed I could feel the muscle. Hmmm, what should I do, what should I do…
The next day I got up and dressed, had breakfast (cereal from the hotel), and headed over to the start line. I found my corral and then ran about a 1.5 miles warm up. The groin muscle was there, but it was greatly diminished. So I decided to run at my half marathon pace of 8:42 min/mile (overall time 1:53:48) and see how I felt. I got back to my corral and waited and waited. The weather was overcast, and in the mid 50s (degrees Fahrenheit). I had on shorts, short sleeve, and my Team Rogue singlet, and felt fine – not too cold, not too hot. There was a slight breeze, but nothing to worry about.
When the horn went off I was in the front of the corral 8. Frank Shorter blew the horn for us – neat! The previous corral group was about a quarter mile ahead of us. We took off and I felt fine so I just ran normally. I had to slow myself down and moderate my starting-line adrenaline rush. I caught up to the next group easily. Threading my way through the pack was awful. And the numerous turns on the course and narrow streets were very tough too. For the first 4-5 miles I was threading my way through the pack. Not very fun especially if you are running to get a good time. I was running on sidewalks, ducking and weaving, and dodging people all over the place. Sheesh!
Finally after several miles things opened up and the majority of runners were around my same pace. The miles slowly clicked by. I had my Mocha Clif Shot around 6.5 miles. Not knowing the course was hard because I couldn’t meter out my energy knowing what hills were coming. As I was running I was trying to calculate what it would take to break 1 hour 50 minutes. So for the second half I tried to push it a bit just in case I could do that. My groin issue was non-existent which was great. Getting from mile 12 to 13 seemed to take forever. At the end, around the Alamodome, we had to climb a hill (ugh!), turn a corner and there was the finish line. Done!
I completed in 1:49:44 (official). Woohoo! I broke 1:50. Also I was 10th out of 214 in my age group. My Garmin said that I had run 13.21 miles (so it’s a little bit off and it suggests that my times below are a bit faster than reality). Overall I felt good afterwards, that is, I was not totally wiped out, but in control, metered, tired but comfortable. Met Stephanie (actually she saw me). We found and talked to Steve. He said that other Rogue Elites and Team Rogue mens and womens had finished very well, that is, they has placed in many of the top places. He also said to take my time, double it, and add 10 minutes for my marathon time. That means I should complete in 3:50 (note: McMillan says 3:51:25 with an 8:50 pace) which is good, because my BQ is 4:00. I felt very satisfied with my performance. So I gotta keep it up, and look forward to CIM now – the real thing.
Garmin mile by mile is:
Mile Time 1 08:26 2 08:31 3 08:24 4 08:21 5 08:30 6 08:28 7 08:36 8 08:10 9 08:21 10 08:12 11 08:20 12 08:13 13 07:47 13.21 01:22
Official final time 1:49:44
The splits from the website are:
Split Time Pace 5K 0:26:21 8:29 10K 0:52:41 8:29 7.6Mi 1:02:12 8:11 10Mi 1:24:26 8:27 Finish 1:49:44 8:23
Congrats!
“My Garmin said that I had run 13.21 miles (so it’s a little bit off and it suggests that my times below are a bit faster than reality)”
Not necessarily. the course has many turns and unless you ran every tangent the way the course was measured, i’m actually very surprised you only ran an extra .1 and not more!
I read an article that said that on a 90 degree turn, for every 7feet that you run away from the perfect tangent, you run 35 feet extra distance. that adds up. moral of this story: when possible, run all tangents!
keep it up and go get that BQ!