Houston Half 2011

October 23rd, I ran the first warmup race in the Houston marathon series - the Houston Half. I honestly didn't have any goals for this race. I just wanted to enjoy racing (it had been a while since my last race), have fun, and use it as a long run to prepare for my upcoming half marathon in San Antonio.

Turns out it was a great day for racing. I run the parks on these streets all of the time, so I knew what I was getting myself into. Before the race, I met up with one of the girls I train with in ATP and she was in it to race it. Normally, she's faster than me, but I thought we could at least start out together and keep each other company for the first half.

The first half went by so fast. We crossed the mat at 1:00:08. I remember thinking "ok, not great, but I'll at least beat the 2 hour mark". My friend had just put on her headphones and we both took a GU and just kept going. We didn't really speak much, just ran. The turn around for the race was at almost 8 miles where I finally decided to turn on my tunes. The two of us just started getting into a really good groove and we started passing people. I didn't look at my Garmin much at all - I was trying to run solely on feel.

I knew we were speeding up, but I had no idea how much.  Less than half a mile from the finish line, a friend of hers jumped out of the crowd and starting running with us. He was screaming at her in Spanish and I was doing everything I could to keep up the pace and try and translate what he was saying at the same time. Later I would find out that we had sped up to almost a 7 min/mile pace. We crossed the finish line in 1:55:34! A full minute PR for me!

Half Marathon #9