There are few weekends of the year that I truly look forward to. The Houston Marathon Weekend is one of those weekends for me. There's just so much excitement leading up to it. This year was unique in that bad weather was looming in the forecast for days. Race day morning brought the worst of it with cold freezing rain, but it cleared up by the second half of the race. The rain and numerous puddles had my shoes and socks soaked. I decided to exercise my option of changing into some dry gear, thanks to a drop bag my wife kept with her near mile 17. It took me 3 or 4 minutes to get changed thanks to numb fingers, but I immediately felt more comfortable in shoes that didn't have 8 ounces of water sloshing around in them. I was hitting my mile splits on the money up until mile 16 or so. I didn't think I'd PR given the weather, but my first half of the race was strong enough to make me think I might get a shot. I really debated whether or not I should change shoes at all. I concluded that I didn't want to risk blistering in the last 6 miles so I would take the time for the pit stop. I don't really know if I would have done better without it, but at least my feet were a little more comfortable. My pace was still pretty decent through mile 19 or so, but I knew I was slowing. I managed to push on until the turn at Shepherd when sore feet and some IT pain on my right side convinced me to do some walking. I tried to stay steady down the Allen Parkway stretch to have enough for a strong push in the last mile and half into downtown.
Now for some race analysis for my running journal. As you can tell from my splits, I need to work on improving my pace for the late miles beyond the 25K mark. Contrast that with last years PR run where I was much stronger through the 35K mark.
2013 Results - 04:16:23
Splits Pace
5K 09:13
10K 09:11
15K 09:10
20K 09:12
HALF 09:13
25K 09:16
30K 09:31
35K 09:38
40K 09:48
Finish 09:47
2012 Results - 04:10:27
Splits Pace
5K -
10K 09:03
15K 09:02
20K 09:00
HALF 09:00
25K 09:03
30K 09:09
35K 09:20
40K 09:31
Finish 09:34
Now for a special thanks to all my friends and family. Running has grown to become such an integral part of me that I could not be doing this without your support. Thanks to all my friends I saw during the race. I got to run with so many of you this weekend. Running is often thought to be an individual endeavor, but running buddies like you all really prove that notion to be wrong. A very very very special thanks to my lovely wife who is the absolute best supporter in the world. She also exceeded her expectation in her first ABB 5K this weekend and I am so proud of her. It was awesome to play the role of supporter cheering from the sidelines.
