Short version:
Finish time: 1:34:50.9
PR effort?: yes improved by 4:40
finish position: 147 overall 18 in my age group.
Novel-length version:
Pre(r)amble:
This race was either a back up race in my quest for a half marathon
personal best or a fun run (just an excuse to visit my buddies). I ran
a PB in the october 2004 goal race after training for less than two
months. I was satisfied with the PB, however, I also knew I could do
better with more training. So, I approached this race as a goal race.
My time goal was to beat 1:39:27 set in the october race. Another goal
was to run a negative or an even split race.
I arrived in Dallas on thursday evening and headed to the American
Airlines (AA) Center to watch the Mavericks take on Seatte in the NBA.
An exciting game with an unpleasant result (Mavs. lost). I met a lot of
my buddies in Dallas and hence didn't notice friday and saturday go by.
I visited the event expo on saturday afternoon to pick up my race stuff
and just missed meeting Terry (jhawktdc) there. I spoke to him on the
phone and we made plans to chat before the race on sunday.
Race day:
Woke up at 5:30 am which gave me sufficient time to have a good
breakfast two hours before the race start. My buddy drove me to the AA
center which hosted the runners before and after the event. I wandered
around the building for some time before heading over to the race
start. I simply forgot that this was a big event and ended up getting
to the start ten minutes before the race started which meant that I had
to line up towards the tail end of the field. I did try to squeeze
myself towards the front but gave this idea up as a bad job due to the
huge crowd. I wasn't too worried since this was a chip timed event,
however, I knew my first couple of miles were going to be painfully
slow.
Race:
(start line - 0.1 miles): 1:50
I must have missed the race start since I didn't hear any gun going off
but saw runners taking off like startled gazelles near the start line.
I just ambled over to the start line and once I crossed the mat started
my watch and start jogging. My watch told me that I took 1:36 to get to
the start line, the official time was 1:50, so I am going with that.
Miles 1 & 2: 15:20
I just jogged along with the crowd and looked around for wide roads to
start speeding up and passing people. The start for this event was
separate for the marathon runners and the rest (half M + relay), so it
took a while before I found an opening in the field to make progress.
Due to the crowd, I missed mile 1 marker. I suspect my mile 1 was
considerably slower than mile 1. At any rate, I passed lots of people
and very unhappy since at that point I thought there was no way I was
going to do a sub 1 hour and 40 minute half M. I also overtook a bunch
of bananas in mile 2. These were actually men dressed in jamba juice
banana suits.
Mile 3: 6:46
I must have speeded up without realizing it. The first 3-4 miles are
uphill according to elevation charts or roling hills at any rate. I was
surprised and not happy to do this time, so I decided to throttle back
on mile 4.
Mile 4: 7:25
I am not sure why I slowed this much. Terry mentions that this is the
uphill portion of the course although I didn't feel the hills. I guess
I still have some ways to go before I get a hang of pacing in races.
Mile 5: 7:25
Not bad. At least I settled into some sort of groove and started
enjoying the course. My plan was to maintain this pace till mile 6 and
slightly speed up between miles 6 and 8. I tried chatting up with a
runner to keep my pace honest, however, I didn't find many takers for
this idea.
Mile 6: 7:13 (elapsed time: 44:09 or 7:21/mile average pace)
Oh well, there went my idea for the day, I ran ten seconds faster than
I wanted to.
Mle 7: 7:26
not sure what happend here. I guess I need to work on this pacing
thing.
Mile 8: 7:17
slightly better!
Mile 9: 7:07
back into a groove and enjoying the race.
Mile 10: 7:03
I ran behind a group of runners between miles 9 and 12. I was chasing
them down through these miles which helped me maintain a good pace
consistently
Mile 11: 7:07
overtook a couple of females and a guy or other way around. I start
worrying about how fast I need to run to get a sub 1:35 finish.
Mile 12: 7:09
By this point I knew my PR was in the bag. I also overtook some runners
in this mile. I remember a couple of girls near I 35E shouting
encouragement to runners. I think one of 'em pointed at me and said
"like the way you are running" or something like that. Hrmm.
Mile 13.1 (1.1 miles): 7:32 (1:34:50.9 or 7:14/mie pace)
A runner overtook me at the start of this 1.1 mile stretch. I drafted
him and passed him in the middle of this stretch. We also came across a
puddle of water running across the road and I splashed my way across
them to distract my challenger. However, he managed to hang on with me
and out kicked me to the finish line.
I crossed the line, picked up my finisher's medal got a photo taken and
headed over to the AA center for food and fun. I met Bill (T_Toise)
near the results and table and spoke to him for a minute before he
headed out to watch the marathoners finish. I headed to the train
station to get to another station where my buddy picked me up and drove
me back to his place.
Overall I achieved the targets I had set for myself at the start of the
race. I bettered my previous best time by nearly five minutes and also
ran a negative or at least an even split race (Vicki, comments?). I
need to continue working on my training because I have been working on
building base. I think I can get faster by just running 35+ miles per
week consistently.
thanks for reading!
-Vimal