4:23 PM

Houston Half Marathon

I am officially obsessing over 2 minutes and 30 seconds (truthfully, maybe about 4 minutes). My plan was to run the race at marathon pace; however, after a difficult run on Wednesday, I was questioning my ability to run at the necessary 9:45 pace. To quickly explain, for some reason, on Wednesday I was struggled to run a 30:30 three miler. I was breathing hard and almost drenched with sweat - I was seriously working hard and thought that I was at least running 9 minute miles (if not better). When I hit the three mile mark, I was shocked to see 30:30 staring back at me.

Fast forward to Sunday, I didn't think that I could even maintain a 10:00/mile pace in the race. I decided to just give it a go and see what happened. I was hoping that I could at least finish in 2:10 or less and I think that the math was there but something was off. The trusty Garmin said that I ran 13.3 miles - which, if that is correct, explains my 2 minutes. But, I don't think that it was off this much. Throughout the race, I could never get the miles markers to match with the Garmin. Could not running some of the tangents have made me this off?

I also realized that I run much better whenever I'm running with someone - especially, if I think that they are relying on me to pace them. For the first two loops, I had a partner. I ended up leaving her a bit on the last loop and boy was it hard. I then tried to pick people off - but then, that got discouraging as a few people blew past me.

Mentally, I was in this race. I walked the water stops and not really anything else. It was interesting to see just how many people were walking that last loop and I was determined not to walk. I wanted to finish in under 2:10 - just didn't quite make it.

Now, after doing a bit of math and looking at the computer generated pace charts, I need to run the Turkey Trot 10k in 54:00 minutes to be on track for my marathon goal. Anyone up for some 8:30s at the Turkey Trot? I think I'll need a bit of help.

2 comments:

Steve said...

Checking up on you... There have been no posts lately... Everything OK?

26.2 Princess said...

About the Garmin, mine never matches the mile markers. Its always at least .2 miles ahead. Yesterday in SA, my Garmin said my marathon was 26.5 something miles. I hate that!