3M – A 2007 SPEED ODDYSSEY

I’m very pleased with my 3M half marathon race I ran on Sunday.

I ran a very hilly Motive ½ marathon back in November in 1hr32min46sec (7:05pace), so decided to try and break the ‘magical’ 1hr30min barrier. My pace would have to be a 6:51 per mile, and my pacing buddy Ron agreed over email earlier in the week to run that as well. I spotted him at the finish area parking lot getting in a car pool car, but that was the last time I’d see him. Too bad I never found him at the start, so I started alone. (I was yelling “Ron!!” while walking the side of the corral for 10 mins! People looking at me like I was crazy, but what else could I do?)

Big Kahuna coach Steve Sisson repeatedly made the point of not going out too fast and thus using up too much energy that we’d need for the last 3 downhill ‘gift’ miles. As I usually dart out like a race horse, I promised myself to take it easy and not get caught up in the melee for the first ½ mile or so.

After Mile 1, I was 30 seconds behind pace, but not too worried as I had time to make up the lost time.
After Mile 2, I was 45 secs behind pace which made me panic as that’s NOT the way I had planned to run this race, so I decided to take a HammerGel early and took the risk of going out too fast and make up some time during the Jollyville road and Mesa mile for a Mile 3 in 6:22. Now only 17 seconds slow, but nervous that I may have burned my legs for the latter miles.

I settled back down, and was able to maintain a pace between 6:45 and 6:59 from M4 ->M9.
We ran down Spicewood and over to shoal creek, then down great northern and over to Burnet via back streets by Northcross mall. In these miles, I wasn’t feeling too too good, but I figured I just needed to hold on and eventually I’d reach the gradual descent on Burnet and find my legs again. Burnet actually felt good… It was a chilly day, about 37 degrees, so I had on double gloves. Sounds kind of dumb, but my hands got heavy, so when I spotted a familiar face in the crowd, I threw my 2nd pair to Holly’s husband Chris, judging wind speed, pace, direction, angle… Perfect throw, and perfect catch! Nice!

We then turned right onto North Loop which hurt bad(wow it was longer and much hillier than I expected), but by this time, I had caught tall Mark (Enstone). We didn’t talk much, but having run every Tuesday night blue jacket track workouts with him, I think we both knew we knew how to run together. Side note: Mark wrote this to me on our running forum last night in his race report:

Picked up a Wiley* about mid-race, that helped a lot. Finished strong.

and

[Wiley, glad the experience was symbiotic not parasitic (especially your "C'mon, Mark" along the North Loop, Thanks ;-). BTW, "we" talked a little until "we" realized you had tunes strapped to your head under your beanie ;-)]

Ha! Guess I should have taken my music off and it may have been an easier race!

* My running nickname is Wiley Coyote. Not sure why, but that’s the name that they gave me.

Finally turned onto Duval and Mile 10, and I was finally 10 seconds ahead of where I needed to be, but felt pretty tired. I decided to pop another Gu.

I guess the 2nd funniest part of my race was we were running down Duval, and I was about 3 or 4 feet ahead of Mark and this other guy Andrew Cooper (figured it out based on race results) who had also been running with us since M8. Anyway, I’d been pulling, as I couldn’t afford to lose time, but I was hurting… so I turned my head and yelled out: “ I need some help up here!” All I heard was Andrew respond with: “I’m trying, man!” ha… I guess I wasn’t the only one hurting. Needless to say, Mark pulled up to my left, and was a great help! (Thanks for that!). We continued to keep a healthy pace, and got an extra oomph of energy from the Jarvis girl cheering at the start of San Jacinto at Mile 12.

Long story short, finished strong with 6:38, 6:34, 6:50 and 37 seconds for the last 160 meters (0.1 mile).
Without Erin riding next to me on her bike for the last ½ mile, this doesn’t happen. She was a little taken aback by my unusual request on how to motivate me, but she should know that riding next to me was fantastic help in itself!

Side note: When I’m in pain towards the end of races, best motivation for me is aggressive stuff like. “Come on Mike, You suck. Get your ass together and run, dammit. Run, you piece of sh*t!” hahah

Finished with a 4 min 15second PR! 1hour 28 minutes 32 seconds….. 6:45pace!

(Thanks to all the cheer people, Buzz, Kenny(slap punch slap), Pocahontas, Amber, Holly’s Chris, and everyone else… you know who you are. You ROCK!)

Goal pace – 6:51

Actual Splits:
M1-7:21
M2-7:06
M3-6:22 GU here.
M4-6:45
M5-6:49
M6-6:58 GU here
M7-6:59
M8-6:47
M9-6:45
M10-6:42 GU here
M11-6:38
M12-6:34 GU Here (why? I dunno! Why not!)
M13-6:50
0.1M (160Meters)- 37 seconds

This year: 1hr 28min 32sec (6:45pace)
Last Year: 1hr41min44sec (7:44pace)

Overall: 273rd out 3551 (7.7%)
Age Group: 28th out of 275. (10.18%)
Male: 217th out of 1795 (12%)

* A nice thing to note, is that I didn’t hear a lick from my Plantars Fasciitis and my calves showed no signs of cramping like at the ARA20 miler. Could my new hydration strategy, along with extended stretching and foot massage work be working??

I think what I like best about this, is, I get to run 40 seconds per mile slower at the AT&T Austin Marathon, so I hope I’ll be able to hold on in the last 6 miles. I know they’ll be rough, but I’m starting to formalize my plan of attack. Hopefully it’s the right plan.