Starting a New Year Right

This past weekend I headed over to Austin to run the Decker Challenge Half Marathon with friends Heather, Del and Ingrid. It was also a little extra special for me as this race coincided with my birthday.

Many months ago I had planned to make this race a total effort to PR and try to break the 2:30:00 mark on my half marathon time. However my plans had since changed and I was now coming off of the San Antonio Marathon 3 weeks back and looking forward to the Goofy Challenge in 5 more weeks, so I changed my plans here to putting forth a solid effort but running below race-level effort (I suppose this equates to considering this race a 13.1 mile tempo run.)





Sunday morning I presented with a birthday card, balloon and cupcake (which I saved until after the run) and I was thankful for my friends remembering my birthday. I was having a difficult time deciding what to wear (see Karen, that problem is not exclusive to women!!) as the weather was cold and wet--in fact it there was a slow rain or heavy mist for the entire event! I decided to go with short tights that stopped above the knee and long socks that went up to just below the knee instead of long tights. I also wore a newer pair of shorts over the tights because I wanted to try them out on a longer run before my marathon, since they have several pockets for gels I wanted to make sure they would be comfortable enough before the Disney marathon trip. I also went with a tight long-sleeve shirt under a sleeveless running shirt for my top. Because of all the wetness I decided to keep my Sun-Mart running jacket on for the run as an outer layer. In addition I wore a lightweight beanie cap on my head to keep warm and wore gloves to keep my hands warm. Being from south Texas, I am no stranger to warm (and downright hot) weather running, and I can put up with running in cooler weather without being so bundled up for a time, but heading out on a long run--even a race--in these conditions was new to me, and in fact it did stay cold and wet for the entire course, I did feel afterwards that I made the right choices in my running attire.

Since I started the race without expectations other than to run a solid pace without overtaxing myself, I figured I was set for a decent run. Starting out was nice and the first decent hill didn't seem nearly as bad as it did when it was on the Longhorn Tri course 6 weeks before, and then we headed into a general downhill for a bit. Of course this downhill set up to an general uphill for a bit and so it went until hitting real hill around miles 4 and 6, with 6 being a tough one (which I walked the last 1/3 of so I wouldn't max out my heart rate so early on. I believe the first 10 miles or so of this run were also the first part of the Longhorn Tri bike, so the area seemed generally familiar and I enjoyed being more out in the country and away from traffic. Coming up to an aid station around the 10K mark I realize I am on a personal PR pace for a 10K, and I am still feeling strong and am run/walking, but running more than normal and feeling good with it. As I continue on I find several general inclines and then 2 pretty big hills in succession around miles 9 and 10, where I also realize I am several minutes of my 10 mile PR as well. I also have known for a while now that a new half marathon PR was possible and that I could even break 2:30 if I pushed hard enough, but did I want to risk my training for January for accomplishing something else now? In the end I decided to try to keep a strong pace to break my old PR time but told myself not to risk injury by doing too much for today--after all I was well ahead of today's plan and I would hate to ruin a successful run that already exceeded expectations.

I crossed the finish at 2:31:24, beating my old PR time by over 2 1/2 minutes. I would have thought I might be bothered by missing a golden opportunity to break 2:30,but I was really happy with this run because I felt so good out there that I know I have it in me. This certainly felt like the toughest course I have ever run in a race and to PR here was a fantastic feeling already. After this run, I know I can get under 2:30, it'll just have to wait a while longer. In addition to me, all of my friends PR'd as well. Heather did break the 2:30 mark that she had been chasing after for a long time running well with a time of 2:27:54, Del ran 1:49:55, and Ingrid bested her time from last year on this course by 31 minutes(!!) and also set a personal PR time with 2:01:49.

Afterwards, we grabbed some pizza and then I had to leave to drive home for a nice birthday dinner with my family, enjoying ribs and wings knowing that I could definitely celebrate the day and go off diet without worry for a while.

The last couple of years have each been pretty good to me. I've gotten ahead in my career, I've gotten in better shape, I've made many good friends and I'm getting to watch my daughters mature into the fine women they can each become. My life may be far from perfect, but right now it is pretty good. So far life at 44 is just fine.

My next running event will be the Goofy Challenge in just under 5 weeks and I hope to meet up with some friends for the first time that I have known online for a bit. I also have no plans to run these events for the fastest time but will instead be running to enjoy the event for itself and soak it all in with the people I have around me.

Snowy Friday

Growing up in south Texas generally means warm winters and seeing snow on the television while hearing stories of the white stuff falling from the sky from transplanted northerners.

Today was the exception to the rule, a cold front coming in from the northwest met moisture and rain pushing up from the Gulf of Mexico and created a snowy band for about 120 miles inland for most of the day. Normally, the snow I've witnessed here would hardly qualify as snow for many, just being small light flakes but today I saw big fluffy flakes for the first time in 30 some years I have been in Texas.

This photo was taken out of my car window while going back to my office from lunch. I was stopped at the time, the white streaks are becasue the snow was falling fast.

However, true to form, very little acumulated on the ground and it never got cold enough to see snow sticking to anything other than isolated parked car. I was nice to get to see a real taste of winter up close, but it'll be even nice to not have to worry about snow covered roads as I drive out to Austin tomorrow for Sunday's half marathon.

Happy Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving Day well upon us, I wanted to take a short time to actually reflect on some of the things for which I am thankful this year.

I am thankful for a kind and understanding wife who hardly complains about the time my running and triathlon training and events take up in our lives.

To start with, I am thankful that I was able to spend the day with my wife and daughters. We had a nice not so traditional dinner (although it did include Turkey!) together with my father-in-law, and later we spent time talking and reading the shopping ads together.

I am thankful that I remember that whenever one of my loved ones leaves the house I remember to tell them to be safe and let them know that I love them. I am certainly not thankful for why I now remember to do this! (If you don't know why scroll back to my March 24th post and you can read all about it.) [I found out 2 days after I posted this that one of my best friends from high school passed away pretty close to the time and day that I posted this. We were not nearly as close in recent years but we still saw each other occasionally with other friends. Jeff, may you find the peace in death that eluded you these recent years.]

I am thankful for a nice job that pays the bills and is helping to pay to keep two children in college right now, not to mention paying for that Disney trip this year.

I am thankful for being generally healthy. I am weighing less now than at the start of the year and have gotten my jean's waist size down to where it hasn't been for at least 10 years. In this past year I have put my body through a lot, ranging from 5K's to a full marathon and a Half Ironman Triathlon, and it has held up pretty well.

I am thankful for the love and loyalty of my dogs. They always coming running to see me when I come home and are always excited to see me.

I am thankful for my many friends, some of which I have known for most of my life and some who I've only known a short time, some of whom have shared various adventures with me and some with whom I have only shared conversation.

I suppose I could go on for a while, but I think I have made the point that I should remember that I have many blessings to remember in my life, and I hope all of you can remember your blessings as well.

Happy Thanksgiving my friends!!

San Antonio Rock n Roll Marathon

Many months ago I had signed up for the San Antonio Rock n Roll Marathon getting a good deal as a early registrant and a returning runner thinking that this would be my "A" race for the year. Of course life's events changed and now the race was merely a long training run coming out of recovery from the Longhorn 70.3 and looking forward to the Goofy Challenge 8 weeks later. I was feeling good a week before, but a solid long run the previous weekend let me know I wasn't quite recovered, and left me with a sore left ankle and right knee, which I nursed back to feeling mostly better by race day.

I was up early, about 3:45, to get ready, kissed my wife (Darcy) as I left the hotel and headed over the shuttle buses. I was on the first bus out of downtown to the starting area. Apparently, buses were dropping off in 2 areas, and I got dropped off about 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile form the starting area. Being in place more than 2 hours before the start I checked out what was where and found a nice spot to rest and listen to my iPod for a good while. Around 7:00 I checked in my gear bag and visited the porta-potties (having learned last year to stay away from the ones near the main area and walk up around the actual starting line where most people did not go, plus then I could wait for the corrals to move forward and hop into mine).

It took about 30 minutes for me to actually start (corral 15) after the race began. My biggest complaint is that the corral structure was not really enforced and there were many with corral numbers well behind me that had started way up front that clogged the roads early. If I was going for a half-marathon PR, this would have been frustrating as I think it would have cost me 5 to 10 minutes plus extra energy to get around these guys. True to the advertising there was lots of music and cheering squads along the way for motivation, and the people of San Antonio turned out to help. My favorite was a sign board posted at a school early in the race proclaiming that there were only 23.8 miles left to go! When we ran through downtown the streets were absolutley mob with people cheering and I saw Darcy right at mile 8, which gave me a big mental boost.

Around mile 9 I decided I was going to stay with the marathon course at the split point. I don't know if it is true of other Rock n Roll races, but since I was registerd for the full I could have just run the half marathon course and the timing system would have recorded me as a half marathon runner. Although I was cruising along nicely, I dropped back my pacing because I knew I had a long run ahead and my heart rate was already running a little bit high for me. I did a 4/1 run/walk early (and could have run that into a half marathon PR if I had chosen), but I went back to 3/1, then 2.5/1, then 2/1, and finally 1/1 as the race went on and my heart rate recovered less during the walk breaks. In the end I wanted to make sure that I didn't hurt myself with this race and affect my coming events in December and January. As it turns out I still think I was doing pretty well for me, as my times at 25K and 30K would have been easy PR's at those distances. Even with all my slowing down, it seemed that I still passed far more than passed me along the last 10 miles or so.

I finished in 6:11:38, not exactly a stellar time, but I'll take it for what this event was for me: my first full marathon (although I have run the 50K distance previously) and training for the January Goofy Challenge (where I'll run the half marathon on Saturday and the full marathon on Sunday). As a whole, I really enjoyed the experience and would consider doing this one again.

Longhorn 70.3

Well, I did it, I finished the Longhorn 70.3 Half Ironman race this past weekend, and I even beat my goal time as well! As promised in my earlier blog entry, here is my review of my race experience at my first 70.3 event.

For me the race started on Friday as I packed up my stuff and drove to Austin to meet up with Heather and Del at the race expo. I checked in, looked around and heard part of the fist pre-race briefing, and afterwards Heather and I found each other. Del and I were both staying at Heather's house that weekend with her family, and Friday night we enjoyed a nice homemade dinner, had some good pre-race conversation and watched a movie.

Saturday started early, although I technically slept in a bit considering when I normally wake up on Saturday to train. Heather and I did a short brick workout (roughly 3.1 mile bike/.8 mile run) before eating a light "pre-breakfast" as we were heading out to the race's pancake breakfast afterwards. Following the pancake breakfast we placed our transition bags in T2 at the arena (all T2 items had to be placed into a bag and be set at your site, no pre-staging of items)and then we went to the lake to set up our bikes and bags at T1. I think Heather and Del went for practice swims while I spent my time visually planning out my transition. Afterwards we went back to the arena to listen to the full pre-race briefing and then back to Heather's house for dinner and off to an early bedtime (technically I stayed up until just after 10:00 working on email and going through my clothes for tomorrow).

Sunday came early at 3:15, but I got up about 5 minutes later and got dressed. I ate a bit of oatmeal and an energy/protein bar and packed up for the trip to check in. We actually got to the arena a bit before they opened up. We turned in our "special needs" bags at an area where we could access as we started each loop of the 3 loop run. We caught the buses to the swim site and waited for body marking, after which we were allowed to set up our T1 area.

Then we waited for 2 hours until the race stared by talking, rechecking the transition area, visiting a memorial to an athlete who was killed recently with his wife while on a bike ride together, and warming up...in other words, we kept ourselves occupied. Around 7:30 the first wave went off, and I excitedly waited for my wave (10 of 16) to begin.

Swim: Being a slower swimmer, I started in the back of my wave and pretty much stayed there. The lake was a good temperature and I swam without a wetsuit. I found myself veering out to the right several times on the counterclockwise loop, which is unusual because I usually drift to the left more than the right. Del passed me on the swim at a turn buoy and called out a supporting word to me (he started in the wave after mine). In the end I finished the 1.2 mile swim in 56:27, which I felt pretty good about since my goal was 55:00 minutes but I also figure I must have swam an extra couple hundred yards with my misdirected swimming.

T1: I took my time to get going right out of transition and exited in 5:56. My goal was 5:00 minutes, but I took the time to make sure I was good before I left.

Bike: This was without a doubt my favorite part of the race, even though I had some unusual troubles. I had a plan drink a 24 ounce bottle of Gatorade and eat an energy bar every hour, and that pretty much served me well. I think I actually drank between 4 and 4.5 bottles during my ride, which is greater than my plan, but I think I needed that extra nutrition and I felt good with that. I had no problems with the bottle hand outs as I rode by the aid station and thought those areas were generally well run by the volunteers. I tried to make a point to say a word of thanks to a number of the volunteers as I rode by them. While riding I found the time to slow down a bit on occasion and enjoy the scenery, seeing cows, horses, people, scenic hills, pastures... I really enjoyed this. Since I was unfamiliar with riding real hills like the ones I was experiencing, I experimented with trying several riding strategies for climbing the hills. Around mile 20 I had my first problem,I noticed a sharp sting on my upper left chest area and I noticed that I had flown into a bee and gotten stung. I shooed away the bee and moved on, not a major problem. After mile 30 my bike computer seemed to be reading incorrectly, I figured the sensor moved out of position a short bit ago at a bump in the road or the train tracks I had recently gone over, In either case I chose to ride on and not stop just to fix it. I knew I was riding at a pace that would put me about 25 minutes ahead of my planned rate, but since I did not want to overdo it too early I slowed down after mile 40, although it's hard to say exactly how fast I went. I was averaging about 15.8 mph through the first 30 miles and I finished at a 15.3 mph pace, so I figure that I averaged about 14.2 mph over the last 16 miles. I may have been better off stopping so I could reset my sensor to keep track of my pacing, but in the end I was fine. Late in the ride around mile 51 or so I had a couple of moments where I started to question my ability to continue to move the pedals, but I gathered myself and pushed on past that point. I finished the bike in 3:39:11, well ahead of my goal time of 3:55:00.

T2: Given my satisfaction with my bike ride, I took my time to situate myself (including putting on my Garmin GPS and heart rate monitor strap) and somehow spent a leisurely 7:40 (goal was 5:00 minutes) in the second transition zone, although quite a few people actually took longer than that! Running out of transition 2 and heading into the run took us into the middle of the arena and out to the run course. As I ran through I could see some of the faster early starters already finishing.

Run: The weather had been cooler earlier, and then it was cloudy, but now it was staring to get warm, but that doesn't really bother me, although I am now glad that I did stop and apply some sunscreen before leaving T2. The run was a great set up on a 3 loop course with a fantastic support base of multiple volunteer booths over an extended area at both the near end and far end of the loop from the arena. I reminded myself that my main goals were to finish and to enjoy myself, so I decided on a pace to run 1 minute then walk 1 minute, plus walking all uphills and running all downhills to keep my heart rate down and my attitude positive. I enjoyed interacting with the various volunteers and other racers. I also got to see the familiar faces of Heather and Del several times as we approached each other while going opposite directions on the loop. I was a bit surprised that I kept my upbeat attitude all the way to the end of the run as the last half loop got really tough, although I was more surprised that I averaged a 14:27 pace on a modified 1 minute run/1 minute walk plan. I finished the run in 3:09:22, where my original goal was an even 3 hours. I knew that I could have gone faster on this part, but I certainly would not have enjoyed it as much as I did!

Final Time: 7:58:38, My real goal was just to complete the event, but I am so happy to have met my personal time goal of 8:00:00 as well.



Overall, it was a very difficult experience but a very rewarding one as well. I am already considering my next 70.3 Half Ironman event for next year. However that will have to wait, for now I look forward to returning to my training after an appropriate rest period over the next few days. I still have a couple half marathons to finish before year's end with another PR goal to go after...

Pre-Longhorn 70.3 Half Ironman

I am packed and ready for Longhorn 70.3 Half-Ironman event tomorrow, with the exception of the last items I will grab on my way out the door in the morning.

The plan is to wake up somewhere between 3:15 to 3:30 a.m. and eat a little bit, then to scurry about and get dressed for a little bit, and finally to get going around 4:15 a.m. I plan to make a quick check on my bike and transition area items that were set up yesterday and then over to wait my turn to start in the swim—I’ll start in Wave 10 (of 16 swim waves).

I am as ready as I am going to be, so I’ll be off to bed in just a bit after posting this, but I will be back to post a review of my experiences (good and bad) when I have a chance in the next few days.

I also want to offer many thanks to my friends Heather and Jeff, who graciously let me stay with them over the race weekend while Heather also prepared for Longhorn this weekend.

Ten for Texas 2009

Last Saturday was the Ten for Texas race in The Woodlands (Texas, obviously!). It is my favorite 10 mile event---OK, it's the only 10 mile event I've ever done, but it's still a great race!

This year I am coming off a slight, but still nagging thigh/hamstring injury and am also cutting back to prepare for a Half-Ironman Triathlon in 2 weeks. Therefore, I am trying to put out a good effort, but I am also not pushing to 100% for the race. I open up with a 5 minute run-1 minute walk for the first 5 miles to make sure my heart rate doesn't go too high. At the 5 mile mark, I am a bit slower than I would like by about 2 minutes, but I am feeling good and my heart rate is where I want it. Since I was not feeling any issues with the thigh or hamstring, my plan was to increase to 7-1 for the walk-run ratio (and I also experiment with pushing my pace a bit faster, too). I cross the finish line with a 5 minute negative split break my 2 year old PR as well, but best of all I am feeling good and did not harm the earlier injuries.

I just love this event and it has a great post-race party as well. Below are photos of me from this year and 2 years ago (I did not run the Ten for Texas last year as it was rescheduled to the same week as the San Antonio Marathon due to the aftermath of Hurricane Ike.)


Here I am at the 2007 Ten for Texas cresting the hill just after mile 9.



Here I am at the 2009 Ten for Texas coming up to the Mile 9 aid station.


Now it's time to start resting and preparing for the Longhorn Triathlon on October 25th!