Aramco Houston Half Marathon: Race Recap

The Houston 1/2 was awesome! Great course, incredible volunteers, and excitement you could feel in the air everywhere. It was nearly impossible to not feel inspired after having watched the men and women's Olympic Trials the day before.

Our hotel was about a 5 minute drive out of downtown so my hubby and I left our hotel around 5:30 am to ensure that we would be able to find parking in time to meet up with the rest of the Spokane crew. We easily found parking and was able to meet up with our friends and make last minute preps before heading over to the convention center. Once inside the convention center we dropped off our bags and made plans to meet up after the race. The had a fairly large reunion area so my hubby's job was to find me in the "M" section first and then we would wait for our friends to finish.

Team Spokane

The finish line

Final goodbyes with the hubby

Our corral closed at 6:40 am so about 6:30 we meandered our way outside. It was a little chilly, but not bad. They were VERY serious about people going to the right corral. I was wearing a garbage bag and was asked numerous times to show my bib indicating that I was in the right corral. We had decided to start in the 7:00 minute area so we we had a lot of people to walk through to get to our starting spot. At that point I was just trying to stay warm and stretch my sleepy legs out. I knew with the amount of people there would be no warming up. That thought was frustrating, but completely out of my hands at that point. 

Once the race started it was crowded! The first 2 miles were awful and mile 3 was even pretty bad. I couldn't believe how many slow people were in front of me- even when I started out in the 7:00 min group. That was pretty frustrating. Again, completely out of my hands. 

Once I was able to get out of the crowds, I started to feel better about my pace. From miles #3-10 I felt awesome. On the turn around I was able to see all of my friends from Spokane. Once I hit mile #10 I knew that something was off on my knee. My knee felt completely numb, like it wasn't attached to my leg and I was having to tell myself to bend it and put my foot on the ground. I could tell that I was slowing down by about 3-5 seconds and that I was struggling to keep my pace around 7:10. My initial plan was to have FUN!, but to also really push it that last 3 miles. I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to keep my pace. At the next aid station I stopped and stretched my knee out for about 15 seconds. It initially felt better, but I wasn't sure how long that feeling would last. I ended up have to stop again just before the 1.5 mile mark and stretch it for another 15-20 seconds. 

Once I saw that I had 1.5 miles left I looked at my watch and knew that I had to pour on the pace. I wanted a PR for FLAB so bad. After the week that she had gone through I wanted to make her proud. On the final stretch we hit a really strong head wind and it hurt. My lungs hurt, my knee hurt, everything hurt. I looked at my watch and it said I was running a 7:30 and I knew that was not good. I dug a little deeper and pushed a little harder to get back on pace. I knew from watching the Trials the day before where I was at on the course and the finish line seemed so far away. So far away. The thought of FLAB made me push and dig a little deeper. I started to fly by people. I couldn't even feel my knee at this point, but I knew that I COULD NOT STOP. 

Once I crossed the finish line I just wanted to collapse. As I slowly gimped off to get my finisher's photo taken I looked at my watch and saw that I had gotten my PR for FLAB. A small PR, but a PR. 

Final stretch

Initially, I thought my PR was small until I looked at my Garmin again and saw that I had ran 13.20 miles- the course was either long or I did a lot of weaving in the first 5K. Even though I stopped twice for my knee, the most time I lost was 30-45 seconds. That thought will probably haunt me for a couple of months. 

After realizing that the course was long I was excited to compare my last three 1/2 marathons. After looking at my Garmin data, I don't think my PR was huge, but it wasn't as small as I had initial thought.

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace		Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace		Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	35:24.7	13.13	7:16		Summary	33:58.3	12.96	7:15		Summary	33:53.9	13.2	7:07
1	07:33.1	1	7:33		1	07:19.9	1	7:20		1	07:22.1	1	7:22
2	07:18.6	1	7:19		2	07:23.7	1	7:24		2	07:13.0	1	7:13
3	07:13.5	1	7:14		3	07:20.9	1	7:21		3	07:11.1	1	7:11
4	07:35.3	1	7:35		4	07:19.6	1	7:20		4	07:10.2	1	7:10
5	07:12.5	1	7:13		5	07:13.4	1	7:13		5	07:08.1	1	7:08
6	07:24.8	1	7:25		6	07:14.5	1	7:14		6	06:59.2	1	6:59
7	07:30.0	1	7:30		7	07:13.8	1	7:14		7	07:08.0	1	7:08
8	07:10.1	1	7:10		8	07:10.0	1	7:10		8	07:03.7	1	7:04
9	07:15.6	1	7:16		9	07:21.4	1	7:22		9	07:14.7	1	7:15
10	07:32.0	1	7:32		10	07:14.5	1	7:15		10	07:01.6	1	7:02
11	06:57.2	1	6:57		11	07:21.3	1	7:21		11	07:04.3	1	7:04
12	07:02.6	1	7:03		12	07:06.1	1	7:06		12	07:16.0	1	7:16
13	06:51.6	1	6:52		13	06:39.3	0.96	6:56		13	06:45.4	1	6:45
14	:47.8	0.13	6:21							14	01:16.8	0.2	6:30
Spokane 1/2 Marathon 10.19.11					Girlfriend's 1/2 Marathon 10.16.11					Houston 1/2 Marathon 1.15.12

--Tasha