Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Cowtown recap and the ongoing hiatus


Well, waaaaaayyyy back in February I ran my second half marathon in 2 months up in Fort Worth.  It wasn't a spectacular showing, but it wasn't terrible, either.  I wound up the race in about 2:20-ish.  The last half was far worse than the first half, mostly because it was mostly uphill, but partly because I thought the run was Sunday when it was really Saturday and my entire preparation schedule was off by a day.  I hadn't eaten right, I hadn't hydrated right, I hadn't done anything right, really, and I just plum ran out of gas in the last 3 miles or so.  
I was on a great pace for the first 6 miles.  It was a great pace.  Of course, it was mostly downhill, too.  But then the engine started to sputter and the 2:00 pace that I had been running slipped to 2:15.  Then a mile or so later it slipped again to a 2:30 pace.  But I was able to rally for the last couple of miles (where the route flattened out a little) and trim some time back off and finish in the low 2:20s.  There you go.  That's how the cowtown shaped up for me.
The real highlight, though, was that my son got to watch me finish the race for the first time.  He was overjoyed.  That was a cool feeling to be able to hear my boy squealing with delight as I cut through the crowd that had formed around the last few turns and sprint my way to the finish line.  Yea, I may not have finished first, but in his eyes I'm a giant among men.  And that'll do just fine.

The next run on the schedule was Angie's Half Marathon down in Clear Lake.  I went out and ran a few times to prepare for that one, but the rigors of school and work started to weigh down too much and right around the end of March I officially decided to claim a hiatus until after school.  Come June, I'd start running again, but not before.  There were just too many things to do and not enough days in the week to do them.

But as of now, school has ended and one of the jobs has become mothballed.  The garden is planted, the chores are mostly caught up on, and running will commence again shortly.  I'm still looking at the half marathon schedules through the end of the year, but I may modify the schedule to accomodate a few full marathons starting in November or December.  Why not?  By then an extra 13 miles shouldn't be all that tough (he said, ironically).