Run This Town

Apologies to any Jay-Z fans out there for ripping off the title of this post; Whitney really wants me to blog on my second marathon, so here we go...

So Saturday I finished my second marathon (notice I said "finished", not "raced" - Whitney's the racer in our house). While it was SLOW, I was OK with it due to the lower-intensity training plan I used and the overuse injury I was working through. For some reason, whenever I start running an 18+ mile long run in my training plan, I get hit with IT Band syndrome, bringing my running to a screeching halt. So this time, I used a lower-mileage training plan and purposely ran slower-than-before times to try and keep the injury bug under control. While I still ended up getting hit with ITBS, a few sessions with an Active Release Therapy (ART) guy helped to continue training without major pain. A few details on the race:

We left Houston and drove up to Forth Worth on Friday. We stayed in the Renaissance hotel downtown, about 3 blocks from the start line (which was worth its weight in gold). My pre-race meal: rice and beans from the Cuban place across the street. BAD IDEA - I'll never do rice and beans ahead of a race ever again: too many bathroom breaks = slow times!

I ended up overdressing for the race: when I left the hotel for the start line, it was 36 degrees outside. About 3 miles into the race, the sun had come out and it was 50...and I was stuck with all the stuff I was wearing.

The first 18 miles or so were great; I was hitting my splits dead-on every mile. About mile 18.5 or so, I started feeling a bit puky...by mile 21 I really wanted to hurl. Looking back, I think I drank too much at the aid stations (another lesson learned). It was about that point that I chose to not kill myself and coast on in. In hindsight, I could have pushed myself a bit harder and kept on pace; but I wasn't going to be setting a personal record in this race anyway, so I figured I'd keep things under control instead and not try to throw up.

At mile 25.7 or so (half-mile from the finish), my cell phone starts ringing; it's Whitney, asking if I'm dead or not. I think that's the first time she's ever called me while I've been out running! At this point, I'm really wanting to throw up on someone, so my reply was "I'm kind of OK". A few minutes later I ran past Whit and the kids, giving Noah a high-five on my way to the finish. Owen missed the whole thing because he was playing a game on the Leapster :-)

Anyway, that's the race in a nutshell. We'll be back in Fort Worth next year for the half or the full marathon...we've been going for about 3 years running now, so it's a bit of a tradition now. And - the Stockyards are actually pretty fun, so you have something fun to do afterwards also!