Hey gang!! I?m baaaaacck!
Well my half is over! Got to the hotel yesterday around this time. Good thing the hotel had a bus shuttle taking runners downtown to get their packets. Or whatever else they wanted to do there. I say that because the traffic around that area was a nightmare! So saw plenty of other runners at the hotel obviously. Some of us decided to meet around 6:00am to walk down to the race start. The start was about .75 miles from the hotel so it wasn't too bad. Did a lot of people watching while waiting for the start! Oh and I made sure I turned my Garmin on. Actually, the night before I had taken it outside the hotel to acquire the satellite signal. So it picked up the satellite signal before start of the race quite quickly.
At 7:00am sharp, the gun goes off! There were about 4500 runners so it about 5 minutes for me to cross the start line. Right as I crossed start, I hit the Start button on my Garmin.
I felt good in the beginning, checking my Garmin, it seemed like I was maybe going too fast. Since I knew it was a race and not a training run I tried to slow a little but not too much. The first 8-9 miles went really well! Then it happened my left ankle! I must have stepped wrong or something cause it hurt to put pressure on it and had to walk some, had a bit of trouble starting back up but did. It was at about mile 10. Oh, the course did have a couple of unexpected hills, that and the ankle thing and I just seemed to lose it and had to walk several times in the end. And darn it, I remembered Stan telling me to save something for the last 5k!
Oh I didn?t mention that it was cool because the course took us by the Hospital where I was born! LOL
As we ran into the Alamodome I could see the clock ahead that read 2:35. So I knew I hadn?t beaten my virtual race PR but was close to my actual road race PR of 2:32.
When I hit the finish, I hit the Stop on my Garmin. My time was 2:30 based on my Garmin. Don?t know yet what the chip time is. Either way it is a real road race PR!
After I finished I stretched, had some water then a banana and bagel. Then I found the beer! Yes! It was Alamo Ale. Good stuff! Had a couple of cups then headed for the hotel. The walk back to the hotel from the finish was only .25 miles. Showered packed my stuff and headed home.
I?m back home now where I?ll take a couple of rest days then pick it back up for January!
Right now, looks like the Cowboys need my attention! LOL
Hope everyone is doing well!
Joe
The URL of the race...
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/4405462[/URL" target="_blank">