Stonebridge Ranch Half Marathon Race Report

Pre-Race:
It was an early (3:45 am) alarm, and I chowed down on a Fiber One bar and a banana and drove to Arlington to pick up my friend Stacy. We drove to McKinney and got there pretty early - around 6:10 - and just chilled in the car before the 7:30 race. I started getting a bit hungry again... I realized it had been nearly 4 hours since I had eaten breakfast. What a long morning!

Race:
Stacy and I had talked in the car about how fast we wanted to go, and we decided to try to break 2 hours (maybe 1:55) and negative split. So we tried to keep our pace in check the first half. The first mile was too fast (8:30), but then we settled in to a very consistent pace, around 9:00-9:10 per mile. There were a lot of hills, and the headwind was pretty noticeable in certain parts. I appreciated the great course design (never any confusion about where to turn), the frequent water stops (I now truly appreciate hydration after running a few races where the water stops were a problem), and the safety (no cars to deal with). Stacy took off a bit at the half way point, and I tried to keep her in sight. I split an 8:40 at around mile 8, and that really got my heart rate up. After that, I just tried to stay as close to 9:00 as possible. My total time was a 1:57:31, which is an 8:58/mile average. I was very pleased with a sub-9 average on a challenging course, and I negative split (or at least even split). I managed to finish about 40 seconds after Stacy, which was a great accomplishment for me. I'll ignore the fact that she hasn't been working out much! Also, I finished second in my age group (out of nine people, not just two!).

Post Race:
I was really surprised with my recovery after the run. I thought the hills would make me pretty sore, but I was right back at it yesterday and I ran just over 4 miles with no problems. I got a little daring and signed up for the Cowtown 50K (31 miles) last night, so I have that to look forward to on Sunday morning. YIKES!