Ok - I had to go play with numbers - it's the engineer thing. First - the Race Results:
2:40:46 Chip Time
2:40:49 Gun
27th Overall of 5564
23st of 3477 men
1st of 575 AG (40-44)
79.6% Age Grade (>80% is considered Nationally Rated)
Masters Crown for 1st place 40+ - Prize $1,500.
Local Masters 1st place - Prize $250
Local Mens 4th Place - Prize money to top 3.
Invited Local Runner for Houston 2009 with 1st place in age group (this was one of my stretch goals for 2008 - essentiall it means it will be free next year, I get to line up in front of everyone and I get personal waterbottles placed for me around the course).
1st Place on the Mileage Game PR List (I little competition I play with a hundred or so other runners).
And best of all - I really think I could have gone faster - by my read looking at the HR/Pace data - I think I had about another 3 minutes in me.
I thought I'd benchmark my time against the active.com Running Rankings and see how I stack up against the database of what appear to be all the major US races.
For 2008 races to date I am 4th for my age group (3 faster runners ran at Arizona R&R) so far.
For 2007 race time 2:40:46 has
87 faster times recorded by a 40-44 year old Male (out of ~40,000 finishers - this is the largest and on average the fastest age group for 2007).
-22 of those were repeats by the same person
-18 of are from athletes from another country.
----
Would be 47th Place in US if it was in 2007
Sub 2:35 would be top 20
Sub 2:30 would be top 10
I'm fishing for my go forward goals and wanted to see how I stacked up.
The most frequently asked question of all:
What is Next?
I don't know. It probably sounds arrogant but I have a little bit of a sense of "I've concurred the marathon" which makes me lean to go find something else - I don't expect that sense will last long as I already seem to be focusing on the 50 or so Masters in my age group ahead of me. But I haven't signed up for another marathon yet. For now I'm just going to enjoy the moment - the next challenge will present itself. Ideas for new challenges are welcome.
To finish this race report - a single word - you must listen for it just after I leave the screen.....Bib 1564 hit "RIGHT" button to see marathoner coming in:
Finish Video
8 comments:
Congrats on Houston. I was wondering what kind of mileage you've been running (I can't get the link you posted to work). Thanks! Greg
Just a first-time reader wanting to say that HOLY SHIT, your transformation is amazing.
Yep. :)
Greg - not sure which link is not working - let me know and I'll try to fix.
I've been running typically in the 70s for weekly mileage. There is a graph in an earlier post on 2007 mileage as well as type of workouts if your currious and want to browse to it.
Thanks Anonymous hippie,
I'm a bit amazed at it myself.
John, love the video. So cool to see you come zooming past all of those half marathoners. Congrats again on your huge accomplishment. I know it's in your nature to analyze your result, but bottom line John, you did it! YOU DID IT! Be proud.
Cindy/SeoulRunner
Cindy - Thanks. Half of the fun of running for me is the analytical side figuring out the variables for maximum success so I I'll keep analyzing :-). The other half (actually much more than half) is the actual running. But you are probably sensing a little of my runner insecurity I get sometimes when I cannot go out the door and deliver the speed. Happens to me seems when it's hot or apparently during recovery when I don't have the speed I'm typically used to and I'm forced to just believe it will come back.
It came back today so I'm jazzed again - very nice relaxed 16 miler at a nice 6:40ish pace. Pathetic I know to be so performance oriented - I don't know how those on Injured Reserve do it.
wow,
Are you sure it was you who finished Houston 2006 with 4:27:30 :-)
I started running about seven months back, ran my first ever race as Houston half marathon and finished 1:53:54.
I ran my second race as bayou classic 10k run 2008 and finished 48:12.
Reading your blog convinced me that with practice I can possibly do better times (I will be 26 this August).
Please keep writing your experiences, they are valuable for new runners like me.
Thanks,
Neeraj Rohilla
Neeraj - sounds like you are making progress - your 10k time is a full 3 minutes faster than the 1/2 marathon would have predicted - keep it up - it is really a blast especially at the beginning watching the speed seem to come out of no where week after week. I recall a period training for my 2nd marathon (Houston '07) where one week to the next I'd have sometimes 10 sometimes even more seconds per mile of extra speed.
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