Houston Half

Here's my half marathon week - too much fast stuff for a good race I think:

M 7(6:53) with strides
T 6(8:00)//4(7:30)
W 12 progressive miles from 7:20 down to 5:30....that was the fastest I've ever gone down to on a progressive which gave me great hopes for the upcoming 1/2 marathon....very nice cool and low humidity morning run.
Th 4 (7:00)
F 5 (6:37)//5(7:12)
S 11.3 (6:53) in 1:17:11 (time on legs run - hoping to go shorter time next day).
S 13.1 in 1:20:50* - 3rd AG (for which I received what I believe to be the worst AG award ever - a Certificate of Achievement)

Total 70.6 (with a few missing puppy jogs above).

*Felt like I should have been able to run it faster. With Master's gone (Sean Wade) and 1st and 2nd AG a couple minutes ahead along with the Houston Marathon Elite Entry Prize (to 2nd AG) and a PR out the window perhaps I didn't fight hard? Don't know - the heartrate was the lowest I've ever done for a 1/2 marathon yet for a warm race it should have been higher which suggests I had another gear but I sure couldn't find that gear out there. Really looking forward to cool racing vs this - 68°F w/ 63°F Dew Point (86% Humidity).

Overall a pretty good week although I thought I'd do that 1/2 marathon a lot faster. Guess I should know better than to expect things on the clock on a hot/humid day. Good news is now 4 of the fast guys around already have their Houston Marathon Local Elite status - with two more races shots left and only one guy I think is competitive with me I've still maybe got a good shot to get it. 26.2k in 3 weeks will be my next shot. Another bright spot is these warmer races don't take near so much time to recover from so I'm thinking I don't need to alter my schedule for next week much. I'll have to juggle around a little to swap out a long tempo run on my schedule for Wednesday with something else - with a 5k race on Saturday and longrun on Sunday on tired legs - maybe I'll plan another progressive run midweek.

oh and by the way - I will NOT be trying that bean/rice buritto pre-race dinner again....I swear it added 3 lbs to my race weight without any "fiber-induced blow out - first thing on race morning"...

Just checked and found 44 fricken ° for Saturday's 5k forecast - I'm excited!!!

10 4 Texas

I did my 10 miler on Saturday - first "real" race of the year back in my own element. Ironman/Ultra first time racing certainly wasn't my element. The weather was bad with Dew Points over 70°F which sapped some motivation so I kinda decided to take it to about 1/2 way controlled then decide if I was going to go race effort the back half or just get a good work-out out of the race. Last year I won Masters with a sub59 climbing from ~7th to 2nd OA over the last half of the race. This time I kept the first 5 controlled by capping the HR at 172 (cold weather average for last year's race was 170 but with the heat I knew I could do a little more) which started fast enough but slow down as the heat effect set in with splits of 5:51,5:54,6:09,6:25,6:30 - at that point still kinda tipping between workout or race I decided one more mile with the HR cap and did 6:36. Then at 13th place I decided I was going to bring it home and started trying to pull guys in - a bit of a headwind for the last 4 miles but the HR show the effort jump a bit more - pulled in one guy with a 6:20/175 7th mile then a guy caught me from behind which I found a little discouraging since I though I was upping it a little - 8th and 9th I didn't make progress on anyone and just lost that one place - 6:36/174, 6:30/173 - last mile gives me some finishline magnetic motivation and I pull in two guys with a final 6:13/176 mile to finish the race in 11th place to finish 1:03:17

I didn't recognize any of the typical fast masters among those out ahead of me but I've finished races in 11th place OA without even ending top 3 AG so as I looked at the results I was kinda self-talking myself to be grateful with anything - turns out the 1st place Masters was the next guy 9 seconds ahead of me and I scored the 1st AG award. He turned out to be a local good tri-guy which explains why I hadn't heard of him (as a Competitive Jerk I of course keep tabs on who in my AG is my competition:)). 4 minutes slower than a year before but knowing I'm typically a bit more slowed in the heat than others I gauged my race performance more by how it felt than the time and it felt like I gave it near all - yeah I'm certain I could have squeezed out another 9 seconds but that's spilt milk - I'm pretty happy pulling out the AG win on such a disadvantaged day to me with the heat. Nice to be out kinda back in my (road racing) element again. A great kick-off to my training to Houston....