half marathon | Latina and Tri-ing

A couple of weeks ago we did a little half marathon around the Texas Motor Speedway, not sure what we were thinking when Felipe decided that it was a good idea to do it after our weekend of chasing bourbon in Kentucky. As you can imagine we were a bit sore on Monday and Tuesday but at least we had scheduled massages for our anniversary on Tuesday. It is our tradition to get couples massage on our anniversary. Just now we see them more like a sports massage than a spa treatment type 🙂 #triathleteproblems I know.

We had a couple of workouts during the week, we did our track workout with the coach on Wednesday and on Thursday we did the Friends of the River 6K run in Fort Worth. We’ve been volunteering for many years and I would walk the 1 mile route with Anise. Last couple of years we’ve done the full run and had a blast so we did it. Felipe had a bunch of coworkers doing it so it was fun. We did our typical start and goodbye “see you at the end” thing and off we went. Felipe took off, he finished in under 30 minutes claiming he was sore still (whatever!) me on the other hand did the whole thing with JayJay, it was a bit hard because I had done it a few times with Anise and she always came to help, so doing it with JayJay was somewhat of a bittersweet experience. Still she had a blast, pulled me the whole way… The puppy energy and we managed to do it in 35 minutes.

Saturday was a different story, we had that crazy half marathon that we had signed up for. We weren’t too concerned with the distance, yet I was more like taking it as another day of running around the speedway. It is actually funny how now running a half marathon is no biggie anymore. We got our stuff ready, had our normal workout day breakfast, nothing too special, oatmeal a banana and that was it. We had planned to have a powerbar gel prior to starting and one more half way through along with our Infinit in our handheld bottles. It was overall a smaller race. We knew the area since we run and ride so much around the speedway so it was fun at the same time. I took off with one of our teammates, but she had a faster pace starting than what I’m used to. I try to pace myself at the start which tends to help me maintain a better average later on. I think I was ok until mile 10 which is when you come back into the actual speedway track. It is fun but also kind of bad because there are some areas of it where the slope of the track makes you run kind of weird, or at least it felt like I was putting more pressure on my left leg which in turn reflected on some ITB pain. I eased up the pace for a little and then saw the finish line, I was far from a PR, my previous half marathon on fresh legs was 2:00 but I didn’t care. I had run over 45 miles in less than 7 days and my legs were letting me know that.

A couple of lessons learned… Not really a lesson… But a reminder that we don’t give up, I could’ve easily stopped and walked some of it but my mind took over my screaming legs and told them #shutuplegs and made them run! a bit slower but still running. I was able to finish strong with a big smile on my face like I always do at the end of each race.

Like always I’m grateful that I am able to run these “races” and that I’ve been able to overcome those limitations I had as a kid, like my hate for running, overweight and simply disliking the sport. Now even though its a love hate relationship I love doing it, enjoy it while I’m doing it and shortly after I’m done, but still love being able to get out there and pound the asphalt mile after mile with the love of my life and hope I get to share these experiences with him for many, many years to come.

So this weekend we did our first official half marathon. The Cowtown in Fort Worth. We say official because even though is not the first time doing the distance its the first time we do it as a stand alone. Our previous time was we did it was after getting off the bike and riding 56 miles during our first Half Ironman. So we were looking at it a bit differently.

We had been adding up a lot of miles during our Ironman training, so we weren’t worried about the distance (to some extend) we did a long run last Saturday and we put 11 miles in, felt pretty good and also gave us the confidence boost we needed for a 2:00 or even a sub 2:00 half marathon.

We started our weekend by going to the expo to pickup Puli’s package as he for some reason wasn’t included in our team’s roster (more like a user error). Saturday was pretty busy, not much training on our schedules (a 20 minute recovery run) so took advantage of it and did a bit of catchup with things at home.

Bib numbers and race belts ready

Sunday started at 5:15, woke up to get ready eat some light breakfast and bundled up, it was a cold morning at 37-deg so we knew it was going to be cold. Some our teammates were coming over to the house at 5:45 so we could carpool and avoid taking 3 cars with the typical race day traffic, probably the best idea.

We got to the start, met with the coach, stretched, warmed up which was more like trying to stay warm overall and headed to the corrals. We all started together. Saw each other for the last time crossing the start mat and Puli took off.

From Puli’s report:
The start was crowded, passed a lot of people and pushed a lot more at miles 1 and 2 than I wanted and was actually negative splitting which was something I didn’t want to do. That was when I told B (girl from the team running with me) that we shouldn’t be trying to negative split or keep up with her sister, so by mile 3 we had found a nice 8:26 pace which we were able to keep for a while. By mile 6 which is by the Stockyards we checked and I knew then we were possibly going to hit our sub 2:00 goal, she had a 2:00 I had a 1:50. After the stockyards we knew that was the turn into Downtown on Main St, driving through that almost every day I knew what were up against and it wasn’t pretty. Seeing the Court House from the distance made us keep our easy pace so we could attack the bridge. When we got to it we just said “here we go let’s get it over with” and we got at it. Thinking all the hill repeats we have done over the last few months were paying off, but at the top of the hill it was when the legs were starting to feel the miles. Saw J (another teammate volunteering at mile 9 aid station) and he yelled at us to let us know how far it was, we emptied what we had left in our bottles and refilled at that one. Cruising through Downtown was fun, considering I walk it almost every day running through it was different. It was also a bit colder as the buildings were keeping the sun and the wind was tunneling In between them. We saw a few people. Actually “run” into a friend doing the ultra so we chatted for a few blocks and then we came to the split (half to the right and the full and ultras to the left) we made our turn and headed on Lancaster back on the home stretch. By then I had told B we only had 5k to go and our time was still pretty good, however my legs were starting to feel it. I slowed down a bit and just ran behind B for a while, by mile 12 we were side by side again, by 12.5 or so B started to get further ahead because I was slowing down, I was at 8:35’/mi then, still a good pace but that was all my legs had in them, I saw her make the turn into the finish line and then I came along, finish time 1:52 @ 8:34’/mi avg. not a bad effort for the first stand alone half. Got my finishers medal a bottle of water and then went back to the finish line to wait for Res, saw K come in and she told me Res was right behind her, so I spotted her pink hat and I knew she was home.