Houston 13.1

The first race of 2016 is in the books! I absolutely loved running the Houston half marathon. This race is so well organized. From packet pick up, to race morning, to the post race festivities. I loved all the support on the course and, of course, the run course itself was a dream - flat, flat, flat!

After my Rock n Roll race, I decided to see if I could crack 1:50 in Houston. What better course to try it on than a super flat course. Unfortunately, I had some training setbacks before Christmas and up to New Year's that caused me to miss a lot of training runs. My car started to breakdown so Brian and I had to go car shopping and I started having really bad migraine headaches. I'm not sure if the headaches were related to the stress of having to buy a car and having to have a car payment for the first time in over 8 years, but luckily I was feeling better race week and we got the car just in time so we didn't have to get a rental. I decided to just see what I had on race day and go for it.

Meet Snow White!

After Expo fun and meeting up with the A-team to head over to their friend's house where we were staying, race morning came bright and early and COLD! Unfortunately we were late for our corral A start so we ran into corral B and tried to push ourselves as close to the front as we could. Literally five minutes later we were off and running! I had some technical difficulties with my music the first mile of the race so I dropped back from Aixa and Brian. I was able to get it fixed and I was able to catch up with them. Not sure if that was the mile where I lost all the time but I'm going to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Ironman? Lol

I was feeling good right off the bat, which was a nice change from how I felt at Rock n Roll. The miles began ticking off and I was getting nervous because more times than not when I would look down at my Garmin I would see my pace to be in the high 7's. I know there is no way I could maintain that pace so I would try to reel myself in. Brian was there for me the whole time. He asked me what pace I wanted to be at and he said "Come with me". I went. He really is the most excellent run pacer. I don't know how he can keep such a steady pace outside. I'm always up and down and bursting and busting. He just calmly runs. Maybe I'll learn that one day.

The last three miles of the race came and he could tell that I was starting to sag. We run together enough he can tell by my breathing when I'm starting to struggle. He started barking orders at me to lift up my chin, drop my shoulders, breath. Instead of getting frustrated like I normally do, I listened. And OMG it worked. I lifted my eyes up to the horizon instead of on the road and put my chest out. It helped get me through the next 2 miles and forget about the lower back pain I was having. He started to get the crowd cheering by raising his arms and cheering on the other runners. It was so much fun and he was so good about trying to get me to my goal. It was so close, but I just didn't have it left in me. I held on as best as I could so I wouldn't loose too much time and crossed the finish line with a 3rd best half marathon finish of 1:52:15.

Done! Warming up!

So completely happy with this race and I definitely will be back! ;)