White Rock Marathon
Last Sunday, December 13th I ran the Half Marathon which started at the American Airlines center down town and finished on Katy Trail. The conditions were perfect. Cloud cover, around 50 F and a course that finishes with a downslope. The first couple hundred of meters I had the honor of running with the Kenyans, one of which being Edward Tabut who won the Marathon with a time of 2:16:53! Their pace was sickening. I kept with them stride for stride the initial 200 meters and then let them go so that I could conserve for the rest of the race.
Everything felt pretty good up until mile 7 when my hamstring failed to loosen up and caused a sharp pain in my foot. The pain slowly increased as I struggled to maintain my pace. I saw my wife, Kristi, at mile 11 and she exuberantly decided to run with me in her jeans and North Face fleece. She told me later that her shins started to hurt even though she only ran about 400 meters. She was inspired though to run a half marathon and I will keep you all posted on that.
Seeing Kristi was just the boost I needed as the pain grew to almost an unbearable level. I hobbled to a finishing time of 1:46:04 which is around 8 minutes per mile. Overall it was a great experience, very well run and a wonderful event for anyone looking to get into endurance sports. I’ll definitely use this run in the future as a chance to train with family and friends and to just have a good time.
