Marathon Me

It has been a while since I’ve posted, but I’ve decided to get back into the game so to speak today.  Last night we rocked in the New Year at three different events, culminating at a friends house for drunken Karoke.  We got home and went to bed around 3:45am.

Our local running store, RunTex, has an annual run on the 1st where you run from RunTex North to RunTex Riverside, which is a little over 13 miles.  It starts at the typically very generous 9am.  However, when I went to bed last night (this morning?) I gave myself a 50/50 chance of waking up and running it.  I decided not to set an alarm and if I woke up in time, then I’d go.  Well I woke up at 8am, and told myself that if I went back to sleep AND woke up again in time then I’d go.

Somehow I woke up again at 8:15 and I resigned myself to running it.  I was very, very slugish getting going, but managed to drag myself to RunTex north.  I got to see lots of friends I don’t see that often and we traded various war stories of who was out the latest and imbibed the most.  Needless to say most everyone had a late night but rang the bell at the start to make the run.

We start out and hit the first mile in about 8:00/M pace which actually felt too slow and too fast at the same time.  I felt like my blood had thickened over night and my heart was struggling to pump it.  I started speeding up and settled into a comfortable rhythm.  And the miles started clicking off, I joined some packs and left others until I needed to make a pit stop.  A quick detour into McDonalds and then I was feeling better and met back up with a different set of friends.  That felt a little too slow and so I picked it back up.  We hit the hilly portion with a lot of downhills and the speed just dropped, I was running in the low to mid 6s and felt pretty good.  By mile 7-8 my hangover was gone and I felt pretty good.  My blood was still too thick, but tolerable.

Finished the last 2 miles with another good friend and then headed to the porta-potty.  I left my gloves and headband on the ground in front of the porta potty so as not to leave it on a nasty floor.  While I was in there some ass-hat stole my headband but left my gloves. I’m hopeful that it was a homeless person who needed it more than I did and not some jackass just stealing for no good reason.

Afterwards Runtex really takes care of you, they had black eyed peas, bread, mimosas, beer and everyone got a commemorative shirt for completing the run. It was a great way to start the new year.  I finished the 13.2 mile run at 7:20/M pace. I’ve got the Houston Marathon coming up in two weeks and am starting to feel like I am rolling in to shape.  See you in two weeks.

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