On Saturdays I lead the Circle C Run Club’s group run. We start either at 7:00 a.m. or 7:30 a.m., depending on the time of year. Any other day of the week in recent months I’ve already got my run in for the day and I’m either on my way to work or having my second breakfast for the day.
I woke up early this morning and had lots of time to kill, so I decided to walk to the mailbox. I was pleasantly surprised to see that High Five Events had delivered the award for placing in the Austin International Half Marathon.
The trophy is a steel record, I’d guess keeping with a theme of Austin being a music city. I’ve received a handful of age group awards in my late stage running “career.” I earned 2nd place once before in the same race when it was the 3M Half Marathon (and will most likely still be effectionally refered to as such).
This one’s kind of special because it was my last race as a 40-something. I aged up into the 50-something category this past January. I grew and got stronger and faster throughout my 40’s. And during so, I embraced the fact I’m getting older and I’ll start slowing down eventually.
I hadn’t planned on signing up for this race as I’ve been in the throes of hard marathon training since late November. My friend Iram called me one morning and asked if I wanted his AIH bib as he was going to have to work the event. I checked my training plan and actually had 13 miles scheduled for the day of the event. So the stars kind of aligned themselves. I paid Iram to have the bib transfered into my name and toed the line early on January 18th.
My plan was to run a sub-1:27 half marathon. I knew I was well within sub-1:30 shape, and I really just wanted to beat my time when I first ran that race in 2015. And my time at that 2015 race stood as my half marathon PR for over 8 years.
It was cold at the start of this year’s race. It was crowded. I got to the start later than I’d like. The gun went off and it was chaos. Finding footing and elbow room for the first half mile was an exercise in patience and jossling. Just getting through the first mile was tough. There are too many people who line up up front who have no business being up front. After a couple kilometers there was a bit more breathing room, but the more people behind me would mean for less people to weave through in front of me. So I ran faster and settled into a pace at the 2 mile split that would put me way ahead of 1:27.
And so I just kind of checked in with myself and contemplated if I could hang on for another 11 miles. I decided to hang on and find out.
Sick, overdressed, and not trained for a fast half marathon and I pulled in a 2nd place in my age group. Maybe I’ll race it next year and see if I can take first in my new age group…