Rock n Roll Half

Today I kicked off race season with the Rock n' Roll Half Marathon in Dallas.  This was my second time running in this race.  Since I have two half marathons under my belt, does that make a whole marathon? Probably not.

I had good intentions of really focusing on my training for this race in hopes of breaking the 2 hr. mark, but it didn't exactly happen.  I had a few setbacks, but that's just part of the game sometimes.  Over the last few days I did a couple of workouts that weren't exactly "taper friendly" workouts.  On Wednesday I did intervals with Negative Split Racing, and then I pushed it a little harder than I intended on Thursday at Luke's Locker social run. At least I won a box of protein bars at the social run. I went into today's race still a little sore.

The race did go a little better than expected.  I knew I wouldn't be able to beat last year's time of 2:03, and I didn't.  My finishing time was 2:06. I was thinking it would probably be closer to 2:10.  My legs held up and I only had to walk a few seconds at a time at the water stops due to the congestion.  One of the water stops was handing out packets of  salt, which I was quick to take advantage of.  That salt really hit the spot.

During the run I let my body pick the pace. As long as the pace was under 10 minutes I was happy.  If it went over the 10 minute pace, I picked it up.  There were times when I thought, "Why am I doing  this?" and "This sucks!", but I thought about what Rebecca said earlier as we were waiting in our coral for the start.  "It's not supposed to feel good."  I was put in my place several times as I saw the pictures and signs people had pinned to the back of their shirt in honor on those they were running for.  It's was pretty heart warming to see people pushing though the pain to honor their loved ones.

The weather was beautiful and the crowds were great. Lots of people were holding funny signs.  One lady was yelling "WTF - Watch The Finish line!"  It was fun getting to run through downtown Dallas and Highland Park with lots of cover bands along the way. The race ended in Fair Park where we had a great view of the big ferris wheel.  As I entered the park I was reminded of last year's race at the very same point.  I recalled how tired I was and how much my knees ached. I also remember thinking the finish line would be just around the next turn, but it turned out there were lots of turns to get to the finish. This year I was still a little tired, but my legs were feeling fine (as fine as they can after almost 13.1 miles).  I ran to the finish line feeling relieved that I was done. I drank some chocolate milk and chatted with a few friends before heading home to my compression socks.

Despite not being as excited about this race as I was last year, I'm glad I did it....but I'm even more happy that I am done. It's a fun race and great way to kick of the season, but I'd still take a triathlon any day. It will be nice to get back to shorter long run, at least for a little while. I'm super excited that my Ironman training officially kicks off in one week, so I'll think I'll take easy until then.  Instead of running, I'll use the time to take Roxy on nice long walks.

"The long run is what puts the tiger in the cat." ~Stephen Covey