Watch Time: 2:03:41
Official Time: 2:03:37
Pace: 9:26 min/mi
Comments: Ah, yes. The Cowtown. We meet again. This was my fourth time to run Fort Worth's premier running event. I planned on finally taking the leap and doing the full marathon last year but work intervened.
I've been back running for a good two months now, so I figured I should be ready to handle a half-marathon. I haven't done anything further than nine miles recently but I felt the overall mileage had me ready to go. Still, not putting in the distance had me concerned so I planned to keep my pace down as much as possible for the first half.
Of course I ignored that and blasted out some stupidly fast splits up to mile eight. In my defense, I really didn't feel like I was going over fast since my breathing never got labored or anything like that. And I took advantage of every downhill to grab up a few more seconds on my pace.
The problem, and I knew it from past experience, was mile nine. This is a long incline where the road goes over the Paddock Viaduct and approaches the courthouse in downtown. The overall incline runs about a mile but the steep part is a quarter mile where the elevation increases about 100 feet. It sucks.
And it beat my ass again. I tried to keep is slow and conserve my energy but it just sucked the energy out of my legs. At that point I though a sub-two-hour time was possible and I worked to make up some time on the next stretch which is pretty level. But the hill on Lancaster Ave. approaching Summit Ave. finished me.
From that point on I was just gritting through the pain and trying to finish in a respectable manner. My pace slipped a full minute in the last mile (to about what I did on the mile up the hill) but I found enough in the tank to run it in at the end.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the effort. The time is really not that far off of my last effort here and gives me plenty of room for improvement. One thing is for certain, I'll have to really think hard about trying a full later this spring though.
Despite the devil hill, I do love this race. It's a nice course (mostly), the organization is top notch and folks are always friendly. Hopefully I can take a stab at the full next year.
Conditions
Hour: 7:00 a.m.
Surface: asphalt/concrete/brick
Weather: partly cloudy
Temperature: 40 degrees
Humidity: 97 percent
Wind: callm
Location: Fort Worth, Texas
Shoes: Brooks Glycerin 15
Injury update: Lotta aches on this one. Lower left hip,upper IT band was sore at the end. Had the bruise feeling on the ball of my left foot at one point.