Aramco Houston Half Marathon

January 20th, 2019

http://www.chevronhoustonmarathon.com/

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Background & Training

This cycle came on the heels of my marathon training for Chicago, where I ran a 3:00:08 (ughh). That time is equivalent to a 1:26 HM according to Daniels. So that was my goal going into this cycle. My half PR at the time was a 1:28:26. Shaving two minutes off my PR seemed like an ambitious but reasonable target.

This training cycle didn’t go that great. I had about 14 weeks between the two races. One week was lost to the flu. I lost another week when I went on vacation to Indonesia. Throw in the holidays season along with a nice helping of gluttony. One week was spent tapering. You quickly realize there's not a whole lotta time for building fitness. It’s easy for the excuses to pile up.

I still managed to average 60ish mpw. The plan was self-designed. For Chicago I had done two workouts per weeks one MLR a long run. For this cycle, I scaled it back to just one workout plus a long run. Long runs were capped at 16 miles. I got rid of the MLR and lengthened some of my easy runs from being 6 miles to being 8-10 miles. Training is sometimes an experiment of n=1, and I’m not afraid to try new things.

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Pre-race & Strategy

Drove down to Houston with /u/AndyDufresne2 plus a friend of ours from our running club. Andy was kind enough to agree to be my pacer. The other guy is shooting for a 1:23. For the sake of this narrative, let’s call him Leo. I wished I was in good enough shape that Andy could have paced both us at the same time, but I felt a 1:23 was well outside my fitness. Leo says he’ll stay with Andy and I for the first 5k and then go do his own thing.

We did a shakeout the afternoon before the race, hit up a brewery, grabbed dinner and drinks, then went back to the hotel and sat at the bar and had some drinks (man, that seems like a lot of booze when I type it out). We discuss the plan for tomorrow and I decide we’re going to try something new. I’m going to put myself entirely in my pacer’s hands. I going to cover up my watch with my arm sleeves. Autolap will be turned off. I don’t want him to tell me what pace we’re running. Just get me to the finish line as fast as possible without the wheels coming off. He says that's not a problem.

I'm in bed by 9pm, woke up at 5am. Start my coffee brewing, did my routine, and met the guys in the lobby. The start line was two blocks from the hotel, so we jog it over. Not quite the warm-up I should have done, but we were crunched on time. The weather was 35F and sunny with some strong wind gusts. Minus the wind, it was ideal racing conditions. Andy gave up his spot in the sub-elite corral and stayed with the two of us in the A corral.

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Houston in the blind

Gun goes off and the three of us are dodging and weaving from the get-go. We settle into what feels like an appropriate HM effort. Again, I have no idea how fast we’re actually going. Crowd support is pretty good. I’m running alongside Andy and he tells me we’re on pace. I take his word for it. We hit the 5k mark and Leo speeds up a bit as planned. I tell Andy I’m feeling pretty good, so let’s try to stay with Leo for a bit longer. We increase the pace for a while, but by mile 5 I start feeling like this was not a great idea and I tell Andy to just let him go. We dial it back and get into a groove.

We’re out of downtown and into a residential area. Crowds thin out a bit. At mile 6 I take my only gel. Probably unnecessary, but it makes me feel better. At mile 7 the course splits off and the marathoners leave us. Now that it’s just people running the HM, the course gets a bit sparse. We start getting into no man’s land. We’ll find someone to latch onto, they would slow down a bit, and then we’d drop them. Then we’d hop onto the next person in front of them. Surge and recovery, surge and recover. Miles 8 - 10 were into a strong headwind and I could tell the pace was getting harder to maintain. I tucked behind Andy to draft off him. I try to focusing on just following him and not think about the miles. Andy announces that we’ve got to pick it up in the last 5k and there are some rollers coming up. I'm in a bad place and this is not what I wanted to hear. We slowly ramp it up. At mile 11 we can see Leo about 800 meters ahead of us.

Andy: We’re going to catch him.

Me: I can’t go any faster. I’m hurting.

Andy: It’s supposed to hurt. Focus on passing him.

Me: There’s no way.

Andy: Oh, we’re definitely going to catch him.

Me: Ok. <suppresses internal misery>

Somehow we manage to go faster. We pass mile marker 12 and I know we’re in the home stretch. We're gaining on Leo and he's only 400 meters away. It’s essentially a straight shot to the end. They put the finish line just around the bend at the end of this long street. Psychologically, this is tough because you can’t see it. Andy reassures me that it’s right there, but it’s so much harder not being able to see it for myself. I'm red lining. Try to focus on my breathing and leg turnover. Leo is 200 meters ahead. I turn the corner and the finish line is right there. I see Leo cross. I cross a few seconds later.

Chip time - 1:24:23

PR’d by over 4 minutes

Official splits:

5k: 00:20:13 (06:31/mile)

10k 00:40:20 (06:29/mile)

15k: 01:00:19 (06:26/mile)

20k: 01:20:11 (06:24/mile)

Finish: 1:24:23 (06:09/mile)

Strava link

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Reflections

Holy shit. First of all, I need to thank Andy for doing such an amazing job as a pacer. Not just for helping me hit my stretch goal, but he managed to hit a negative split. I got sufficient verbal guidance to keep me focused on the goal, but enough silence to let me tune out my mind and just focus on putting one leg in front of the other. Leo and I congratulate each other on a great race. I thank him for giving me something to chase. He tells me his mantra for the last mile was 'please don't let them catch me'.

I didn’t think I had a sub 1:25 in me with this mediocre training cycle, but everything else fell into place to make it happen. Perfect weather, flat course, and a great pacer. My finish time qualifies me for the NYC marathon in 2020, and I intend to use it. Next up is the Glass City Marathon in late April. I have about 14 weeks. Daniels says a 1:24 is equivalent to a 2:56. If I had more time I think I could get there. And sadly I won’t have a pacer for it. So instead I’m going to just shoot for that sub-3 that I missed in Chicago.