Jail Break 1/2 marathon race recap

February 12, 2011

This was the inaugural year for this event. All in all it was a pretty good race experience, and definitely the strongest I've ever felt during a run, especially a race. It was a very small race, only a couple hundred runners. Being the first year of the run I think this was pretty good. Since this is really the only organized race in this area, I expect it'll grow every year. It is definitely a race I'll do again.
The race started at 7am and was only about 15 minutes or so away from our house. We left the house about 5:45 or so. We got to the race start about 6:15 (B had to stop at the gas station for 3 Monsters :)) B was working the water station at mile 2 and mile 11 with Emma's Hugs http://www.emmashugs.com/ so he just dropped me off and then went to meet the group at the water stop.
IT WAS FREEZING!!! The temp in the car said 26 degrees. I had on spandex shorts with spandex capris on over it, a sports bra, tank top, drifit long sleeve shirt. When I stepped out of the car I knew it wasn't going to be enough. In all my planning, I had forgot to plan for this. Rookie mistake. It's Texas after all, we don't deal with cold weather that often, but after the winter we've had I should have known better. I knew that what I was wearing would be fine once I was running and the sun came up, but what was I going to do until then? Luckily I had a zip up hoodie in the car so I put that on, and with B at the 2mile water station I knew I could just drop it off with him.
When I got to the race start I was one of only about 5 or 6 runners that were there that early. I think though that a lot of the runners chose to stay in their warm cars until closer to race time, you know, all the smart folks. So I was standing there freezing and knew I couldn't just stand around for 45 minutes so I ended up running a couple of laps around the parking lot to warm up, literally. Once I did that I wasn't really all that cold anymore. Then more and more people started to arrive, I ran into some people that I knew and hung out until race time. I don't usually bring my camera with me but wish that I would have because my friend Christy sang the National Anthem and she was awesome, and remembered all the words ;) Take that Christina Aguilera!
As I was crossing the street to go to the starting line I heard someone call my name and it was my DAD!! He had drove out there and brought his bike and rode to different points in the race to see me and take pictures. Totally unexpected and totally AWESOME!! It was really motivating to see him several times during the race.
The race started right at 7am and it was a very cute way to start a race. They had a kid dressed as an inmate that was escaping and a guy chasing him in a cop uniform, they ran across the start like and the "cop" shot the gun to signal the start of the race. Very cute and original. Fun stuff.
The course started at the Police Department, wound through some older neighborhood in town, at mile 6 it went up to the top of the Fred Hartman Bridge and then came back down, then it ran through a park on a nice bike path until you got back on the same roads from the beginning of the race to make your way back to the police station for the finish.
Usually in long runs I like to start off a little slower and gradually pick up the pace and finish stronger and not burn out by the end. I like having negative splits and this works pretty well for me. In this run I used the strategy and picked a comfortable pace and when I looked at my Garmin I was running 9:50 min/miles, this is a faster pace than I usually do in runs longer than 3 miles. (usual pace is between 10:15 and 10:30 min/miles so I guess the speed work has been paying off) So I was a little worried that I might have gone out too fast and would burn out, but I was feeling good and stronger so I tried to stop looking at my Garmin and just ran at a comfortable pace. I haven't downloaded the data from my Garmin yet, but my time was pretty darn good by my standards. For a smaller race, the course support was awesome. There were several bands, cheerleading groups, and random people with signs along the route cheering us on. And all of the water stations were very well organized, especially the one at mile 2 and 11, no I am not biased ;) Lots of cheering for everyone, it was great. The bridge wasn't actually all that bad. I just slowed my pace and tried to enjoy it. I acted like an 8 year old and did fist pumps to try to get 18 wheeler trucks to honk their horns. Probably annoyed the people around me but I thought it was hilarious :) Once I got to the top of the bridge I knew I would be good, running downhill is the best part. The rest of the race went pretty well after that.
The one problem I have with the run is relatively minor, to me anyway. The course was long. 1/2 marathon should be 13.1 miles. By my Garmin the course was actually 13.53 miles (several other peoples Garmin said 13.5 as well, so it wasn't just me). Again, this is not that big of a deal to me, but I know that the guy or girl who won was probably pretty upset. So, my previous 1/2 marathon time was 2:19.45. For this 1/2 marathon my time was 2:13.01 (for a 13.5 mile run!). I looked at my watch at the 13.1 mark and it was 2:09.55 (which is the time I'm technically going to use for this 1/2 marathon!) so I PR'd by TEN MINUTES!!!!
It was a whole lot of fun. The finisher medals were handcuffs which were super cute. Awesome race that I can't wait to do next year!

Picture my dad took at mile 4

Emma's Hugs crew at their water stop

Mile 11

I'm a goober, I know.

I just dont know why

Had fun, but glad to be done :)