Rode to Austin on Saturday with friends, Jon and Cindy, and Doug. Dinner Saturday night at Macaroni Grill, with a group of 16. As this was "only a half", I'm not so stringent with my prerace routine -- but if this was a full, I probalby would have skipped the 2 hour dinner and opted for something quick and simple.
Back to the room, got my bib pinned to my singlet, D-tag(disposable chip) on my shoe, and was in bed by 10:00pm.
Up at 5:45 for a 6:45 am start time. The hotel was stayed at was about a 1/4 mile from the starting line..it was great. Except, the morning proved to be pretty windy..a little too windy for some of the barricades they had lining the course, so the they had to delay the start by nearly 1 hour. I regret not bringing my sunglasses -- with the original 6:45 start time, I didn't think I'd need them (sunrise is at 7:30).
I lined up with Jon -- a friend of mine in my age group, who I ran with a few times at some other events, and know through training at a local running store. We were planning to go out at about a 7:40 pace and see how it felt from there. This didn't last too long. I was feeling pretty good, so I ran a nice comfortable pace throughout --unfortunately, Jon's comfortable pace was a little slower than mine.
It was a windy morning, but luck would have it that in the point to point race that mainly goes northwest to southeast, the wind was from the NW. :) There were a few places where we turned into the wind, but not very many. The couse had some nice downhill sections, and a few uphills.
The race finished through the UT campus and the last mile was a nice gradual downhill.
I finished in 1:34:26, a 1:06 PR!!!!! (My previous PR was in April 2007). Yes, maybe this was a little wind/hill aided, but I'm a little older, and it's still a PR!
Besides the delay in the start, I think this event was very good -- and I'll probably be back next year!
Splits (taken at the mile markers on the course):
| Mile |
Split |
Garmin Distance |
Accumulated |
| 1 |
7:11 |
0.95 |
7:11 |
| 2 |
7:48 |
1.05 |
15:00 |
| 3 |
7:01 |
1.02 |
22:01 |
| 4 |
7:03 |
1.01 |
29:05 |
| 5 |
6:32 |
0.96 |
35:37 |
| 6 |
7:29 |
1.06 |
43:07 |
| 7 |
7:15 |
1.00 |
50:23 |
| 8 |
7:21 |
1.00 |
57:44 |
| 9 |
7:24 |
1.00 |
1:05:09 |
| 10 |
7:19 |
1.00 |
1:12:28 |
| 11 |
7:10 |
1.00 |
1:19:38 |
| 12 |
7:12 |
1.00 |
1:26:50 |
| 13 |
6:57 |
1.00 |
1:33:48 |
| 13.1 |
0:39 (6:00/mi) |
0.11 |
1:34:29 |
| 