I ran my second Galveston Half Marathon on Sunday, February 25th.
The course was identical to last year’s race, starting at Stewart beach heading north before looping back down to the Pleasure Pier before returning to the start/finish line on the beach.
I opened hard, leaving with the 1:52 pacer and running with the 1:45 pacer for the first two miles at an 8:12 pace. Alas, I couldn’t keep that pace up, but stayed fast for the first 4 miles before dropping down significantly.
Looking at my pace chart, you can see where things fell apart, even as my heart rate never got out of control:
Compared to last year, many thing went well: the humidity was dramatically lower, my Coros Pace 3 watch worked well for streaming my music (although I didn’t manage to get it to verbally announce my pace), and nothing on my body really hurt — my left knee was slightly glitchy early on but cleared up quickly, and while I ended up with a pretty gnarly blister on toe #9, it didn’t significantly bother me during the race itself. I had a banana and stroopwaffle before the race and ate a pack of Jelly Belly caffeinated beans while running.
Looking at the course markers, I ran the first 6 miles almost a minute faster than last year, but lost that minute getting to the second turn, finally finishing the race a face-palming three seconds slower than last time:
I was a bit frustrated that the end of the race (inexplicably) snuck up on me. I was just about to drop back to a walk around mile 12 when another racer wheezed “just one more mile” and then I felt like I’d demotivate him if I slowed down, so I kept up a slow jog for a while longer.
When I saw the Mile 13 sign in the distance, I realized that I was almost out of road and I turned on the gas. I had a great pace going into the last two tenths of a mile, frustrated that I think I could’ve maintained that pace for at least a half mile.
After chatting with a few other runners after the end of the race (including my mile 12 inspiration), and walking down to the waterfront, I headed back to our rental house, showered, and headed to the brewery with my friends who’d completed the 5K that morning.
It was a pleasant afternoon and a nice end to my “dry January.”
My next race is my third Capitol 10K on April 7th. (I’m currently a bit worried that I’ve had a (painless) limp in my left leg for the last day or two, but hopefully it clears up quickly.)
Impatient optimist. Dad. Author/speaker. Created Fiddler & SlickRun. PM @ Microsoft 2001-2012, and 2018-, working on Office, IE, and Edge. Now a GPM for Microsoft Defender. My words are my own, I do not speak for any other entity. View more posts