2009 Aramco Houston Half Marathon Recap

Now, that i've had some sleep and am a bit rested, i'll recap the events of yesterday.

The morning started at 4:30am with the alarms screaming to wake up. Of course, i was in the paranoid light sleep mode (cause i didn't want to be late). That means i really didn't get much sleep. I picked up my running partner and we were off to downtown at by about 5:10am. I think i was more concerned with the logistics of getting there and finding parking than i was the actual run. But it turns out that traffic was not that bad and parking was easy to find. After all, there were approximately 25000 runners converging on one location.

We made our way into the runners staging area, checked in a goodie bag and had a bite to eat. Then it was time to start heading out to the corral location. We started lining up around 6:15am or so. We would not start the race until 7:10am. While the temperatures were mild by some standards, it was a little chilly just standing around. However, with thousands of people huddling around, it was tolerable. But, boy, do i hate crowds!

At 7:10am, the gun went bang and we were off. Luckily we near the front of the line, so we started moving pretty fast. I had heard horror stories of a lot of people dodging at the beginning...and there was some of that, but not nearly as much as i had anticipated. So that was good.

I was a bit concerned when my shins started barking early on...before we even hit the 1 mile mark. I immediately started wondering if i was going to make it the whole way...as i had never had any shin pain in all of my training runs. We kept pressing and somewhere around mile 3 or 4, the shin pain subsided.

I will say that the experience was one that i probably won't forget. The marathon spectators that lined the streets of Houston were just awesome. They were the ones that made the whole experience less painful. It was also great to see some of our friends on the sidelines. Every once in a while, you'd get someone calling your name with words of encouragement. And every time it brought a smile to your face. My running partner definitely got more attention than i did, but that's because she's pretty.

And, I must say that my running partner is awesome! She came down with an illness around mid-week. She wasn't even sure if she'd be able to make it. But somehow she found a way to not only finish the race, but finish with a rather good pace. That's my 'Iron Goddess'. We ran a faster pace than we have done in all of our training.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to enjoy our finish as much as we would've liked. As we came down the home stretch the crowd got really loud. Little did we know that coming up behind us was the finisher of the women's marathon. As we neared our finish line, we turned our heads to watch the woman break the Houston women's marathon record. And by the time that was all over, we had crossed our finish line. But it was a good feeling to finish. And honestly, i could've kept going. I still had gas in the tank.

At the finish we were able given our medals for our 13.1 miles of hard work. We then got our finisher t-shirts (which are a good quality shirt). We collected our things and met some of our friends in the reunion area (thanks for being there, Melissa G., Melissa W., Lisa, and Josh.)

Also a big congratulations goes out to the other participants of the 5K, half marathon, and marathon. Some of my friends and co-workers participated. Congrats to Nujoud for completing her first marathon. Congrats to Charlie, Nat, Tarik, and Erin S. for running the half marathon. And congrats to Melissa G., Josh, and Kevin for running the 5K. I'm sure there are others that i may have forgotten or didn't know about...but you all did great!

Here are my stats (unofficial):

Overall rank: 2391 (out of ??)
Male rank: 1632
M30-34: 255
Time: 02:14:16
10:15min/mile pace.

Here is the video of our finish. We come into view as early as 8 seconds into the clip, but we don't cross until about the 14 second mark.

Here is the source i used for the info. Here is an additional source.



Here is my race bib.



Here I am...full on deliriousness.



Here I am...still delirious.



Posing with my hard earned medal.

So, there you have it. The epic story of the first Half Marathon. I suppose when i say first that that implies there must be a second or a third. Um...possibly. As long as my running partner wants to run, then i'll be running.