Greg's Weight Loss Blog

I’ve been doing a lot of 5K and 10K races during the spring and I finally got up to where I felt confident trying something longer. So last Saturday I went to San Antonio, TX to run the 10th Annual SARR Carrabba’s Classic Half Marathon. Since it was my first it was naturally a personal record (PR) for me. I’m a bit disappointed with my time and it definitely humbled me even more about my BQ goal in October. My personal goal was 1:27, realistic goal was to break 1:30. Neither of them happened. I came in with 1:31:20.3 which is 6:58/mile pace. Not exactly what I was hoping for or what my 10K and 5K times indicated but it is what it is. This is what I can bring up as explanation to the poor performance:

1) Course was on a narrow asphalt trail in a city park with public walking their dogs against race traffic all day long.

2) Race was on a looped course, 3.7, 3.1, 3.1, and 3.2 for the last leg. It would mean lapping slower people in a regular marathon by the second lap. But this was even worse.

3) It was also a 4 men relay race with 2,000 people competing which meant a bunch of fast guys going out like crazy at the start, essentially running 5Ks while a whole bunch of 35+ minute 5K people grouping together and taking water from front of you at the water station. It also meant a whole lot of stupid surging with relay runners passing you at the exchange then you having to pass them at the 2 mile mark once they ran out of steam.

4) Water stations sucked. They had them at the exchange, 1 mile and 2 mile points on the main loop but the stations were short and I never had a chance to double up on the water which felt really needed considering the heat. And some of the volunteers, bless their heart, were holding onto the cups with their death grip where by the time I freed the cup half of the half filled cup’s content spilled which left very little water. One time I accidentally picked up Gatorade instead of water out of desperation as there was no water left on my side.

5) Speaking of the heat, the race started promptly at 8:00AM in 77 degrees with 89% humidity. By the time I finished it was 80 at 81% humidity. Not running friendly weather and it definitely made it into a novelty race instead of a PR course.

So these were the issues that I really had no control over and I can blame. Here are the issues that I had control over but still managed to screw up:

1) Going out too fast. My Polar footpod was 1.1% off meaning the pace it indicated was actually 1.1% slower than reality. It meant that my 6:40 splits were really 6:36 splits. But considering the weather even the 6:40 pace was way too ambitious of me. I really should have paced myself better.

My first 5 mile splits were: 6:27, 6:35, 6:34, 6:32, 6:38. They were all way too fast and I should have slowed it down more but it felt easy at first and I felt good.

Mile 6 and 7 were 6:40 and 6:42. It was mile 8 where the wheels really started to come off the bus and my splits got progressively worse and worse throughout the remainder of the run.

Mile 8-13:
06:52
07:07
07:09
07:36
07:47
07:59

The last 0.1 was a 7:27 pace which was my feeble attempt of a final kick. I knew that the goals were gone and I knew that I was done. I just wanted to finish and sit down.

2) Relying on my watch instead of feel. At 7.8 miles it was the 1 mile marker from the exchange into my 3rd lap. I looked down on m watch and I saw 6:46 for the lap timer for the last mile which was off my pace but not entirely bad. But 20 seconds later when I looked down I saw that my pace was 7:06 so I tried to pick it up. Then another 20 seconds later I saw my pace dropping to 7:26 so I tried to push even harder. Then a minute later I was down to 8:26 pace yet I was passing a whole lot of people and I felt completely exhausted. by the time I felt completely wasted my watch indicated a 9:00 pace. Or so I thought. You see, I never switched back from the lap timer to instant pace display and what I thought was instant pace was just the time elapsed since the lap started. So naturally the time kept going up and my pace was not really slowing down I just thought it did. So I was running 6:35s while I was thinking it was 8:30 and my heart rate was climbing at a steady rate into the stratosphere. I’m sure I have built up some solid amount of lactate during this stint which ended up hurting me in the long run. Sure, I was already down to 7:00 pace on my own but after this little stunt I dropped to 7:30+ and I just never recovered.

If you think I didn’t like the race or the organization, it’s not true!

1) The entry fee is $25 for both relay and individual races. This is probably the cheapest half marathon out there and in terms of bang to buck it’s impossible to beat. You get a t-shirt, a finisher’s certificate and a catered Italian pasta with chicken meal which looked really yummy! I gave up my meal ticket as I had my family with me and we had to go to Seaworld and I had no time to get in line and enjoy the meal.

2) The race was very well organized, the exchange area was perfect the way they called out the teams ahead of time via radio sure seemed to work for the relay runners. The course was perfectly marked and there were marshals at every corner where you could have had any doubt about which way to go.

3) They had age group awards in all combination of the relays (all men, all women, 3+1, 2+2, 1+3). They also had calligraphy on site to do the half marathoner’s name and time on the certificate.

4) Post race refreshments were plenty, from banana to beer. To have beer you needed an ID, it would have been nice to include that tidbit on the FAQ on the website, just like the fact that bag check was available. Both were mentioned in the race packet but for out of town runners who picked up their race packet on race day and walked up to the start with nothing on them in case there was no bag check it was a bit too little too late.

5) Crowd support was great. Even though most of it really came at the exchange it was very strong there and made you feel pretty good about the run. I had one guy who cheered me with a “Go Greg!” every single lap. It was awesome.

6) Water stations were at every mile, my problem was with their length not their spacing. If you were running a sub 7 pace there was no way to grab a water at the beginning and another one at the end. If you were running a slower pace and didn’t mind to stop at the water station then yeah, there was plenty of water. I must also mention that I have heard several times the volunteers yelling out to the slower runners to let the faster runners grab their water first so they tried their best.

7) There were door prizes. I won a bag and another t-shirt! Free stuff is always good.

So if I sounded disappointed with the race, I really wasn’t. It was actually a lot better organized and a lot smoother operation that I expected it to be. The only thing that I think they should have changed was to lengthen up the water stations to twice their length so you get a chance to double dip. Would I run it again as a half? Probably not. Would I run it as a relay? Absolutely yes!

So there you have it, my first half marathon with a not so stellar debut but I think I did OK all things considered.I finished 6th overall and since they only had a 0-39 and a 40+ AG I placed 6th in my AG as well. I think I have learned a bit from the race, mostly that a half marathon is not a 10K and I should certainly respect the distance. Running 26.2 at 7:15 seems even more daunting now than ever before.