For Whom the Dogs Bark

The Woodlands Half Marathon

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Location:

Cypress,TX,

Member Since:

Oct 10, 2009

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

5K: 24:22 (March 2010); 22:33 (October 2010); 20:47 (May 2011); 21:05 (May 2012); 21:33 (September 2012); 21:23 (November, 2013); 22:31 (September 2014)

5M:  39:22 (November, 2012); 35:54 (November, 2013); 36:03 (March, 2015)

10K: 44:08 (November, 2010); 49:20 (July, 2013); 44:07 (April, 2015)

12K:  56:03 (December, 2013); 58:58 (December, 2014)

10M:  1:11:58 (October, 2012); 1:15:24 (October, 2014)

Half Marathon:  1:53:xx (London's Run 2010); 2:05:21 (Cowtown 2010); 1:37:04 (Gusher 2011); 1:42:19 (Huntsville 2011); 1:33:47 (Baytown Jailbreak 2012); 1:33:50 (The Woodlands 2012); 1:42:52 (Texas 2015); 1:49:17 (Jailbreak 2015); 1:38:34 (The Woodlands 2015)

25K: 2:01:47 (Fifth Third River Bank, May 2014)

Marathon: 5:51:35 (Texas Marathon 2009); 6:21:36 (Ogden 2009); 4:58:29 (St. George 2009); 4:13:45 (Texas Marathon 2010); 4:04:12 (Utah Valley Marathon, 2010); 5:11:14 (Hartford ING, 2010); 3:41:43 (Richmond SunTrust, 2010); 3:39:27 (Texas Marathon 2011); 3:41:46 (Utah Valley Marathon, 2011); 3:30:35 (St. George 2011); 3:41:51 (Richmond 2012); 3:49:15 (Texas 2013); 3:46:59 (Paavo Nurmi, 2013); 3:34:04 (St. George 2013); 3:49:51 (Texas 2014); 3:31:59 (Richmond 2014); 3:28:34 (Boston 2015)

Short-Term Running Goals:

3:20, 1:30, 0:20

Long-Term Running Goals:

I'm 60, there is no long term.

Personal:

I live, work and run in Houston, Texas.  I have run 17 marathons, some good ones and some others.  I prefer straight, flat, cold, sea-level marathons, still waiting for my first one.  I feel like there are more PRs out there.  When I have them, I am told it is time to dial it back, run for healthy reasons.  I'm sure that's right, and I'm sure it won't happen.

My wife and I are from the mountains of the west.  We have five kids, three granddaughters and three grandsons.  The kids and grandkids are native Texans but we are not -- you have to be born here.

As for my blog title: I run most of my miles before sunrise, sometimes hours before. On the back road of my neighborhood two hours before daylight, I can depend on a pack of mutts behind the boundary fence lighting up when they hear my footsteps. I have wondered what they wanted; but according to Hemingway I needn't ask.

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Race: The Woodlands Half Marathon (13.19 Miles) 01:38:34
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.0013.190.0013.19

38F, 85%, NE 10 mph, drizzling.  I didn't run Wednesday through Friday of this week because of a deal that was closing at work, some days bedtime was as late as 4:00 a.m.  So I got a forced taper even though I intended to train through this race.  I picked up Wade at 5:00 and we drove out to The Woodlands to run the half marathon.  Smooth is here running the marathon I think, but I couldn't find her before the race and we had to leave immediately afterward as Wade is driving to Wyoming today.  I'll have to figure out my placement a little later.

I PR-ed in this race exactly 3 years ago.  Knew that wasn't in the cards today, as I have not been doing any workouts yet in this training cycle, other than one brisk run on Tuesday.  Even if I had been, it might not be in the cards, just getting a little too old to run low 7s for this distance (or any other).  Wade has been running well and this was a target race for him.  He was hoping for a PR and missed it by less than 20 seconds, but adjusting for course length he actually ran faster than on his PR day. His plan was to go out slow then settle into goal pace by mile 3. My plan was to stick with him as long as I could.  Both plans worked well.  We ran the first mile in 7:52 and the second in 7:32, then down into the teens and twenties after that.  I pulled up even with Wade after mile 4 and remarked that we had already caught the 7:26 guy.  He was feeling good and I wasn't doing too badly, the pace felt somewhat sustainable.  After that he got ahead of me and I never caught up.  I figured if I was to catch him it would be with a push at mile 10, and only then if he was fading.  Then at about mile 8.5 he caught his foot in a pavement crack and went down hard.  I was 20 seconds behind at the time and saw it all.  He bounced right back up and kept running faster than before; very impressive and I never caught him, he never faded.  Finished about 20 seconds behind him.

My own race went well until miles 12 and 13, where I recorded a 7:42 and a 7:33.  Other than that almost everything was in the twenties and teens and my overall pace was 7:28/mile, though the official pace will be slower than that because they only credit me with 13.11 miles (don't get me started).  Got my new HRM strap in the mail this week and wore it this morning for the first time.  I think it is recording accurately, but won't know for sure until working out with it a few times.

Mile by mile splits are:  7:52, 7:32, 7:20 (172), 7:16 (174), 7:32 (175), 7:14 (176), 7:27 (174), 7:19 (174), 7:27 (174), 7:31 (174), 7:30 (173), 7:41 (173), 7:33 (174) and 7:03 (174) for the stub.

So even though the heart rate was high it felt sustainable.  I lost a little bit of concentration in miles 10-12, but otherwise kept a good steady effort.  Part of my plan for March is to run 3 metric marathons, the first at 8:00, then 7:45 and finally7:30, on the theory that if I can hit 7:30 for 16 then I can hit sub-8:00 for 26, which would be a PR.  Based on this morning's results that might be too slow, but it's hazardous to extrapolate race results onto 5 a.m. solo workouts.  

Comments
From MarkS on Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 11:44:02 from 73.20.59.203

Good job!

It looks like you are really getting into good condition.

Do you have any shorter races (5K, 10K) planned for working on improving speed?

From Burt on Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 12:23:19 from 71.223.34.108

Awesome, Flat. You've come so far.

From Tom K on Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 12:42:29 from 174.58.54.215

Great race, Flat. Just think what could have happened with an 8 mile warm up! Also, I like your metric marathons plan.

From Yasir on Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 13:10:55 from 99.20.240.157

I hate to say I told so but, you are going to be super fast this spring. Nice half

From allie on Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 17:55:09 from 73.207.133.226

i also like the metric marathons plan.

nice job today.

From SlowJoe on Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 18:21:44 from 107.77.72.85

Really good race Mark. That pacing looks just about spot on. And I wouldn't call doing those kind of work hours much of a taper!

From Derunzo on Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 20:09:02 from 73.218.33.75

Boston here you come!

From I Just Run on Sun, Mar 01, 2015 at 13:33:40 from 64.233.172.212

Great job flat. I hear a lot of confidence in your words.

From flatlander on Tue, Mar 03, 2015 at 07:09:44 from 76.31.29.220

Mark, yes, one anyway, I have a hilly 10K scheduled the weekend before Boston. You are the speed expert, do I need more than that? This month will be heavy on workouts generally, so I am thinking OK, but certainly open to suggestions.

Burt thanks, you knew me when I was fat, puts you in rare company.

Tom, I knew I forgot something. Just wasn't warmed up enough to maintain pace.

Yasir, thanks. Now, if it doesn't work out I can blame it on you.

Thanks Allie! Looking forward to seeing you take Atlanta by storm.

Joe, you've done these hours too, I know. But these days it's good to be busy.

Derunzo, you are in charge of melting the snow.

IJR, more hope than confidence I would say. How are you feeling?

From Smooth on Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 17:06:50 from 71.219.158.9

GREAT race! Excellent pacing for a training, tune up run! Really like your metric marathons plan. You're gonna crush your next goal marathon! :) 3:30 here you come!!! :)

Bummed that I didn't see you at the start. They really put on a nice event, awesome staging of the start/finish! :)

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