Austin Half-Marathon

Well, I finished the Austin Half-Marathon.  It was an interesting race.  I wanted to get back into a race environment and was excited to test my speed.  I haven't run an organized half-marathon in almost 6 years.  I also didn't want to risk injuring myself or doing anything that might get my training off track.  The advice of everyone was to run but don't race hard.  Easier said than done.

It was a warm and humid February day.  My IT Band (the other one this time) had been hurting a lot as of late.  My plan was to take it easy and not push too hard.  I was going to run my plan and maintain my ideal effort, but be quick to back off should anything go wrong.  I had a really good race for the first 10 miles.  I maintained my pace and nailed my plan exactly.  However, the last three miles were agony.  My leg was in a lot of pain and kept seizing up on me.  I wanted to keep going but didn't want to risk any long term injury.  I backed off the last two miles and even had to stop and stretch out my IT Band after a long downhill.

In the end, I finished within my goal of under 2 hours.  While not quite the pace I wanted, I wasn't far off.  I'll take that.  Despite the heat, humidity, and a sustained injury I managed to finish strong and PR. I'm a little worried about the IT Band.  I've got some PT work ahead of me.  Hopefully this won't linger for too long.  It was great seeing so many other familiar faces out there on the course and at the finish.  A lot of people running the full marathon.  It was different to be on the spectator side of a marathon finish for once.