It’s been a while since my last post, so let me catch everyone up on the last few weeks. It’s been more than a week since my latest race. My trip to Houston was marked by a new personal best time in the half marathon, where I ran 1:06:28 and placed 23rd at the USA Half Marathon Championships.
The natural tendency after a race is over is to grade your performance on the finishing time. But rarely does your finish time tell the whole story. Sometimes you have a bad time, but you raced well. Sometimes you have a great time, but you finished further back than you wanted, place-wise. So I like to give myself a few days to reflect on a race before I settle on my final assessment.
Obviously, I was happy with a new PR. Whenever you set PR’s, it means you are heading in the right direction. Initially however, I was a little disappointed because one of the goals I set for myself prior to the race was to break 66-minutes. However, after a few days of scanning post-race results and interviews, I’m more encouraged with my performance.
My main goal when I enter championship events is to place well. When I look at where I finished and who finished in the places around me, I am really excited about the race. The guy who finished just ahead of me was the USA Marathon Champion this past October at my race in Minneapolis. The guy who finished in 8th place at the Twin Cities race ended up 25th in Houston. Leading up to the race, I felt like my fitness level was better than in the fall, so it’s gratifying to confirm those thoughts.
The race was also a chance to run what is scheduled to be the Olympic Trials course for next year. Houston is known for pretty flat, fast courses, but the course we ran was tougher than I expected. There were 3 180-degree turns (slated to be 7 turns next year) during the race and it really slowed things down on those particular miles. Afterwards, my left foot was feeling the effects of those turns, as my sock and shoe were turned red from some bleeding. There seemed to be some chatter that the course for next year might change because of some negative feedback from the runners, so we’ll wait and see.
All in all, I had a great time in Houston. I was lucky enough to have some familiar faces cheering me on, as my aunt, uncle and cousins were in town for the weekend. A big thank you goes out to y’all for all the support and I had a great time spending some time with y’all (there from the South, so they’ll be addressed accordingly!).
I’ve spent about 4 days recovering from the race with some easy running, but I’m back into some serious training now. I’m hoping to race once more this indoor season, before my attention is turned to the track this Spring, and hopefully some more PR’s!
