San Antonio Rock and Roll Marathon 2009

San Antonio Rock and Roll Marathon. Woke up at 4:30am, got dressed and walked about a mile to where the shuttle was picking up people to take us to the start line. Line was long, took about 40 minutes to get on, and the line was about twice as long when we finally got on the bus as it was when we got in line. They dropped us off about a mile from the gear check area, which was probably less than 2 miles from our hotel, it would have been a lot quicker and hardly any more walking to just walk to the start rather than take the shuttle bus, heh.

Found Marc and Zoe, but didn't find Tim or Debby from the FFRC. Things were getting ready to get started, we were in corral 16, then we decided to hop over to the porta-johns as the lines were nonexistent. As things were not yet moving, we actually got back into the corral around corral 15. We got started right before 8am, about 29 minutes after the gun went off. Zoe was going to be running a bit slower, so Marc and I headed off.

First mile was 10:42, followed by a 10:10, 10:04, 10:22, 10:12 and 10:05, then a .1 mile 1:00 split to get back in sync with the mile markers. We were feeling good and had a steady pace, generally walking after each water stop for about a minute. We had a time of 1:03:31 at the 10K split. We then had splits of 10:07, 9:41, 10:05, 10:00, 10:20, 9:55, a .1 mile 1:01 split to get back in sync with mile markers, and a 10:21 split, and then a 10:21 mile. About mile 11 the course split off, and for a while we could see people coming in from the long mostly out and back. We hit the half marathon in 2:15:05, a 10:18 pace, so we were going good but we were planning on slowing down the second half as we tired and got warm.

We had miles of 10:38, 10:07 and 10:51 that followed. Marc said an extended walk break would be good, so we walked about a 1/2 mile, then ran the rest for a 13:34 mile. This was followed by a 11:24 and 11:48 mile as we started to take longer walk breaks. Mile 20 was a mostly walking mile, coming in at 17:01. During this mile Debby and her sister passed us. After they went by, I ran up in front of them and took a few pictures before waiting for Marc to catch up. His stomach was giving him fits as it seemed that the gu and the cytomax didn't mix well. Had a .13 mile split in 2:13 to get back in sync with the mile markers, hitting the 20 mile split in 3:40:25, an 11:01 pace. Shortly after the 20 mile mark, Marc had to stop at a porta-john as his stomach went into reverse mode. We sat there for a bit while Marc tried to feel better. He decided he should probably drop out; since he had ran marathons before, he didn't feel the need to push himself just so he could finish - 20 miles was enough. So we walked to the next medical tent at about 20.5 miles, and he sat down to rest, and I continued on.

I ran most of the rest of the mile and the time for that mile was 20:36. After that I ran a 10:58 mile as I worked on getting back in the groove. It was getting quite warm out, and any time the sun popped out from the clouds, it was brutal. A quick .1 mile 1:02 mile split to get back in sync, and I figured out I needed to run just under 11 minute miles the rest of the way to finish under 5 hours. I felt I needed some goal, as if I didn't set one I'd end up walking the rest of the way in. So off I went, running 10:59, 10:53, 10:45, 10:37 and a 2:00 over the final .22 miles to hit 4:59:39, an 11:26 pace, the same as I did for the Lewis and Clark Marathon where I did the 5 hour pace group for, but quite a different race. Afterwards, I got my gear bag, sat for a bit, met up with Marc and Zoe (Marc had grabbed a ride from the SAG wagon and almost beat me to the finish), then waited for Judy. She came in shortly after 6 hours, we then walked back to the hotel, showered, rested for a bit, then walked and met Marc and Zoe at Fogo de Chao, a Brazillian Steakhouse, for a very, VERY tasty dinner. Another marathon down, number 13, woo!