Turtles Can Run

The Hyatt Lost Pines

We stayed at the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort and Spa last night.  We made the most of the evening we had there, went swimming, floated along the lazy river, made smores and then went to bed.

I am so glad we stayed there waking up at 5:30 AM  was much easier than the 4 AM that I would have had to do if we would have come from home.

Enough about that now down to the race.    I have been getting very nervous about this race, because even though I trained much harder than I did last time, I knew this race course was going to be tough.

My first half was the 3M it is described like this on the  website:

This fast‚ downhill race is a perennial favorite with Austin runners. With a 4.8 m/km drop‚ this is a personal record course.

Th Zooma Austin Half  course, as I have mentioned before was described as difficult, challenging and hilly.  So I wanted to PR (of course) but was really doubting that I could.

There were pacers for  8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 minute miles.  My  strategy was to keep the 9 min/mile pacer behind me and use my garmin 305 to make sure I stayed on track.   The hills  started right away,  I commented  on it to a runner next to me and we started talking.  We had similar time goals, her running partner was injured  and had to back out last minute, so we decided to try to kind of stay together and pace each other.  It helped me so much.  I kept a good pace on the many uphills, I am not sure I would have done so well alone.  We stayed together

until the last 2 miles, first I got ahead of her and then she passed me on the last big hill.  I really thought I  couldn’t take anymore hills at that point.  Some people started walking up this hill, I was tempted but was so close to the end and I knew I was on track to PR so I kept pushing.  Picked up the pace a little on the last mile and I beat my 3M half marathon 1 minute and felt really great about it. Official time 1:56:39.

The woman I ran with thanked me at the end, she said she probably would not have run as fast if I was not with her.  I was so glad the feeling was mutual and that I left my Ipod at home.  If I was listening to music I would have missed out on meeting some pretty cool women during the race and having someone to help motivate me keep my pace up.  Throughout the race my Garmin was great, I knew when I needed to pick up the pace and when I was right on track.

Mile splits:

Notes on the race.  The weather was great today.  Overcast 55-65 during the race.   The course was tough but also quite lovely.  Scenic rolling hills, horses, wildflowers there was so much to take in,  it made the miles more enjoyable.

part of the race course

I really enjoyed the Zooma Austin half, it was cool to be running in a race geared toward women.  It was great to see all the women out there running or walking and loving it.  There were some men  out there but out of 1,245 only 54 were men.  I thought that was pretty cool..  All half marathon  finishers received little necklaces at the finsh.  There was also 5k and a free kids run, the kids even got tshirts.  I  got a massage, had brunch, listened to music, and did some shopping afterwards.  It was a lot of fun.

Filed under: Races