Monday, February 19, 2007

Austin Marathon - Race recap

For those of you that have been following my blog up to this point, you already know that the Austin Marathon on February 18 was my 16th marathon (4th Austin Marathon), and I ran it with a very bad left shin splint that I have been trying to get over since the first of the year. I was taking it as easy as I could for the first 15 miles or so at about an 8:30 pace (a full 30-50 seconds slower per mile than my normal marathon racing pace), but the pain started to be too much to bear, so starting at mile 16 I decided to walk for 3 minutes, then run to the next mile marker for as long as I could keep that up. At mile 21, the pain was too much, so I simply walked the final 5 miles to the best of my ability. I knew that my family was waiting for me about 200 yards from the finish line, so I mustered up enough to "run" past them down to the finish line. I still finished in a respectable 4:32:02 and am proud that I accomplished my main goal of simply finishing without any expectations as to a particular time. I got to visit with a lot of really neat people over those last 5 miles, some of them members and readers of Faithful Soles who saw my tshirt from the back with the Faithful Soles logo and simply stopped to walk and talk with me, all at the expense of their own time. My 14 year old son Robert ran his second half-marathon in 2:25:51, beating his previous best at Houston last month by 3:59, which is amazing considering that Austin was one of the hilliest courses I have ever run.

7 comments:

Born To Endure said...

I would be silly happy to run 4:32...congrats to you and toughing it out on that sore leg!!

Cliff said...

I hope that shin splint heal soon.

Michele said...

Hope you get to feeling better soon. At least you were able to finish and with a respectable time too.
Congrats to your son, that is awesome.

Deb said...

Congrats! A man that arrives at the finsih line with family there that loves him, is a rich man. Now go sit down and get off that leg!

Unknown said...

You did your goal! now it is time to heal your leg

Zainal Haji Ahmad said...

Well done man.... despite the shin splint... Time to recover OK...

Running Texas Dave said...

Congrats on your finish in the Austin Marathon. I ran the Austin Half Marathon. I finished in 2:40:45. Thats 2 minutes slower than my houston marathon in January. My goal is to get under two and a half hours. So i will keep training and working towards that goal. Hope you shin splints get to feeling better. Good luck on your goals too :)