First race of the year !!! Wooohooo !!! This was The Woodlands Marathon in my hometown ... and while my result was “meh” it was just awesome to be racing ... with beautiful weather and my peeps along the course cheering me on.

 

I prepared for this race with a triathlon program (the Purple Patch 8 week marathon build), which worked out great for me last year (ran the same race in 3h13m). However, a self inflicted food poisoning (long story short: I’m an idiot) and the Texas “Deep Freeze” threw me off in some of the most critical weeks... and I knew I wasn’t as prepared as I should be. I was totally beat up by my last long run of 19 miles... that’s when some of the alarm bells started ringing.

 

But nevertheless I was optimistic and my (ill conceived) race plan was to run as long as I could at a pace which would have me finish at 3h18m, which barely would get me Boston qualified (I'm 45 years old). My Garmin triathlon watch predicted that with my current fitness level I could do it in 3h42m... but what does the (very sophisticated and expensive) triathlon watch know, right ???

 

I finished in 3h31m ... managing to hold on to the 3h18m pace through the midpoint, and then the legs told me that the triathlon watch had a point and I completely switched tactics and focused on just finishing with a smile and no cramps (which worked out!). I saw my wife and one of my daughters a few times along the course as they were following me ... that’s always quite the moral booster!

 

All in all, just stoked to have had the ability to race ... not a given these days. Yeah, the time sucked, but I have a packed race season ahead (most are transfers of cancelled races last year) so plenty of other opportunities to perform well!

 

Next on the race calendar: Ironman 70.3 Texas in April. Hope that doesn’t get cancelled either !