Today was the 3M half marathon.  What a day!  I got up at 4:50 on about 4 hours of sleep (tossed and turned like I always do before events).  This is my first running event since splitting the Austin marathon 5 or 6 years ago.  I slugged a protein shake w/ banana, got in the car and headed north.  It didn't take me nearly as long as I thought to make it up north with no traffic, which was great because I had plenty of time to "do ma thang etc..." before the race started.  I saw some Gazelles, and we went to the meetup spot.  It's so great to have a support group at races, that's a new experience for me.  We did a 2 mile warm-up and I was feelin' good. 

I lined up with Diane at the start and we slowly inched our way forward through the crowd of over 5000 runners.  We ended up in what I feel was a pretty good position.  It only took me 20 seconds to get across the starting line after the "gun".  The race started kind of slow with that first mile of trying to get by people and find your pace, etc...  I wasn't really sure how fast I wanted to go.  My longest run this year has been 14 miles and that was just a couple of weeks ago.  I was hoping to finish in 1:30, but I wasn't sure what kind of pace I could hold.  I passed the mile 1 marker at 6:50 or so.  I settled into the pace and the miles really started flying by.  I noticed I was gaining a little time with each mile. It was great to see Gilbert a few miles out to give me some encouragement.  I missed a water stop at mile 5 or so and that didn't help as the next one seemed like an eternity away.  I found a good group to pace me and stuck with them for a while.  Running down Burnet was a great relief after the first 7 miles and everybody picked it up a little.  I was just holding pace at this point.  North Loop was rough as we turned uphill for almost a full mile, but I held pace pretty well as a lot of people fell back. 

When we hit Duval at mile 10, I still felt pretty good and we got some payoff for the up-hills on North Loop.  I remember Gilbert saying that we should pick it up the last 4 miles and sped up just a little.  It was a nice easy downhill for most of the way to the finish.  I caught a couple of guys in front of me and settled in for a couple of miles.  If I knew what to expect, I might have picked it up a little more, but I would have bonked with too much effort so I played it safe.  I got a Gatorade at the last stop at mile 12 and upped my pace significantly.  I came through campus and when I was rounding the stadium thought I was going to run out of juice.  I passed a few runners and then one guy that had been on my heels for the last 5 miles made a pass.  I let him get 5 yards out when I spotted the finish line in the distance.  I felt some renewed strength and turned it up a notch.  I put some distance on my competitor and felt content to glide to the finish when I heard Gilbert:  "Eric, move it, you better pass somebody!!!".  I pushed hard to catch the next guy up.  I was gaining but ultimately ran out of track.

I crossed the line at 1:25:21, with a chip time at 1:25:01 which is a 6:29 pace.  I believe that's the fastest that I've run that distance!  I was also happy that I had a reverse split.  My first half pace was 6:31, the second half 6:27.  Granted the second half is a little easier on this course, but it's rare for me to hold pace that well.  In short, I was really psyched about my experience.

Thanks to Gilbert for making it fun for me to run again.