Notes
2:16:45 (OTQ!) 15th,3rd American. Absolute cracker this morning in Houston. 34 degrees at the start with 8-10 mph wind from the North. They loaded us up behind the elites but took so long getting us there I was 15m from the actual start mat when the gun went off. I had 2:16:40 on my watch and the GPS has me 2:15:51 at the “marathon.” But I digress. It was a madhouse off the line being 7 rows back coming off a bottleneck start. I tried to find travis amongst the chaos of the first mile. I didn’t look at any splits until much later in the race. Eventually found a group that said they were going for the standard and Travis and I stuck with them for a while. At 7 the half marathoners split off from us and it felt like the race actually started. There were times I would tuck in and others I drifted to the middle of the pack but for the most part the first 10 miles were uneventful and if anything they were boring outside of a threatening side stitch 5 miles in as I settled into the pace. Travis and I were inseparable through nearly the entire race. At mile 14 the pace slowed down due to some rolling hills and Travis and I quickly separated and took it upon ourselves to keep the OTQ in reach. The downside was we had another 4 miles to navigate into the annoying headwind. I was starting to tire at 16 but as any marathoner knows, there’s good and bad patches and I was in a bad one but it wasn’t going too far south so I focused on staying within a couple strides of trav. We made it to 18 and that’s when things changed. I felt a small rally come on and I pulled to Travis’s shoulder. We were smashing the pace. And actually we were running so fast that I was unsure whether or not we could sustain or even if we were going to blow up in an awful way. We committed though. I could not believe the splits we put down. We ran through memorial park and by my calculation we had almost a minute cushion on the OTQ at 20 or 21. I was not about to let up though. The pace felt natural but on occasion I would wonder when it would get bad, it always gets bad, just a matter of when. At 22 travis started to drift off me and I would relent the pace slightly to keep him close and those small respites from the fast pace may have been a blessing. I never got more than 20m from him and would carefully listen to his foot steps to make sure he was there. There were a few rolling hills the last 5k but I was on a tear and took them with sting strides. By 24 I knew I had it in the bag but so many times I have “been afraid of success,” and an exceptional race has turned into a good race. I was not letting up as we got to the skyscrapers of downtown Houston. Travis was back on me and pulling closer. We slapped hands with a k to go and I could feel the adrenaline surge of knowing the finish was close. It hit me as I got to the signage 100m from the finish that I was going to do it in a big way. I started celebrating and throwing up my hands as I flew down the finish straight. I was so elated that I couldn’t figure out whether to cry or laugh so I did both and probably looked ridiculous. Travis finished just 3 sec behind me and we hugged after he pulled me off the ground. With the OTQ in hand and finishing with a breakout performance (as well as redemption for Chicago) I am headed back to Tulsa anew.
(Chip Time corrected to 2:16:40! feels good to get those few seconds back after a BS start)