Today at the Chevron Houston Marathon

Well, you may have seen the Athlete Alerts that were sent to my blog. They weren't pretty!

Jon Walk, 01:06:59 (NET) @ 10k, Pace 10:46, Predicted 04:42:16.
Jon Walk, 02:24:50 (NET) @ Half, Pace 11:02, Predicted 04:49:16.
Jon Walk, 03:33:33 (NET) @ 30k, Pace 11:27, Predicted 05:00:11.
Jon Walk, 05:14:57 (NET) @ finish, Pace 12:00

I figured that I'd write something so people didn't think that I had gone catatonic with my time today. Actually, I'm Ok with it.

First of all, to those people that saw me on the course today and cheered me on in the last mile and a half, specifically John Yoder and his sister, Pony Peterson, Sarah Graybeal and Jose and Steve Bezner and his wife (as well as Christy Gonzales), I apologize for not being a bit more sociable in my response. :)

Any other day, I would have asked all of you how you had done ... but today wasn't my best one (even though it wasn't my worst either.)

In fact, I'm trending back down. 6:08:53 (Boise), 5:25:37 (Jacksonville) and 5:14:57 (today).

Fact: I'm a cold-weather runner.
Fact: I wasn't as rested as I could have been. (Red-eye flight home Thursday night. Two days of walking the Expo. Referee a basketball game on Saturday - although not intense.)
Fact: I didn't get stretched out as well as I should have. (And I know better.)
Fact: My head was completely not in this thing today.
Fact: I was locked into dress that was based on a 4:30 a.m. forecast that never materialized. (It got warm and more humid and I was toast.)

Excuses? Not at all. Just wasn't my day.

Given the fact that I thought that the temperatures were going to drop, I figured that I would go ahead and keep the 4:15 and 4:30 pace groups in eye sight (and I did for a little bit) when I lined up in the corral. I know that in the past at Houston, I've always started too far back and have had to dodge a lot of people. That wasn't the case today.

Mile 1 -- 10:48.97
Mile 2 -- 10:33.27
Mile 3 -- 10:18.07

(Bill Cox and Keith Kelleher both passed me in this mile. Beyond this, I didn't see another blogger at all.)

Mile 4 -- 11:28.14

(During this mile, I participated in the Woodlands Heights watering project and then I told Erin Foley, at the mile 4 marker, like I told her I would, "Go LSU!" She kept smiling and calling out times.)

Mile 5 -- 10:37.52
Mile 6 -- 10:46.88
Mile 7 -- 11:15.94

(I saw Bill Dwyer coming up the second underpass. Stopped enough to say that today wasn't going to be the day. He ran with me for a little bit. He opened a Gu for me. Then he said that he would call Waverly's pacer to find out how she did and pass it forward to Dana-Sue Crews, who would be beyond the half way point. I told him that if she PR'd, I was stopping.)

Mile 8 -- 10:50.26

(Saw Bonnie Jo Barron, Ino Cantu and Nancy Prejean real close to one another coming the other way. I guess I was feeling pretty good watching the other runners.)

Mile 9 -- 11:25.07
Mile 10 -- 11:12.22
Mile 11 -- 11:15.33

(Not even sure how I did these three miles in these times. I was beginning to not feel so hot in these miles.)

Mile 12 -- 11:37.02
Mile 13 -- 11:35.27
Mile 14 -- 11:20.71

(In these miles either.)

Mile 15 -- 12:52.94

(At the start of this mile, just before the Westpark Bridge, I saw Emily Drake, the subject of my Jan. 7 Conroe Courier column, and wished her well. Her father had passed away in late October of multiple myeloma and she was running the marathon for Team In Training in his memory. On the back of her purple singlet, she had an orange piece of tape in black lettering that said, "For Dr. Drake, my Dad". I had seen it earlier in the race and teared up a bit.)

(I got to the top of the Westpark Bridge and saw Dana-Sue Crews and Carol Steele with The Woodlands Team In Training. Dana-Sue had Waverly's time. She didn't hit her PR, but it was her 3rd best ever and I knew that she gave it everything she could. I must have started to look like crap because Carol looked at me, asked if I was OK and then ran down the hill a little bit with me.)

Mile 16 -- 11:51.18
Mile 17 -- 12:17.58

(It was tough to eke this out before turning into the Tanglewood subdivision.)

Mile 18 -- 13:10.24
Mile 19 -- 12:49.44

(I saw Sophie Rydin, a Fall '04 Power In Motion classmate, for about the second or third time in the race in this mile. She had a plastic boot on her right foot. I was so out of it that I didn't think to stop and ask.)

Mile 20 -- 12:18.37

(This mile was a pick-me-up. Not sure why. President Bush '41' wasn't to be found in this mile like he was two years ago.)

Mile 21 -- 12:58.61
Mile 22 -- 13:23.77

(Rose Ennis is a saint. When I went through the mile 21.5 water station, she took the time to walk with me a little bit and asked if she needed for me to carry anything back to the GRB. Also saw Bryon Evenson there. A really good guy.)

Mile 23 -- 13:51.84
Mile 24 -- 14:41.85

(This was just beyond the Finish Line Sports water station and included the two underpasses. Not too much fun this mile.)

Mile 25 -- 13:39.59

(Waverly walked out to the mile 24.5 point and we started to run in. This is always a special time for me. It wasn't until a little later that I realized that Waverly was going to get to go through another marathon finish with me.)

Mile 26 -- 13:34.65
Last .2 -- 2:26.44

(Even in the last mile, since my legs were hurting pretty badly, we did a walk one minute, run three minutes. And we did this all the way to the finish line. I figured since 4:47 (PR), 4:55 (other Houston) and 5 hours slipped away that I would just stick to that run/walk method to the finish.

So, it is my 12th marathon, 2nd Houston and the 5th best of those 12.