10/29/06: Houston Half Marathon-A great day of racing for all (yes, even Gimpy me!)

And despite better judgement, I ran on below said ankle, to finish in a 2:01:54, or a 9:18/mile pace. Not too bad considering I could barely walk the previous day.

So, I know I am not the smartest girl out there, but let me explain one thing…I know when I can and can’t do things. And I got up this particular morning, strapped on an ankle brace, jogged a few minutes, and knew right away ‘I can do this thing.’ So at about 30 minutes before the race starts (I’m not even joking here) I drove 80 mph to get to the race start. Wow…amazingly I made it one piece with no ticket. I literally grabbed my chip, put it on my shoe and heard the gun go off in time for me to get behind a group of walkers, lol. This was going to be a long race, I thought.

I quickly made my way around all of that (well…it took about 2 miles) and got to where I thought I could maintain a decent pace. Mind you, the ankle brace was slowing me down a little, but other then that, I could barely feel any pain at all. So, run-run-run I did. The race went by pretty quick, other then the fact I ran by myself almost the entire thing and it got warm at the end (and I didn’t have my rock star sunglasses!!!) Plus I forgot my fuel belt bottle of Gatorade. Ah well…nothing’s perfect.

As the race neared the end, I realized I could possible still finish under 2 hours (as I knew the PR was out of the question even before the race started). However, I couldn’t quite get it today. And I am okay with that. I congratulated all of my fellow runners on an awesome race, as everyone I know seemed to have PRed. Even my boy came out to celebrate my (not smart) race victory of finishing on a bad ankle.

I will not be running the rest of this week, but rest assured, I WILL BE BACK! Special thanks to Lisa Foronda for being the best cheerleader ever! Love you girl!

THE STATS:
13.1 miles

2:01.54 total running
ave 9:18/pace

Heart-rate: 156 ave, 189 max
Weather: low humidity. Lower 60’s. perfect.