Sara and I spent last weekend camping at Lake Texoma. I somehow convinced her to spend Valentines Day camping the night before I ran my half marathon at the lake. The weather was about as nice as it could be for the middle of February. We made the hour and a half drive north on Friday afternoon after we both got off of work. After settling in to our camp spot, we were immediately treated to a beautiful sunset over the lake (see below). The Cross Timbers trail run had about 400 total runners between the half marathon, marathon and 50 mile races. Our campsite was about 100 yards from the start of the race. It was a cool experience being able to camp that close to all of the action. There was a pre-race dinner that we participated in Friday night. It was nice to be able to get the meet some people that I would be running with the next day. We ended up sharing our camp spot with a couple who came in a small RV and a couple of their adult children who drove in from Austin. The wife had Parkinson's disease. It was nice to get to know them and learn a little bit of their stories. After sitting by the campfire for a couple hours we hit the tent to try to get some rest.
While the daytime temps were very mild, it got quite cold overnight. The temperatiure got down around freezing so neither Sara or I got a very good nights sleep. We shivered our way through the night and woke up around 6:00 to get ready for the race.
The half marathon started at 7:30. After leaving the relative comfort of our tents, we struggled through putting on clothes and eating a small breakfast. Before long it was time to get to the finish line. There were about 150 runners in the half marathon. After a prayer and the count down from ten, we were off. The course did a quick lap around the campground parking lot before dipping onto the single track. I did my best to get towards the front of the pack before hitting the trail...passing becomes difficult if you get caught behind people who are moving much slower. I was somewhere in the top 15 from the start. The race moved at decent pace from the start. The course was very hilly (for north Texas) following mostly along the banks of Lake Texoma. There was very little flat areas along the course. All the runners spread out fairly quickly and before long I was out on my own navigating the ups and downs. Quickly, I arrived at the half way point aid station. The course was an out and back so from this point on I was passing a bunch of people running in the opposite direction. I wasn't sure what place I was in at this point but I did know there weren't too many people in front of me. I tried to keep as comfortable a pace as I could, walking as little as possible. My goal was to hold a steady pace throughout the race and not have any blow ups. I passed 2 or 3 guys between miles 7 and 10. At the aid station at roughly mile 10.5 I was told there were a few guys not too far in front. I tried to kick it up a notch and ended up passing two of the three before the finish line. At the end of the day, I finished in 7th place out of roughly 150 with a time of 2:20. This time is much slower than some of the other half's I have run but there was around 4000' of elevation gain on the course so I was happy with the effort. It felt good to finish towards the front of the pack with a consistent effort for most of the day.
Here is my race info from my watch: http://www.movescount.com/moves/move25982080
Thanks, as always, to Sara for being my number one cheerleader...for coming out and braving the cold temps, uncomfortable nights sleep, and early morning to support me.
