On Sunday, I ran my first 20K race.

The Koala Health and Wellness Centers & Luke’s Locker 20K (managed by the fabulous Houston Striders), the first of three races that comprise the Warm-Up Series for the 2006 Houston Marathon.

This was the longest official race I’ve ever done. I’m so glad I got through it.

And after struggling (mentally and physically) through last month’s 12 mile training run, and even contemplating switching to a run/walk strategy for the Marathon, I ran the entire 12.4 mile course non-stop….and beat my target time by 8 minutes. Yay!

My results:

Chip Time: 2:22:36
Pace: 11:30 min/mile
First 10K: 1:13:21
Second 10K: 1:10:26

Race Experience:

• Woke up at 4:30am. Ate breakfast (Special K and toast with sugar-free jam). Got to the race area at 6:15am, picked up my chip, stretched a tiny bit, and headed towards the starting line. It was a huge crowd. I really love those few minutes just before the start of a race, where everyone’s reading themselves for the run and you can feel the energy in the air. 7:00am, the gun goes off. Even though I was near the front of the crowd, I think it took me a full minute to cross the starting mat.

• My running started off well. During the first mile, people kept running past me - it was a little discouraging at first, and I found myself unsconsciously trying to speed up. But, I realized I had started the race near the front of the crowd with the faster runners, and that helped me slow down and stay at my right pace. I fell into a groove pretty quickly, and before I knew it, I was running past the first 5K marker.

• Miles 3 through 7 went by very smoothly. My breathing stayed even and I had plenty of fuel. I was making a conscious effort to sip some water or Cytomax every 1.5 - 2 miles, which I think really helped with the energy. I also ran behind three women wearing styrofoam caterpillars on their head.

• I started struggling a little at mile 8. Going down the underpass at Montrose, I felt pain shooting from my right knee down to my ankle. Going uphill or running on even surface felt fine - it was just running downhill. By mile 9 my left hip was cramping up from directing more energy - and weight - from my right side to my left.

• Even though these problems weren’t too serious, I had gotten distracted by them. Miles 9 and 10 were spent trying to get my momentum back. A vanilla peach CarbBoom helped a little. Surprisingly, even though it felt like I was slowing down, I ran a negative split over the last half of the race.

• Halfway through mile 10, I got my momentum back. I think this is where I saw Jessica speeding by (hi Jessica!). I think knowing I had less than 5K left (aka, less than one loop around Memorial Park) really helped mentally. As soon as I passed mile 12, I booked it to the end. Finally it was over, and I limped over to get my finisher’s singlet.

• Also saw Vic directing runners to the finish line, and Jon making a post-Huntsville-Half-Marathon appearance.