Drove with J-Hat, Ean and Marilyn from my sisters house to the Hilton there in mid-town Houston and met up with Rog, Court and we walked over to bag check and lined up for the start..It was nice and chilly out but really good for running. We met up with a great big Okie crew on the start line. Got all the tanks emptied and gu'ed up and took my beet elite about 10 min before the gun, also took a 5hr about an hr before the gun.
I really started to notice I had to pee right after the national anthem but knew there wasn't getting out of line where I was located... I did bring an empty Gatorade bottle just for the occasions but decided to try and run it out...
At the start some volunteers were holding us back with a rope and slowly walking us up to the elite field. Several dudes made a quick slip under the rope and started a chain reaction...Later i heard a woman actually tripped and busted her tooth..
We got up there and i threw my shirt over to the side and took off. I got out with Amanda until things started clearing and saw Aaron (her boyfriend) and got up with him..he was shooting for sub 2:30 and was making a debut marathon. The first mile was a bit slow and I was good with it seeing how I had no warm-up and was pretty cold.
I took off from there and about mile 6.6 I witnessed something I hope no one ever has to witness or experience . A girl running the 1/2 about 5 strides ahead of me exploded with a bad case of diarrhea I thought for sure she was going to quit but she had no let up in her will.
What I saw going every which way hasn't words to describe...the smell was awful and to my surprise the girl kept on trucking...I was fixing to throw away my warm up hat and decided to make a bolt up to her and give it to her...She was so appreciative for it and I also decided to give her my gloves as well...she told me she was trying to qualify for the trials. I told her good luck and I stayed in front of her for the remainder of my run with the half marathoners. I found out later she in-fact didn't give up on her dream but finished even when she knew she wouldn't reach her goal...Never Quit
I ran a lot of the 2nd 1/2 with a woman from Canada named Rachel. She gapped me fairly well on a small hill close to the finish. I felt pretty good most of the race but at mile 10 or so i was going for my #2 gu and dropped it. I was a little worried about it but decided not to stop and pick it up hoping that they would hand some out. I started taking more Gatorade until I did finally grab one at mile 21 or so.
I wore my adios boost 2's for the first time in a race..they felt pretty good. I was really excited when i got up to the finish line and the clock was ticking right at 2:33ish I tried to run under with a quick surge but was a little short...later I found out that my chip time was actually under so I'll take it. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. All my buddies had big runs and most everyone had a PR.
It feels great to get a PR on the first race of the year...
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