Mission Accomplished

Yesterday was a beautiful day for a marathon. At 7:00 am fireworks lit up the clear, 38 degree air as nearly 12,000 runners left the Congress Avenue bridge to loop through the hills of Austin, Texas. I had a great run and other than some minor cramps in both hamstrings in the last mile I was able to run a steady race and never really felt like I hit a wall. My goal in this race was to keep my head in the race and not have things degenerate into a death march in the last 6 miles like in my first two marathons and on that basis alone it was a great success.

I'll start off with the raw numbers and I'll follow that up with some commentary later tonight. But as I'm writing this the following day I'll tell you that I feel great. My legs are a little sore and my hips tighten up pretty badly when I stop moving, but other than that I really, really feel good. I'm very satisfied with how it all turned out.

Heart rate zones:
zone 1(under 145): 0:02:52
zone 2(145-158)   : 0:14:44
zone 3(0ver 158) : 4:01:32

       Mile split  HR avg  HR end Cumulative
Mile  1:    9:36.5 avg=158 end=164
Mile  2:    8:55.0 avg=163 end=159 0:18:31.5
Mile  3:    8:36.1 avg=165 end=165 0:27:07.6
Mile  4:    8:48.1 avg=165 end=164 0:35:55.8
Mile  5:    9:01.0 avg=166 end=168 0:44:56.7
Mile  6:    8:52.3 avg=163 end=163 0:53:49.1
Mile  7:    9:25.6 avg=162 end=161 1:03:14
Mile  8:    9:25.3 avg=164 end=165 1:12:40
Mile  9:    9:20.0 avg=163 end=165 1:22:00
Mile 10:    9:28.9 avg=165 end=165 1:31:29
Mile 11:    9:56.9 avg=164 end=166 1:41:25
Mile 12:    9:50.3 avg=162 end=164 1:51:16
Mile 13:    9:27.9 avg=162 end=158 2:00:44
Mile 14:    9:19.9 avg=163 end=162 2:10:04
Mile 15:   10:04.9 avg=163 end=163 2:20:08
Mile 16:    9:57.5 avg=162 end=164 2:30:06
Mile 17:    9:52.0 avg=164 end=165 2:39.58
Mile 18:   10:04.9 avg=164 end=164 2:50:03
Mile 19:   10:09.6 avg=164 end=165 3:00:12
Mile 20:   10:41.2 avg=163 end=163 3:10:54
Mile 21:   11:59.6 avg=154 end=164 3:22:53
Mile 22:   10:47.1 avg=165 end=165 3:33.40
Mile 23:   10:18.2 avg=166 end=173 3:43:59
Mile 24:   10:04.9 avg=172 end=169 3:54:04
Mile 25:   10:36.7 avg=170 end=173 4:04:40
Mile 26.2: 14:22.9 avg=168 end=172 4:19:03

The race was won by a Kenyan in 2:14:02. Of the 4555 runners who finished the marathon 39% were female and 61% were male. I finished in 2224th place overall with 2334 runners behind me or about 51st percentile. Among male runners I was 1625 with 1176 behind or 58th percentile. In my age division (40-44) I was 283rd with 162 behind or 63rd percentile. I haven't checked, but this is a pretty huge improvement after last year when I finished in 5:00 on a much easier course. I didn't improve on my time from Dallas, but I'm still really pleased with my performance.