Race Report: Rock 'n' Roll San Antonio Half-Marathon

This past weekend I headed to San Antonio to visit my family (my sister lives there) and to run in the third Rock 'n' Roll San Antonio Marathon and Half-Marathon event.  It was an incredibly fun event with tons of participants - over 27,000 toed the line of the 30,000 who had registered for the marathon and half-marathon - and incredible energy!  In terms of consistent running I had my best race yet this year, and I shaved more than 5 minutes off of my Mankato Half-Marathon time.  (I probably could have shaved of 5 or so more if the lines for the biffies hadn't been so long, but that's the drawback of being one of 27,000+ runners on a course.)

On Saturday, my sister and I headed down to the Alamodome to pick up my race packet and to check out the expo.  Since there were so many participants and since the skapris I had brought with me to wear for the race didn't have a pocket to put my cell phone in I was on the market for a belt pack, but then we came across a vendor called gracie's gear, which specializes in tops and bras with built in pouches that are big enough for phones, ipods, etc.  Even though I normally don't wear new things on a race day, I decided to violate my rule and get one of the tanks to wear.  It ended up working out fine.  No abnormal chafing or problems resulted on race day because of my admittedly potentially foolish decision.  After some time at the expo, my sister and I decided to head out and do some shopping - but not before I got a picture at the countdown clock.

After a day of shopping with my sister, a pasta dinner, lots of water, and a not-so-great night of sleep, I woke up early to drink a bit more water, eat a granola bar, get dressed, and have my poor brother-in-law take me down to the runners drop off point.  I had realized on the ride over that I hadn't remembered to put my Garmin on, but I knew we didn't really have time to go back for it.  I figured that I would just try to judge my pace by the clocks at the mile markers.  I walked through the park and arrived in the start line village.  I drank a bottle of water, got in line for the biffy, asked some nice girls to take a photo of me, and made my way over to my starting corral, which was #20.

 Because the race had so many participants and the full and the half shared the same course until just after mile 11, it was a bit of a mad house.  They were letting corrals go every 2-3 minutes, although there was a delay because an unscheduled train crossed the tracks in the first mile of the course, just shortly after the non-elite runners had started the race.  It felt like forever, and I passed the time by making conversation with some other runners.  Eventually we started moving closer to the start line.

By the time my corral started almost 45 minutes had passed since the first runners had set off, and I, being Captain Weak Bladder, already needed to pee.  I held off until just after the mile 2 marker, when I stopped to use the biffy.  I lost some time - maybe 4-5 minutes waiting in line.  I ditched my arm warmers at this point, too.  I also lost a few seconds a couple of minutes later to snap a picture of the Alamo, which we passed on the course at around mile 2.5.

I tried to make some of the lost time up in the next couple of miles, and felt like I was back on pace to hit a 2:20 time, but it was hard to tell.  According to the clocks at the mile markers, I ran a couple of sub-10 miles and had been passing a lot of people, many of them wearing very cool shirts.

I wasn't talking to anyone, although I was enjoying being out among so many people even in spite of the fact that I was slightly annoyed that the walkers and especially slow runners weren't making any effort to get out of the middle of the road.  Really, I was in the zone.  I was running steady and felt strong, and at mile 7 I briefly entertained the idea of going ahead and doing the whole full marathon.  After some hemming and hawing, I decided to stick with my decision to just do the half.

Between mile 8 and 9 I lost a couple more minutes when I stopped to use the biffy again.  I walked for about a minute at mile 10, and then I started running again and didn't stop until I crossed the finish line with arms raised and a smile across my face!  Sadly, I didn't get a picture, but I may actually purchase an official race photo for once. 

Although I didn't experience the train delay problem myself, which I'm sure must have really frustrated the runners in the earlier corrals, I was surprised by my chip time.  I really thought I had been calculating my pace correctly using the clocks at the mile markers and was on pace for something closer to 2:20 than 2:30.  I was pretty disappointed when I accessed my chip time after the race and saw 2:28:01.  I'm sure the chip is right and the error must have been in my math somewhere along the way, but I was shocked and am still kind of flummoxed by the fact that in a race that I ran so well I only finished 5 minutes faster than I did in a race I ran so poorly and did A LOT of walking in three weeks before....

In spite of my vague lingering doubts about the accuracy of my chip time, I have to give the race organizers tremendous props.  There were plenty of great volunteers, water stops, Porta-John stops, and entertaining bands along the way.  There weren't quite as many spectators on the course as I expected to see, but there were still a good number and a ton at the downtown finish line.  While I don't completely approve of a big hill in the last half mile before the finish (especially because so many people started walking up the hill and it was so crowded that it was almost impossible to pass them), the course was overall excellent.  There were a few gentle hills and plenty of things to look at.  

I may even toe the line at this race again next year.