This is Moe
Moe's a good 'ole boy and he puts on a mean half marathon at the outlet mall in San Marcos, Tx. A cool morning, plenty of hills, ignorant volunteers and some great post race fruit snacks all combined to make for an excellent for a great race at the Moe's Better Half Marathon this weekend.
I should backtrack a tad though because my weekend didn't start with Moe it started with Jack. Jack Weiss that is and a triathlon in Athens, Tx.
As a graduate assistant at UT Tyler, Fridays are my long day of teaching. We have 5 exercise physiology labs that day running from 8 am to 5 pm. It's kind of lacking having a real job, with real hours once a week and it sucks. I teach the two morning labs, then assistant during the afternoon so I usually get there about 7:30 am to open things up. I did most of my packing the night before but was up at 5 am to load my bike and other stuff in the car before meeting a group of guys from church for breakfast at Einstein Bagels like we do every Friday morning at 6 am.
After teaching from 8-11 am I changed quickly and got in a brief pre-race bike workout over lunch. Crammed down a couple sandwiches then back in the lab to work until about 4:30. Off to swim practice then out of the pool and driving to Athens for the FREE pre-race pasta dinner. Packet pick up then I crashed in a roll-out bed in my pastor's hotel room. Thanks Cliff!!
Race morning dawned cold and windy. Luckily I had naught but a skimpy speedo to wear so of course I had a great race! Well greatness in this case was defined by a win but my time was 3 minutes slower than last year. I'm blaming it all on the wind...
In the car as soon as they let me and I was headed south to San Anton. My gf was running in a track meet and I made it in time to watch her pr and set school records in the 1500 and 5k! She broke 19min in the 5k with an 18:55 which is killer! Dropped a 79sec last quarter which means she would have outkicked me if we were together at a lap to go.
The next morning was my first half marathon. Yes, this is where Moe comes in. It was a cool morning but perfect running whether. My legs felt surprisingly fresh on my warm up jog back and forth to the porta-potty which was a surprise given the race and drive I'd had yesterday. I had no idea what to expect so I decided to just start off running 6min pace and see what happened.
I ran with another guy named Daniel for the first 5 miles or so and we were actually running closer to 5:45 pace. I felt alright though so I just kept it rolling and he started to fade back. It was a pretty hilly course and I had been told (by Daniel) that the race doesn't start til the last 5k. Well the word I'd heard was that the race leader was gunning for a 1:17 and as he was only 20sec up on me going through mile 6 I decided I would try to catch him. So I did. Took me until mile 9.5 but I caught him. We ran together for about 2 miles and he surged hard mile 10 to 11 which was my fastest mile of the day. The last 2 miles have some decent hills in them and I was able to pull away from him to win by about 20sec with a 1:16:49. I was pretty stoked as this is the first running race I've ever won before! There were a total of 5 iconone teammates at the race so it was fun to hang out with them as well. A great weekend and fun racing!
In the car as soon as they let me and I was headed south to San Anton. My gf was running in a track meet and I made it in time to watch her pr and set school records in the 1500 and 5k! She broke 19min in the 5k with an 18:55 which is killer! Dropped a 79sec last quarter which means she would have outkicked me if we were together at a lap to go.
The next morning was my first half marathon. Yes, this is where Moe comes in. It was a cool morning but perfect running whether. My legs felt surprisingly fresh on my warm up jog back and forth to the porta-potty which was a surprise given the race and drive I'd had yesterday. I had no idea what to expect so I decided to just start off running 6min pace and see what happened.
I ran with another guy named Daniel for the first 5 miles or so and we were actually running closer to 5:45 pace. I felt alright though so I just kept it rolling and he started to fade back. It was a pretty hilly course and I had been told (by Daniel) that the race doesn't start til the last 5k. Well the word I'd heard was that the race leader was gunning for a 1:17 and as he was only 20sec up on me going through mile 6 I decided I would try to catch him. So I did. Took me until mile 9.5 but I caught him. We ran together for about 2 miles and he surged hard mile 10 to 11 which was my fastest mile of the day. The last 2 miles have some decent hills in them and I was able to pull away from him to win by about 20sec with a 1:16:49. I was pretty stoked as this is the first running race I've ever won before! There were a total of 5 iconone teammates at the race so it was fun to hang out with them as well. A great weekend and fun racing!
