Ft Sam Houston 10 Miler
This past weekend Perla, Madelyn, and I decided to head out to San Antonio to participate in the Ft Sam Houston 10 Miler. The race would serve as a substitute to my weekend workout, as my Coach had prescribed a challenging 9-mile fartlek to be run, alternating 5:10 "hard" miles with 5:40 "easy" miles. Figuring I would have to 1) postpone the workout to Sunday anyway due to my clinic commitment at Pearland FIT on Saturday morning, and 2) have to go at it solo since my regular training partner, Rudy Rocha, underwent dental surgery, I decided to make the 3-hour drive (little longer if your wife gets pulled over for speeding while listening to a motivational tape given to us by Sam Rodriguez- maybe we should bill HIM...) to the historic city and jump in the low-key race being held at Fort Sam Houston. Heck, it would add a mile to the workout, but at least the atmosphere would help me get more out of my workout than going at it alone in Clear Lake, AND I'd have water every couple of miles, which would be nice.
After a late night on the RiverWalk, which I would advise everyone to AVOID as it is purely a tourist trap with thousands of lost souls searching for cheap food in 100-degree weather and humidity even at 9pm, and some crappy Tex-Mex food at a place I cannot remember (and after walking out of an esteemed steakhouse where the most affordable plate was over $30 and Ms. Madelyn was not behaving properly for such a setting), we headed off to sleep.
We awoke to beautiful Texas weather: 80-degrees and 85% humidity. Nothing I hadn't been training in while in Houston. The only surprise happened to be the course. Now, I understand San Antonio is quite hilly, as I am not that naive, but I figured that perhaps an Army base would be relatively flat- but it was not. It turned out to be quite the challenging course and my "easy" miles wouldn't be that easy and my hard one just a bit harder... but I was all for it. After all, I had driven 3 hours for this workout and I wanted to get the most out of it.
The race was quite enjoyable. I was able to attack my workout without having the stress of competing for a win or fighting others off, but just focusing on cruising the easy miles and attacking the hard miles, including all the hills. I ended up hitting 5:41-5:31-6:18-4:49-5:49-5:18-5:32-5:58-5:56-5:16 for a total time of 56:12. Obviously, since it is so early in the season and I have done little "speed" work (mostly fartlek), my sense of pacing was quite off. I completely over-ran Mile 4 by throwing in a sub-4:50 in response to the hilly, but slow Mile 3, but then had good steady middle miles before some serious hills hurt my chances for a good "hard" #8 and then I just closed as close to 5:10 as I could. My effort was rewarded with a new Course Record, as the previous was held by Olympic Marathon Trialist and former White Rock Marathon winner and 2:16 marathoner Jose Iniquez's 57:32. I was very pleased with the workout and how I felt afterwards- not taxed and just the right training effect.
Afterwards, as we awaited the award's ceremony, Madelyn undertook a serious hill session, herself attacking a 20-meter hill repeatedly. She ran enough to tire herself out through the Alamo visit and the 3-hour drive home. We also met up with Deirdre Brown and John Moyer of Friendswood, as both ran great races. Brown, who ran 1:22:23 is training for the Las Vegas Marathon, while Moyer ran 1:23:07 in between one of his countless marathons (Des Moines Marathon is next). Anyhow, it was strange to hear a "Go, Gabe!" in San Antonio- that really threw me off, but we have such great customers at On the Run and it was great seeing such familiar faces.
After a nice breakfast of Chorizo con Huevos at Mi Tierra we headed off to shop in the Market Place and then we headed off to the Alamo and a drive around San Antonio.
And that was San Antonio. And that was our trip. A nice little reminder of the huge state we live in that we call home and the natives call Tejas. We would have loved to have spent more time in SA, but with the impending Hurricane Katrina about to strike New Orleans, we were not sure of the traffic we would encounter on I-10, as we headed back to Houston. Anyhow, we are pressing on.. until next time!
posted by Gabriel Rodriguez at 9:19 PM
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