return void;

Last weekend, I competed in my first competitive foot race. I ran in a race known as Too Hot Too Handle. It gets the name from the mid-July race date. Given that Texas is usually an oven from May until September, the name makes sense. I waited to post this until the results were official.

The race started at Winfrey Point at White Rock Lake at 0745. I registered beforehand and picked up my packet at RunOn as well as my freebies (singlet and a swank dufflebag). We showed up at about 0730; the parking lot was crammed and Sunshine dropped me off near the top of the adjacent hill. I got out to find where they hand out the chips. In case you don’t know, races are typically timed by tying an RFID chip to your shoe (convenient and accurate). Once I picked mine up, I headed down the hill to the starting point.

There were 2 races starting at the same time, “5K to the left, 15K to the right.” I almost ended up in the 15K starting line (I am incapable of determing left and right sides apparently). Once I got in the right crowd, I prepped my playlist, finished my last minute stretches and got ready. There was a lot of excitement, but I tried to contain it in fear of over-exerting myself too early. I was near the end of the pack, so my gun and chip times are a good deal different.

Finally, the gun went off and so did the crowd. I stuck with my usual pace. I had to apparently run the first mile on the side of the road/sidewalk because I was passing people. This started to concern me that I was running too fast, but when I hit the mile-marker, I was at 9:36 which was right on time. I was still passing people until the 1.5 mile-marker where people were moving at my pace. It was at this point that I realized I should have been doing more hill training. The next half mile was really hilly, mostly uphill. I hit the turn around and coasted coming back down.

I was stuggling around 2.5 miles. I had been pacing myself by staring at a green shirt on a woman in front of me. But at this point, the uphill run had worn me out too much. I had to stop because my heartrate was too high and I was stuggling to breathe. I walked for about a tenth of a mile to lower my heartrate to something more maintainable. I had to preserve my strength for the last stretch sprint. I grabbed a drink that apparently turned out to be ice water. I have no idea why they handed that out as I accidently poured it on my chest as one of the volunteers said it was “ice” water. Talk about perky nipples.

I finally made it to the last stretch, and I was about to start sprinting. A ran up next to me, we eyed each other, then proceeded to race one another as fast as we could. Well, I was going all out but he may not have been. We both crossed the machine that we thought was the finishline, but apparently the finish line was about another 20 yards away; that machine was the starting chip machine. I finished and grabbed some ice water while I congratulated the other guy for beating me. Sunshine and I took some pictures and walked up the hill for some refreshments. I grabbed a ton of free goodies and waited for the results.

I finished at 31:06 chip time. Add 00:49 for the gun time due to my being in the back of the pack. There was a professional photographer taking pictures there, which can be viewed online. I finished 10 out of 12 in my age group and 274 of 547 overall. Here is a picture of me checking the clock as I pass the finish line, racer #499 who I was racing, and a picture of me being beated by about 3-4 seconds by #499.

I can’t wait until my next race.