In the months leading up to this year’s Chevron Houston Marathon I had the privilege of working with the Marathon Committee and other BCRR members (Ron, Joe, Dewey, Anna and David) in developing new and improved plans and procedures for the Elite Fluid Stations.  We borrowed ideas from New York, Chicago and Boston and addressed the lessons learned from the US Olympic Trials hosted by Houston in 2012.  All the planning and preparation came together and was implemented without problems on race day.  Unfortunately we will not be able to use these plans and procedures for the next Olympic Trials, since USATF awarded the bid to Los Angeles, butwe will use them for the future Houston marathons and US Half Marathon Championships we are scheduled to host over the next years.

 

I also signed up to help lead the 3-hour pace team with Kerry Lee from BARC who led the group the previous year.  I was excited for the chance to help lead a lot of friends who were trying to break that elusive time.  Heidi was one of the handful of ladies.  I got a chance to meet some other runners at the Marathon Expo on Saturday during the Pacer Orientation.  I was glad to answer their questions and calm their nerves about how we would run Sunday.  Sketchers was this year’s sponsor, so I got to leave the Expo with some awesome swag.  But before I left, Trey waited patiently for me while I stood in line to meet Meb, eventual US Half Marathon Champion, to capture some pictures of us posing in a running stride with me beating him.  I had Meb sign the Houston Marathon Sketchers shoes I received, which I will not be wearing.

Our group has reduced in size but those that remain are running strong with 4 miles to go.

It was fun running with balloons up until mile 10 when they got annoying – haha!  Kerry and I were spot on for most of the race.  The most challenging part is to keep the group from not running the first miles too fast.  We started off with about 50 runners and by mile 20 we had about 10 runners left in our pace group, which is still a great size for this pace.  Some of the 10 felt good and went on ahead of us, most stayed with us and others fell off pace a little but still BQ’ed.  It was very helpful having the pace bands in the later miles when our brains were getting less oxygen to do the math.  It was definitely no walk in the park but together we had the breath and energy to rally the group and keep them going.  I could have hydrated more as I felt slight spasms in the legs, but luckily being in better shape than the pace we were setting affords some mistakes.  Overall it felt so great to have had a helping hand in runners break that 3 hour mark, qualify for Boston and PR.