Perfect Day

for a run, it was. Clear and crisp, but not cold. A bit of a breeze, but not really any wind. Sunshiny, but enough shade when we needed it. Good enough for a 2:17:38 finish time this morning at the Texas Half, it was. That's a couple of minutes slower than I'd expected based on my previous runs, but the course was also hella hillier than I remember. But it's all good -- I was remarkably consistent with the lap times, and my cranky knee didn't hurt at all. I did use a couple of walk breaks to stretch the calf and the front of my leg on the right side, just to ward off tightness there, but otherwise, I was good to go and felt strong all the way through. I have to be happy with it, considering I haven't run anything close to 13 miles in probably six months. And it's a good two minutes + faster than my last half-mary last February, so I'll take it.

After the race, I rushed home to shower and change so we could go out to the rink for the Elder Child's game, then we drove around and hung out for a while before dinner out. When we got home later we tucked into the den for a screening of Bridge to Terabithia (eh -- liked the book better -- the movie just made us all sad). Tomorrow holds a ton of nothing, which is awesome.

Just for posterity, here are my splits, taken from the Timex. These are inclusive of the one-minute walk breaks every ten minutes, so I'm pretty pleased with them -- used to be I was killing myself to get these splits while running nonstop. I am also fairly pleased with the consistency of the lap splits, especially when you take all the hills into consideration:

Mile 1 - 10:32:50
Mile 2 - 9:57:55
Mile 3 - 10:20:40
Mile 4 - 10:24:09
Mile 5 - 10:26:34
Mile 6 - 10:38:22
Mile 7 - 10:30:86
Mile 8 - 10:36:49
Mile 9 - 10:39:35
Mile 10-10:20:37
Mile 11- 10:53:31
Mile 12- 10:36:83
Mile 13-11:17:03 (took two walk breaks here -- second one to be sure to get fluids in at the water stop)
.1- 2:57 (um, not really, I just forgot to turn off the stopwatch until after they took my chip and gave me my hardware. Dang it)

Anyway, I placed 18th out of 37 women in my age group, so I finally broke the 50th percentile. Barely, but still. Go me. And did I mention the hardware? I'll have to post a photo of it -- it's in the shape of Texas, so you gotta love it, no? OK, *you* don't, but I surely am fond of it.

So that's it. I'll probably try to do a couple of miles tomorrow afternoon to work out any kinks, then do just a few short runs during the week to get ready for Austin, baby!!