I thought it was pretty cool last year when the marathon in Houston added the 'double' option: Do the 5K on Saturday and either the full or half marathon on Sunday and you get an extra really cool medal.
When I saw a few friends do exactly that last year, and how cool the medal was, it was even more awesome :O)
It seems that this is starting to catch on in other places, Disney races of course are notorious for this and RnR does have something similiar but its 3 of its races within a years time.
So when I signed up for the half (2014), I also signed up for the 5K because well, its cool. Its simple enough (when you arent going for one two punch on time on either race or both), and well, you end up with 3 blingy bling blings!
My approach was simple from the start: I would run as slow as possible, walk a lot and just finish the 3.1 Easy enough. All I knew was that I didn't want to do anything out of the ordinary to make me even have the SLIGHTEST bit of soreness for the start of the half the very next day.
Going into it honestly I was actually going for something like 36:00
Thats 12min miles ish, and I could walk a lot, and still finish probably before half of the people since the 5K draws, for the majority, groups of students, a lot of walkers, newer runners and generally those that just want to be a part of marathon weekend somehow.
My friend and I got to downtown around 7ish, race was at 8, parked CLOSE for FIVE DOLLARS!!! and walked on over. Went inside the Four Seasons to pee...
And then it was time to start. The weather was PERFECT. Cool to me, freezing to most. Figured since it was only 3.1 miles, I could wear a thicker long sleeve and shorts and not burn up. I was thinking I was going to walk a lot more than I did given my overall goal.
Honestly I should have worn a thinner long sleeve because I did in fact get warm.
Well to make could be a long story, not long at all, but short: I did it much faster than I intended. It is VERY hard (at least for me apparently) to not want to 'race'.
I kept looking at my Garmin saying oh shit, oh shit, going too fast. You have to run tomorrow too...slow down. Walk. So what I would do is just stop and walk, watch the pace on my Garmin until it hit a certain point and then go again. Hoping that walking would slow me down when I started up again.
Eh whatever. I felt good and so what if I was a bit out of it the next day?! FTR I wasnt out of it at all. Under fed and under rested yes but that wasnt because of the 5K. :)
So I ended up finishing in 32:45 which obviously is a lot slower than normal for me, but it was easy and like I said, I just wanted the 3.1 recorded, my 5K medal and then I would qualify for the Double Medal after finishing the half on Sunday.
I thought it was a great little route too. You basically run about 1.5 miles down to if I remember correctly close to 59/Smith maybe?? Turn left, go a block, turn left again and you are on your way back. There is the right turn to take you to the finish same as with the full and half as all 3 races share the same Finish line.
Super fun little 5K! I will definitely do this double race weekend for as long as Houston Marathon has the option.
Stay tuned for the half marathon recap and NEW COURSE REVIEW!!
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| About 400m into it, my friend snapped this photo |
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| Approaching the finish; another shot from my friend. I was running 9:13 in this last bit but I look like I'm crawling! |
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| #shwings HAD to show you those on my running shoes :O) You know me, glittering it up any way I can!!! |
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