Negative split

On a whim Friday I went to my local running store and registered for Saturday’s Rodeo Run 10, the one-year anniversary of the first race I’d ever run. CLH is out of town, I had no arrangements to meet friends at the start or finish line, and I hadn’t even really trained for it, having slacked a bit on my running since the half marathon, but it’s a fun race, starting at a breezy 9:30 a.m., and the weather was perfect yesterday. I even got a bit of a sunburn.

A month ago I signed up for Kenyan Way so I could discipline myself into working on my speed and endurance. Mostly speed. My goal n the race this year was to beat my time from last year, but my real goal, my secret goal, was to come in in under an hour. That didn’t happen. Here’s what did:

I never don’t get emotional at the start of a race. I never don’t cry at the end. I have a hard time starting off slow — the tendency is to flow with everyone around you, to keep pace when people are trying to pass you. One of the key rules of Kenyan Way is the negative split — start off slow, reserve your energy for the last few miles of the race. EVERY RUN, whether it’s two miles or ten, should be a negative split. I was conservative. I went to the very back of the pack, the 11-minute milers, so I wouldn’t feel the pressure of people passing me. And when I crossed the starting line, I had to go slow, sluggishly slow, because I made up my mind I was not going to stop. I was not going to walk.

Two miles into the race, the route goes over a long, sloping bridge called the Elysian Viaduct. In the middle, the viaduct sags where the columns hold it up over Buffalo Bayou. So the viaduct is two hills, one large and one small. Four miles into the race, at the north end of the viaduct, the route turnes around, and crosses the viaduct again, in the other direction. Four hills, the hardest one the last.

At that turnaround point I stopped for my first water break, four miles into a six mile run, and I walked a few feet while hydrating, and after that point, I was on. I ascended that final hill, WHOOO HOOOED as loud as I could, and hit the gas. My final mile was my fastest, less than nine minutes. I crossed the finish line at 1:03:46, three minutes and ten seconds faster than my time last year.