Room For Improvement

Although Mike and I are both quite pleased with our times and DID meet our goals(!) we were quick to recognize several areas of both immediate and long term improvement:

1: the morning of: upon a 6am awakening, we headed out the door at about 6:20 for what yahoo.maps figured was a 45 minute drive, getting us to the Woodlands well before 8:00 race time. wrong turn after wrong turn, stopping to ask for directions, and then an overall re-trace of steps kept us in the car for a grand total of 90 minutes getting us at the registration desk at 7:53. We turned in our dollars, picked up a clipboard and walked toward the starting line with the paperwork in our hands so we could hear the instructions for the race. the registration lady followed us over, took the papers as soon as we signed, we did some high knees, stretched our calves, asked our neighbors when and where we needed to make the turns on the trail, and literally off we went. Implications of all of this: no warm up AND we were stressed out by the time we got there.

2: both of us were sick within the last 7 days.

3: both of us started at ground zero only 3 months ago (mike) and about 2.5 months ago (me), and we are both going to continue training... with really no end in sight!! :)

4: we didn't know the trail we were running, which happens to be a great trail, but tricky in it's lay out. As soon as you head out of the parking lot in which it starts, the next 2 miles or so seem to be completely straight (away from the start). Mike and I both remember thinking 'are we EVER going to turn back home?!?!'... and so both of us made conscious decisions to be careful in our pacing because we thought we were still less than half way done. what's more, neither of us knew where the mile markers were... I was looking and didn't see them and Mike didn't even know they existed :) so a little trail-knowledge should go a long way for the next one...

We're excited to head back to The Woodlands the second weekend in June!

~chrissy
(good job today, Mike! it was SO fun running 'with' you :) can't wait for the next one!)