New milestone passed - Bear Chase Half Marathon 2008

I am happy to report that I accomplished this goal and have as a result, passed another milestone in my life. Unfortunately, Jeff was not able to participate, so I did it alone. The night before, I got everything together to rapidly leave the house early the next morning. I did not sleep well. I got up at 4:15AM on Saturday and could not find my short-sleeved running shirt. So I found a substitute. I had my long sleeve shirt in my carrying bag also. I have learned to carry a bag with me to a race and check it in when I am ready to begin the race. The weather turned out to be chilly - 47 degrees. I arrived at the starting point at 6:15AM. The school was not easy to find in this little town, but a policeman gave me directions. This was the first annual Bear Chase Marathon. Participants came from several countries including UK and several states as far away as Washington. I met one runner from Georgia in the shower afterwards who told me that he was on vacation and plans his vacations with marathon stops. He said this was an easy race and flat.

The truth is there was more than 300 feet of elevation change on the course. Although there were only a few places where the hills were of any significance, one had to run on an incline for long long distances. That proved to me to be a challenge. The beginning of the course was a 1-mile sandy road, leaving the football stadium at the high school. That connected to a small two-lane country highway where you pass farms (you could hear the cows) and country homes. Here were the long climbs and descents. Alongside the highway were many colorful wildflowers. This led to the Davy Crockett State Park, part of the Big Thicket forest of East Texas. About 4 miles on this road, we came to a gravel and dirt road for the third segment. This is where person can really enjoy the forest. The trees are huge and the forest is thick. This segment was about 1.5 miles in with a turnaround and 1.5 miles back.

I finished within my goal of 2 hours in the 58th position. The theme was you are "chasing" a bear (or as the emblem implies, being chased). It was a very organized but relaxed race environment. Some contestants walked a large part of it. The course was open for 7 hours. Near the end, about at the 12 mile point, I drank some Gatorade passed out by the youngsters helping at the odd mile markers. I started to have side cramps and not feeling well. I had to slow down and overcome the problem. I did, and by the time I entered the stadium I was running at a pretty good pace. On entering the stadium, we ran an entire lap, sort of a victory lap where your name, city and placement was announced over the speaker system. Each contestant had their name posted on the rails of the track with a congratulations on completing the run. We got to bring those back as a souvenir. As each person crossed the finish line, the announcer congratulated him on finishing the race. A bear with your finishing number and a medal was awarded to each contestant crossing the finish line. The organizers had some small refreshments to help them recover. That was perfect for me. Then a bit later, they served hot dogs and chips. They had a small town festival at noon; we were invited to stay, but I had already committed my time to work in our own small town festival here in The Woodlands, "Earth Day".

The really good news is that I had no shin splint pain at all and no injuries. One participant fell during the race and had blood on his face as I passed him in the forest. But he was going to run anyway!

Statistics
58th of 149 runners or 39th percentile of all age groups
4th of 5 from The Woodlands
3rd of 8 in my age group
Time achieved: 1:57:44 Pace: 9 mi/min
Time Goal: 2:00:00