Saturday, October 28, 2017

The Colony Half Marathon and Green Dragon 5 milers

The big day for local running community was here, October 28th, 2017, The Colony Half Marathon and Green Dragon 5 milers. It would be a clear but cold day due to a strong cold front moving to North Texas the previous day.

We arrived at the Sparks Park at Colony by Lake Lewisville ~ 7:15am for the race; Lily for half Marathon, and I for the 5 milers.  It was still dark and freezing cold (36F). I wore long running pants and long under shirt with gloves. Lily decided to wear shorts with added underwear.

For the race, my target was to complete the 5 miles in 50 minutes ( my average pace), and stretch goal was to reach 48 minute completion (a personal best), Lily's goal was to complete the half Marathon within 2 hours.

picture together before the race started
Before the race, a high school student sang the national anthem, a volunteer carried the national flag by her side on the stage. People stood with a hand by the chest while she sang and cheered loudly as she completed the anthem.
national anthem
The half marathon started ahead of the 5 milers at 8:06 am after a 6 minute delay due to the power outage to the inflated starting gate. The 5 milers started 10 minutes later. There were a lot more runners for the half marathon than for the 5 milers.

The first 5 miles of the both races used exactly the same route, in the neighborhood by the park. The half marathon added 8 miles by lake Lewisville. 

The half marathon trail

Half Marathon started
I started the run at a relatively fast pace, 5:30m/km, but after 1 mile or so I started to feel discomfort in my right knee area, and slowed down substantially in my 2nd and 3 rd mile, many runners in the 5 miler group, young and old, slim and plump, passed me. During this tough section,  I was pleasantly surprised to hear the cheers from 3 cheerleader teams lined at different sections of the 5 mile route. They did cheer me up!! And  I stopped to take a picture of them.

As the discomfort eased, I picked up speed and started to pass runners, in fact many of the runners were walking then. I actually ran as fast for the last kilometer as my first,. I finished the 5 miles in 50 minutes!  55 minutes later Lily crossed the finish line in 1 hour 55 minutes. She achieved new personal records in 1 mile, 5km, 10km and half marathon

It was a beautiful day, and a great experience for our first long distance race. 

local middle school cheerleaders cheering for the runners
Lily crossing the finish line

picture together after the race
a corner of lake Lewisville




Note:

1. A colleague of mine lives by Lewisville lake along lake shore trail, he actually erected a sign to cheer me up!!

2. There were many Chinese-American participated the race - my estimated number  20 ~ 30, this compared with one in 2016 race (by reading online running record)

3. Lily found out that my official time was 1:06 minute - 16 minutes slower than my recorded time. It seems that when the inflated gate was down, I passed the chip reader (the black strip on the ground). Our guess was that my chip was read at that time, 6 minutes ahead of half marathon start time, 16 minutes ahead 5 miler start time!!






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