Houston Half - a race to forget - 1:22:12

72 degrees, 93% humidity. Ughh. I knew I wasn't going to run a particularly fast time in these conditions, but I didn't think it was going to be quite so bad. I planned to go out in 5:55 - 6:00 pace and I thought I could hold that pace. I started out at what I thought was a fairly easy pace and thought all the people going out really hard were going to crash and burn. 3 miles into the race I was right at 18:00 and I knew I was going to struggle to hold 6:00 pace. My legs felt real sluggish and I guess the 10 mile race two weeks ago, the Hillie Billie relay, and all my training caught up with me. I caught a few guys by mile 7, but I was running 6:10 plus miles and pretty much quit racing hard at that point. I didn't want to get injured and I wasn't going to have a stellar time or place. If Suzanne and Olivia hadn't been coming down to the finish, I probably would have just stopped at Memorial Park and jogged home. I had passed Tom King and John Hill, but they both passed me back and I just didn't really have the motivation to try to push it and stay with them. Andrew Sharenson caught me shortly after the turnaround too and had a pretty good race in these conditions. The last 5 miles I was just running it like the end of a Kenyan Way long run except usually on those runs I finish with my fastest miles instead of my slowest. I finished in just over 1:22. It was an ugly day, but I got a decent training run out of it and didn't injure myself. I was able to do a pretty good job grabbing fluids at the aid stations which I always seem to struggle with and need some practice for the marathon in January. I'm not sure what my next race will be, but I'll try to run a race or two in November and December before the marathon in January.