I ran the half marathon portion of this race and really enjoyed it. Wait. It was 37°, rainy and windy. How can you enjoy that? Well, when you run your fastest half to date, you tend to enjoy it! The half is an out and back, starting and ending in Temple, turning around at Belton Lake Dam. It’s not too hilly, just a couple, but the dam is a bit of a surprise if you don’t run hills. It’s not hilly in Houston, but I have been doing hillwork on the bridges down here and that helped a lot! I thought the expo was awesome, but this was my first race with an expo, so I didn’t have anything to judge it against. I went with my niece, and since she is a military spouse, and active in the community, we got a few free extra cool goodies, like bags and tech shirts. The shuttle situation wasn’t ideal. We got there later than we wanted, and just happened to catch the shuttle to get to the race around 6:30 am or so. Luckily very few others had gotten there with us, so there were no lines at the porta potties. I know there were half participants getting to the start line almost an hour and a half later. I was really really worried about the weather on race day. I don’t run in weather like that, as we don’t have a lot of super cold days here, and wasn’t sure if I was prepared. But I did warm up around mile 6, and even took off the jacket they handed out before the race. I thought it was cool that all the water stops had gels and snacks too, but that was probably more for the marathoners. Of course we got to share in that as well, and it was all very welcome! There weren’t a ton of volunteers, but that was okay. The ones that were out there were awesome! Bless them for standing out in that weather! I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t any free hot food after the race. They had breakfast burritos for sale, but I sure didn’t want to stand in line in the cold for to pay for food. Maybe I’m cheap, but all the other races longer than 5k that I have participated in have all had free hot food after… Unfortunately the bad weather didn’t allow us to stay and look around at the Vietnam War memorabilia, and info. I am sad about that, but I was so cold, I was literally shaking. A spectator let me borrow his blanket while we were waiting for the shuttle bus, and I had medical personnel asking if I was okay. I was. Just cold. I did get to run with a Vietnam Veteran, and tell shake his hand and tell him thank you. That was awesome. And being a proud member of Team Red, White and Blue, and running with my niece who is an Army wife, it was awesome to run this race! I plan on running my first marathon next year at this race. It may or may not be warmer, but I will be prepared better next year! I may not run a 3:30 marathon like Mike C, but I will finish!
Mike C.
Classificação do local: 4 Romeoville, IL
Historically, on the first Sunday of March, temperatures are around 40 degrees at the start of the race and around 60 degrees at the finish. For 2015, it was the exception… a constant 35 degrees and light rain made this a not so perfect race… but I had to run in these conditions… what can you do. The expo was super small. No real free giveaways or anything. Most of the booths were military related, military banking, veteran organizations doing charity, etc. A few booths sold some race gear, shoes, and nutrition. The Army Marathon course is a point-to-point marathon. You start at the Convention Center in Killeen and head east for about 26 miles until you finish at Temple. The half marathon and 5clicks route start and finish at Temple. The course was very scenic. Lots of grass and field. But there were a lot of hills too, maybe 5 major ones, especially the mile 17 – 18 where you start to see a lot of runners pulling back, so the only thing you can tell them… is that they’re almost done. Volunteers were awesome. Ironically, I saw more Marines than Army folks. Crowd support were pretty cool, handing out oranges and bananas. Since this was a relatively small race, the volunteers and spectators were pretty sparse, so you just have to keep your mind occupied somewhere else for long periods of time. At the end of the race, they handed out the medals, warming jacket, and some more goodies and they gave transportation back to Killeen if you parked there. I recommend staying in at the Shilo Inn since it is literally right next to the start line. Note to self in 2015: 3:30:09
