We got to San Marcos around 10pm last night and stayed up visiting a little past midnight. I woke up at 6am with cotton mouth. I laid in bed debating on running today or tomorrow. Next weekend is my last race of my training season so I have to get my long run in this weekend. I figure tonight we will go out and that would make waking up tomorrow even harder. While debating I fell back asleep. I woke up again at 7:30am and it was cloudy outside. I put on my running gear and filled up my water bottle. At 7:45am I was out the door.
My marathon training plan called for 8 miles today but I wanted to 10 to 12 miles. San Marcos is very hilly so I just set out to do 8-12 based on how I felt. The first quarter mile there was an 80 ft elevation change. I powered up the hill slowly and thought, "How am I going to manage these hills?" There was another 45 feet of elevation change over rolling hills up to the 1 mile mark. From there the next 3 mile was downhill losing 230 ft of elevation. At mile 2 I was near the town square but I decided to do the other direction to explore the town. I ended up on San Antonio and it was a Historic neighborhood with other joggers and walkers. It was only a mile long so I made a turn but it was a dead end and I back tracked and turned into another neighborhood that was quite the contrast. I ended up on a road that was closed due to what seemed to be a monthly trash drop-off with trucks and cars lined up to dump their junk. That was mile 4 and I headed toward the town square.
I made a pit stop at Jack in the Box at mile 5. Then I decided to head east on Hopkins. I was about to cross a pedestrian bridge where I noticed stairs leading down to a trail along the river. I jogged along the clean spring fed water until I came upon a park full of families setting up chairs, grills, and canopies. I reached dead end along the trail at some train tracks so I turned around. I got back on Hopkins towards the busy shopping center part of town. I ran up to the HEB store and turned on Thorpe and decided I need a walk break and a gel pack. It was very humid and in the mid 60s and at some points it was almost misty. I got back on pace and found a trash can to toss my empty gel wrapper.
I was at 7.5 miles and my shirt was beginning to rub my chest so I took it off. I have only run without a shirt once before at 5am in the dark alone. Running in daylight towards a college campus felt liberating. Half a mile later a railroad crossing came down ahead of me so I took a right but I got stuck at another crossing. Luckily it was an AMTRAK train so it was only 3 cars long and I never stopped moving. I headed back towards my sisters house. At mile 8.5 I started back up the huge hill where I began heading up North LBJ from Sessom Dr. Over the next 1.5 miles I gained 230ft in elevation slowing me down to a 12 min pace as I trotted uphill. What a great way to end a long run. I got to the top of the hill at 9.9mi so I decided to enjoy the downhill losing 115 ft in a quarter mile and getting up to a 5:40 pace. I finished 10.26mi in 1:43:35. When I got back nobody was up yet. I was worried my run might cut into visiting time.
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