Warming up for the Chevron Houston Marathon
If experience is indeed the best teacher, Houston runners preparing for the Chevron Houston Marathon on Jan. 19 are in luck.
The area offers a unique chance for on-the-road practice with the Warm-Up Series. The races, spaced roughly a month apart, are staged by three local running clubs under the auspices of the Houston Area Road Runners Association.
First is the Houston Half Marathon and Relay on Sunday, presented by the Houston Striders. That event will be followed by the Houston Masters Sports Association’s Classical 25K on Dec. 1 and the Fort Bend Kia 30K in Sugar Land on Dec. 15.
“Whether it’s your first marathon or your 15th, it’s the perfect way to build up your race distance,” says Ron Morgan, a local running activist and fan of the series. Morgan, who was formerly president of HARRA, says he knows of no other city in the country that offers an opportunity designed to prepare runners for a particular marathon.
The series was the brainchild of Tom and Mary Anne McBrayer, pioneers of Houston’s running scene. Mary Anne McBrayer said the idea was launched in 1986 as a way of of drawing more runners to three existing long-distance races — 20K, 25K and 30K respectively — scattered throughout the calendar.
“And it certainly did that in just the first year. We were amazed at the participation increase,” she said. The race fields jumped from several hundred into the thousands.
In 2007, the Houston Striders lengthened their event from 12.6 miles to 13.1 to capitalize on the half marathon’s exploding popularity. This year, the event will host the Road Runners Club of America’s Half Marathon
Championships and include an expo race weekend.
Unlike the national elites who will race the half marathon, runners training for the Chevron Houston Marathon should approach each event with their current level of fitness in mind, says former Olympic marathon runner and Kenyan Way coach Sean Wade.
“You should treat the warmup race as a practice to what you will do come marathon morning in January — from the gear you wear, the food you eat race morning, your ability to fuel during the race and the pace you run,” Wade says.
Remember your ultimate goal: the January marathon.
“The longer the warm-up race, the more dangerous it is if it’s run too hard,” Wade says. You can either get hurt or be out of gas come marathon time.”
Andy Stewart, who has been the race director of the 30K in Sugar Land since its inception 32 years ago, says the 18.6 mile event is ideal for giving runners a realistic idea of what their pace will be on marathon day.
“I consider us like the final exam before the marathon. It’s been a reality check for a lot of people over the years.”