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Islander Ray wins first race in warm-up series
By Bernice Torregrossa
Contributor
Published October 31, 2009
Galveston resident Autumn Ray ran off with the women’s title at the Luke’s Locker/Koala Half Marathon on Sunday, winning the 13.1-mile race in one hour, 23 minutes and 48 seconds. The race was the first in a series of three races, increasing 5 kilometers each time, in the warm-up series for January’s Chevron Houston Marathon.
Ray, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Texas Medical Branch, averaged 6:24 per mile on the two-loop course, leading the field of more than 1,100 women and finishing 30th overall in a field of 2,474 running the half marathon.
“I was feeling good going into it,” Ray said. “At the start of the race, everyone was saying that it wasn’t a PR day, but I thought it might be. About halfway through, though, it started getting warmer, and it was really humid.”
Ray’s pace fell off slightly in the second half of the race, but she still managed to widen the gap between her and second-place women’s finisher Heidy Lozano.
“I didn’t have the day I had hoped for, but I did what I could,” Ray said.
She plans to skip the rest of the warm-up series, concentrating instead on preparing for the California International Marathon in December.
Ray, the winner of the past two New Orleans Marathons, has clocked a 2:57 personal best at the distance, and the point-to-point course in cooler California weather should offer an opportunity to lower that time.
The warm-up series continues Nov. 8 with the Houston Masters Sports Association 25K, held on a similar course in downtown Houston.
The 25K, which completes three loops, also features a three-person relay. Registration for the 25K and the person-person relay is open at houstonmasters.org.
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