Austin Marathon 2008

This was around mile 8 - the pain had not yet set in.
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It must have been back in October or so when I thought what a great idea it would be to run one last marathon before I left for Central America... but then the dentist took the gas mask off and I came to my senses.  Unfortunately, by that time I'd already registered and paid the entry fee for myself - so I guess it was on.

So apparently in Austin, the route planners convened and decided that 26.2 miles wasn't hard enough - they needed something to create even more havoc and pain.  And so they created the 2008 course - through 18 miles of rolling hills.  And we're not talking Dallas "hills" (term must be used loosely in the land of "I-think-I-can-see-the-curvature-of-the-earth"), but rather hills that ascend for over a mile and make grown men cry at mile 12.

A 26.2 mile tour of Austin

Aaron finishing in record time - he got a 20 minute PR on a hilly course.
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And... I signed up for it.  Willingly.  And luckily - I got to share my pain with Aaron (although he cleverly opted for the half marathon).  Our training went really well.  Dallas has a great city park around White Rock Lake that is about 9.3 miles around and we would run it every Saturday morning (or Saturday afternoon if Aaron was planning the run).  As the run approached, I tagged on a few miles at the beginning and end, and eventually was running it twice without problems.  My longest training run was 22 miles around the lovely, flat, no hills, White Rock Lake.  I knew that Austin was in Texas' Hill Country and planned on training for hills at the beginning of February - but I caught a nasty cold that sidelined that training.  And so - Aaron and I blissfully headed down to Austin on Saturday, February 16th to enjoy a cool little city for the last time for a long time.

I don't remember this part of the course...
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We actually didn't do too much on Saturday.  Knowing that we had a big race on Sunday - we went the the race expo and picked up our race packets, had a beer on Fifth Street (at Darwin's Pub - not a great place, but fit our less-than-prohibitive requirement of selling beer), and got dinner at a nearby Bennigan's.  I really wanted a carb-loaded meal on the night before the race, but every Italian place downtown had a 2 hour wait.  Guess we weren't the only marathoners to think of that idea.  After dinner, we had another beer at the Gingerman on Fifth and headed back to our dumpy hotel.

The start line at 7am - State Capitol in the background.
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The next morning we headed to Congress Avenue downtown for the start of the race.  I was actually getting a little nervous because I really wanted to do well on this marathon since I'd trained so hard.  When the shotgun and fireworks went off I said goodbye to Aaron - knowing that his pace is typically fast enough to lap mine and set off on my 26.2 mile tour of Austin.  Unusually for a marathon, it was fairly crowded for the first 8 or 9 miles - races usually seem to clear out around mile 3 or 4.  So there was a lot of legs and swishing arms to dodge for the first quarter of the race.  I had made the difficult decision to not run with my beloved iPod since I knew they'd have bands at every mile.  However, for the "Live Music Capital of the World" these "bands" were pretty sketch.  Not that some 50 year old guy on a guitar with a microphone didn't inspire and kindle the hidden stores of energy - but I guess I expected more.  The bands did get progressively better as the miles went on, however.

I'd say the biggest problem with the race was the lack of outhouses.  There were 2 at every mile.  And when you're sharing 52 outhouses with 12,000 people, things tend to get a little backlogged.  I remember needing to find an outhouse at mile 7 - but there was a 10 person line.  So I went on to mile 8, where the line was about 12 people.  I thought, well, I can just make one more mile.  So come mile 9 - I had to step aside.  The line was only about 4 people (all women, for some strange reason), so it turned out alright.  Well, it would have been alright if that had been my only stop.  But with all the water and powerade I drank - I made two more stops along the way.  I killed at least 10 minutes waiting in line - which is really tough to swallow when you've been training for a PR for the past 5 months of your life.  But there weren't a lot of alternatives (besides the bushes, that is...) so I waited in those lines.  And hey - maybe it gave my legs the rest it needed during the wait?  Just trying to be optimistic.

The hills really kicked in around mile 10.  Up, down, up, up, up, up, down, up... you get the pattern.  At mile 18 we reached the peak and got more down than up.  The problem is, marathons don't just get harder with every mile - the get exponentially harder with every mile.  So the downs didn't feel nearly as good as they would have at mile 10 - but at least they were downhills - so I can't complain.  Well, until mile 25.5 that is.  I've never heard so many adults cursing under their breath.  Just think about it - you've just run 25.5 miles, with one to go, the sun is out and blazing down on your parched, cracked skin, and your legs have gone numb to save themselves from the pain you are purposefully and repeatedly putting them through, your ears are ringing with the supporters yelling "you're almost there!!!!" (although, they've been doing that the entire race - it's just now they mean it), and your eyes have either crossed or gone blurry from fatigue and/or both, and a large, ominous hill lingers right before your eyes.  I heard things that would make my mother blush.  To be honest, I don't really remember the last two miles of the race.  I know we ran through the UT campus, I know there was an absurdly placed hill, I know I was really, really hot and thirsty - but I just wanted to find the finish line.  And finally - I did.  4 hours and 43 minutes after those first, naive steps across the start line.

And there was Aaron.  Beer in hand.  He had finished the half in 1 hour 40 minutes (about a 7.5 minute/mile pace!).  He'd finished, walked around a bit, taken a nap, hit the beergarden, and come to the finish line to watch me finish.  He was also kind enough to help me sit down and stand back up for the next few days too - a task that I couldn't have completed on my own.

So after the race, we headed back to our dingy hotel, cleaned ourselves off, and took the single most incredible nap in the entire world.  And then we hit the town!

Our first stop was Hut's Hamburgers for the biggest, juiciest, most fattening menu we could find.  Then we walked along Fifth Avenue for awhile hitting up a couple bars and testing the local brews.  We even headed to the riverfront around dusk to watch the sunset.  Around 9pm we went to see a blues show at Antone's (213 W. Fifth St - a must if you are in Austin).  Antone's is known around the state as the best blues hall (where Stevie Ray Vaughn got his start!).  We had a few beers at the show, but we both started to poop out early, so headed back to our hotel around midnight.

Austin is a cool town - but the traffic was a beating.  Any time of day or night, you can get stuck in bumper-to-bumper.  We were at a standstill at 1:30pm on a Saturday.  But the live music, bars along Fifth and Sixth, and old-school feel probably make up for all that.  Or you can just avoid the traffic and run around the entire thing like we did...