Austin Half-Marathon

0jeff • 17th Feb 2010 • exercise • running

So I ran the Austin Half-Marathon this past Sunday.  It was a pretty anti-climactic run for me.  I would suspect that 99% of the people out there would be happy finishing a half-marathon.  I sure know I was when I did my first one at 3M a few years ago.  I was also happy about San Antonio this past November even though I didn’t have a great run there.  Austin felt like a disappointment to me this year.

I think the main reason is that I fully expected to run the full again this year.  I trained for it.  Mentally, it’s what I wanted to do.  The foot injury in December just killed the possibility and I never really adjusted my expectations.  It’s not like I showed up, started the full, and then bailed at the split.  I never intended to run the full that day; I started knowing that I would run the half.  It’s hard to describe, but it just feels like a little bit of a let down.

I actually had a decent run with all things considered.  After the month off from the foot, my longest run was on y 7 miles.  Sunday, I had an awesome first 8 miles.  I had the pleasure of running with Mark K.; a running buddy that I hadn’t run with since San Antonio.  He’s a lot stronger than I am, and it felt like having my own personal pacer .  Mark helped me go out nice and slow for the first 3.5 miles.  Those are uphill the entire way.

Once we hit 3.5, it’s downhill through mile 7.  We absolutely flew through that section and it didn’t even really phase me.  Mile 8 was so-so just because of the hill going up Veterans Drive.  It’s short, but really steep.  That took a lot out of me and the doubts began to creep in about finishing the run strong.  Mile 9 was what I’d call average.  At mile 10, I bonked.

Coming up to the 10-mile marker, the course turns off Lake Austin Blvd and onto Enfield.  Literally at that turn, the hills start and they just don’t let up.  All things considered, it’s no surprise that this is where I fell apart.  With a long run of only 7 miles and no real hill training to speak of, I should have expected.  It was still a letdown when it happened.

I walked off and on the rest of the way in.  Mainly walking up the hills and running down the backs of them.  Once we got close to the capitol building I was at least able to run the rest of the way in.  My official time was a 2:15:48.  That’s about 5 minutes faster than San Antonio, but 15 minutes slower than my PR of 2:00:05.  That’s another point of angst when I run the half-marathon distance.  I set that PR on my very first race of any kind ever.  I haven’t sniffed it in an official race of that distance since then.  It always just rubs me the wrong way.

The day wasn’t all bad though.  Just about everyone I ran with set a PR for their marathon distance which is totally awesome.  I also had a friend (Hi, K.C.!) that finished her first half-marathon.  She didn’t really train for it like she wanted to, but still got through it to the end.  The Austin Half course is really hilly and it’s a pretty big accomplishment to get through it like she did.

The next big thing for me will be the Texas Independence Relay on March 6-7.  There will be 10 of us running from Gonzales, TX to the San Jacinto Monument in Houston which is about 203 miles.  We start on Saturday and run non-stop until we finish sometime Sunday.  It’s going to be a lot of fun and we can’t wait to do it.

After TIR I’m really going to concentrate on dropping some weight over the summer.  I’m at 239 pounds right now.  At 6′ 2″ that puts me about 40-45 pounds overweight.  My goal right now is to drop 20 pounds by the time we start running again in August.  If I’m making good progress by July, I’m going to sign up to run the Houston Marathon in January 2011.  I’ll train for Austin, but I’m not sure I’ll make it since it’s just 2 weeks after Houston.  Only time will tell, but at this point I’m really dedicated to dropping it.

I can’t wait to start running again later this week!