Austin City Limits

The Austin Half Marathon is but three days away! This will be the third time in five years I've ended the Winter distance running "season" with the Austin Half. It hasn't always been the best of race courses, but it's Austin, the crown jewel of Texas' big cities, so it's worth the trip.

In preparation, I decided to run on Tuesday. Honestly, Tuesday was more of an effort to make sure I wasn't giving in to my left foot after, what I'll call, "the needle incident". I met up with Felix's 5k/10k training people, but decided that instead of speed work, I would just do a loop around Memorial. The back mile was 9 minutes, and fairly comfortable from a foot point of view, so things went well. Today, I went to Memorial for a quick loop; it was to be four miles, but I got bored and called it quits after three: 10:30, 9:11, and 8:27 were the times.

So Austin, what do I expect from the run? Last year, with the weather really cold, I decided to run the race hard and see what kind of time I could do, quietly hoping to break two hours for the second time ever. To get the early miles done quickly, I blazed up the wickedly sharp, mile long hill to start the race, then ran full speed down the equally wicked backside of the hill. Though this set me up for the cramps I suffered at the end of the race, I was running to my strength (run fast early, cause I'll have nothing left at the end). Even with walking the two final hills and stopping for a calf stretch at mile 12, I still managed a second best ever time of 2:03:28. I might try a similar tactic this year (it will certainly be a similarly cold temperature!) though I might not go up that first hill quite to fast. The energy expended blazing up a hill isn't a good exchange; a poor energy to speed ratio (and then there is the late cramps it induces!). Going down the backside though, I still plan to make some serious time gains. Ultimately, half marathons are challenging, but just as they start to suck, they blissfully end! So I'll probably run fairly hard, knowing that even if I blow up, the race will come to an end before long!

There are many more running thoughts drifting about in my head, but I'll leave those for next time. Happy Valentines Day!