Austin Half Marathon - Run


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Austin, Texas
United States
The Austin Marathon Foundation, Inc.
37F / 3C
Sunny
Total Time = 2h 30m
Overall Rank = /
Age Group =
Age Group Rank = 0/
Pre-race routine:

Usual
Woke 4:00am
Drank liter of gatorade
PB&J english muffin
Arrived at Race Site 5:30am for 7:00 start
At 6:45, took vanilla bean gu and water
Event warmup:

Ran to the start line (5 blocks from my car)
Run
  • 2h 30m 10s
  • 13.1 miles
  • 11m 28s  min/mile
Comments:

Ran with Sam, who I haven't run with before except in training. She was a great running partner!
What would you do differently?:

Pack warm clothes in drop bag (or put in trunk to retrieve after race)
Post race
Warm down:

walked back to car, stretched a little bit.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

Not enough long distance training beforehand. And locked bathrooms when I needed one.

Event comments:

The start line was chaos. I guess it started on time although I get the sense it was a little late (I didn't have on a watch). Spectators were mixed among runners, runners were not grouped properly according to ability (slow people up in front, for instance), no consideration for the safety of runners behind you (clothing/water bottles/etc tossed in the path of runners, who could not see these hazards due to the massive crowd), there were plenty of water stops, but First water stop didn't have enough volunteers -- there was a wait to get a cup of water, the bathrooms at Austin High which are NEVER locked, were locked, and couldn't even use a bush cause some pervert was peeking over the bridge above. I was familiar with the course as I had ran it twice before, so I knew how to react to the hills. There were plenty of cheering spectators and music on first part of the course, but we could have used some musical encouragement after Mile 9, too. The finish area was also confusing -- I heard the name of a marathon finisher (someone I hadn't seen in years) and tried to get over to see him, but they wouldn't let me and shoooooed me back in the finishers holding pen. I didn't get to see him. I didn't know it till later but if you left the food area, you couldn't get back in. Fortunately I had taken two bananas but if I'd decided I wanted a bagel, I would have been SOL. Race 'packet' was a joke, a useless white cotton tee, a minicliff bar and a single serving of rice. There were some positives: WEATHER!!!!! parking was decent (arriving at 5:30), although I'd like to have gotten a closer spot since I had to schlep the food table to the team tent after I ran half a marathon, the fireworks ROCKED!!! The voluteers that were in attendance worked their tails off. They just needed more of them (at least at the first water stop)It was also nice to run on the roads with no car traffic exhaust to breathe.




Last updated: 2007-02-19 12:00 AM
Running
02:30:10 | 13.1 miles | 11m 28s  min/mile
Age Group: 0/
Overall: 0/
Performance: Good
Course: slightly uphill for first 1.5 miles, then downhill, uphill at mile 4, loop-de-loo at mile 5, uphill at Veteran's mile 6, porta potty stop at Deep Eddy, Fairly flat mile 7 and 8, then uphill at Enfield to Mile 9 and rolling hills thereafter. Significant uphill (Steep) at Windsor/Mopac, then another slight incline after the 24th/Windsor split, downhill on Enfield, uphill at mile 12, another slight incline to Capitol, all downhill from there! Garmin froze up around Congress again....
Keeping cool Good Drinking Just right
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall: Good
Mental exertion [1-5] 3
Physical exertion [1-5] 3
Good race? Yes
Evaluation
Course challenge Just right
Organized? No
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? No
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities: Average
Race evaluation [1-5] 2