Austin Marathon Race Report

Okay it has taken me a really long time to get around to doing the race report. Just not motivated to write after long days at work and hours playing Mafia Wars!!!

One word can describe my experience at the Austin marathon AWESOME!!!!

I had a great time - this was probably the best marathon experience I have had. I ran the first 11 or so miles of the race with Julianne (my training partner), Jenny (my tutor), and Yun(Jenny's friend). They were all doing the half marathon. We had a good time running at a good conversational pace. This was a 20+ reunion for Jenny and I. We went to the same high school and she helped tutor my in one of my classes. She was a year older than me and had not talked after she graduated. We found out that we were both running this race through Facebook. If it had not been for Facebook I know that we would have passed by each other on that day and not had recognized each other.

So the four of us chatted the whole time and the miles just flew by. Jenny introduced me to Runner's Math. We talked about the ticket Jenny got while riding her bike, I brought up Zingerman's deli in Ann Arbor, MI where Jenny and Yun went to school. It seems as if there was some other interesting conversation topics along the way that are better off not mentioned.

We hit the half marathon split and I was feeling pretty good so far so I picked up the pace. The course has a reputation as a hilly course so I had been doing a lot of hills in my training. The hills were not nearly as bad as I have expected or as steep or prevalent as I had been training on. On the last half of the course I was running by myself and it definitely was not as much fun as the first 11 miles, but I felt really good up to about mile 24 or 25 when I hit the notorious "WALL". Typically I would start to struggle and have problems between 18 and 22 miles. I think that I could have made it the whole way without hitting the wall if I had not pushed so hard to make up time on the last half of the course.

I started to get a second wind as I approached the State Capitol grounds. As I passed the capitol building there was wall to wall people cheering us on as we approached the finish line. I got really pumped and picked up the pace with a pretty good finishing kick. I was passing many of the other runners that were also finishing at this time and I was encouraging them to pick it up and finish strong together. The approach to the finish line was also on a downhill slope, which made the finish so much better than the finish of the San Antonio marathon which has an uphill just before the finish.

I finished in 4 hours and 5 minutes, which a PR by more than 30 minutes!!! The two things that I attribute to that improvement was the weather and the hill workouts. The weather was just about perfect for running whereas San Antonio was too hot and humid. While training for this race I went out of my way to add hills to my workouts and it paid off with a huge improvement in time.

Prior to the race I did not set any time goals other than to finish and I think that made a big difference in how I ran the race. I went out to have a good time and run with my friends. Around mile 22 or 23 it was looking like I could get really close to a sub 4 hour marathon, but I just could not keep up the pace that was required.

May the Force be with you!!!

Chad