Our first half marathon of 2010! With the San Antonio Rock n Roll and the Dallas White Rock half marathons behind us, we decided to take it easy in January and save our bodies for Austin…and we are glad we did! While Austin’s route was very hilly, it didn’t slow Isis down as she PR’d. We’ll get to that later though.
Our weekend started out with a drive down I-35 and into Austin for the expo. The expo was really well done and several vendors were represented. We especially liked the 26 Miles for 26 Charities section. Packet pickup was a breeze and we enjoyed the backpack that all participants received. It is always a nice change up from a t-shirt and we were betting that we would be picking up our finisher tech tees in less than 24 hours. We knew that a lot of tweeps were going to be running Austin and were able to meet up with @OperationJack, @BeMadThen, @KrysTheilen, and @LadySuann. The highlight of the expo was the chance to sample the new flavors of Athletes Honey Milk and pick up our team AHM shirts co-branded with our logos! We’re not sure what all we can tell you except we can’t wait for the new Athletes Honey Milk flavors to hit the stores. They were great tasting and are even offering some in a lower-carb version. We wrapped up the event by chatting with our good friend Anders Porter who was running his first half marathon at Austin.
We headed back to our hotel and decided to play it safe and eat somewhere close…this turned out to be a big mistake. Unfamiliar with the area, we didn’t want to try gamble on something new and ended up going into Macaroni Grill. 45-minute wait. That wasn’t bad. Still gave us plenty of time to eat and take it easy back at the hotel. One hour and forty-five minutes later we sat down at our table. After we ate, we headed back to the hotel and were ready for some relaxation.
Unfortunately relaxation is not what we found. Our hotel was running a special for the Austin Marathon runners, but neglected to inform everyone that they were having a large banquet the night before the race. Most of the time that wouldn’t be a big deal, but when you have an atrium-styled hotel and the banquet is going on in the middle, it sounded like a sporting event was right outside our door. We did our normal “night before race” routine and went to bed…where we layed awake until the banquet ended just after midnight. Great…four hours of sleep for the race.
The next morning we were up early and headed down to the starting line. Luckily there was a Starbucks near that we ducked in to stay warm. We met up with @KrysTheilen, @Ambykins, and @YutaY and headed to our start area. It was a little chilly, but we knew we were going to warm up quick. What we didn’t realize is that we were going to be experiencing some major hills. We have always heard that the Austin 3M course was a PR race, but this course route was not the “all downhill” route we had heard of. Needless to say, we have paid close attention to the course elevation maps for all future races.
The good thing about hills…their is usually a downhill and we really enjoyed the downhill sections of this course. Our quads were burning by the time we reached the finish and the “Hill from Hell” at Mile 12 certainly didn’t help. We did have a lot of fun on the course although there were several sections with no spectators. We were hoping that a great town as Austin would bring a little more excitement to the course. The water stations on the course were well done, but did not have electrolyte drinks until after mile 8. The view was great as we rounded the capital and heading to the finish line. We knew we had a great time as we crossed the finish line and ran into a crowd of people…literally. The finish area was so backed up that runners behind us were having a tough time crossing the finish line. We have never seen anything like it. They had crammed the food, finisher shirts, and medals so close to the finish line that it created a real mess. After battling the crowd we met up with Anders and Jake to partake in our favorite recovery drink, Athletes Honey Milk and talk about the course. We were also able to meet up with one of our tweeps, @hendy as we waited for others to cross the finish line.
Mediocre food + 4 hours of sleep + hills = PR? It does for Isis!
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