Well, the Austin Marathon is over and I’ve turned Texas into a blue state! Not politcally of course – I prefer for Texas to remain firmly in the red state column, but that’s another story (check out “Who Are We” for an explanation of the coloring).  What I mean is that I’ve successfully finished the 26.2 miles that was the Austin Marathon! So, no more suspense – I made it. I don’t want everyone wondering if I was able to complete the race.

I wasn’t exactly primed for success for this run. As you may have read below, I had a lurking IT band issue. Also, my body was definitely trying to tell me something because Friday morning, I woke up with a massive cramp in my right calf. Pure pain and anguish!. I tried then to stretch it out and take care of it, but my right calf was clearly sore both Saturday and Sunday morning. So, just something else to think about for the run.

Kathy and I got up Saturday morning and hopped a flight to Austin. We had an annoying layover in Dallas and and treated ouselves to a very mediocre lunch at the airport Chili’s. Despite that, we made it to the Austin expo at about 2 PM. First things first – get in line for the packet pickup. Austin had the rat maze set up in front of the packet pickup and unfortunately, it took about 15 minutes for me to get my number. My pickup experience is somewhat limited, but so far that is by far the longest I’ve had to wait.  They also gave out a very generic cotton T-shirt, but I was expecting that. One ‘perk’ of Austin is that you only get the technical shirt when you finish.  You can use that as a little bit of motivation along the way. The expo overall was quite good. Lot’s of give aways and they don’t fill your goody bag with a bunch of paper that you just have to throw away. They get props for that.

For me, the best part of the race expo was that Bart Yasso, Chief Running Officer at “Runners World” was there!  Yasso has run about every race there is, including the Badwater 146, an ultramarathon in Death Valley, and works with races all over to help promote both the race and “Runners World” magazine. He has written a book recently, “My Life on the Run” that is a very enjoyable read.  Unfortunately for Bart, he was there to sell books and I already had a copy.  But he took the time to help promote Team Flash. “I’ve never heard of a running team so dedicated and so fun to be a part of.”

For the record, he didn’t say that – that’s a quote from me. How Bart can stand crazies like me coming up to him all the time and gushing about this and that, I’ll never know. But he was friendly, took a good picture, and that was more than enough for me. In his book he said that he still wanted to run in the Comrades Marathon, but I forgot to ask him if he was aiming for a date – Bart if you read this think about 2010!

Now for the race. Sunday morning, up at 5:30 AM (because I don’t want to miss the start – kind of like that old Seinfeld episode with the marathon runner who overslept for his Olympic race). It took me five minutes to dress (let’s face it, running clothes and no shower make for an easy morning start) and then 55 minutes to wait around before walking over to the starting area. 2/3rds of a blueberry muffin and a 20oz regular Pepsi for breakfast and I was good to go. On the way to the start, that was all the Austin sightseeing we did. With our one day in-one day out trip policy, that’s about all the time we had.

My plan was really to use this race as a training run for the St. Louis Marathon in a couple months. So I wanted to take it easy. Hence my running plan of 9 minutes running, 1 minute walking. My goal was to cover a mile in each 10 minute interval to get me to the finish in about 4:22. Seemed like a good plan so I set the Garmin 405 with that workout. While waiting around at the start, Kathy took a shot of me.

In this picture you can see the main thing that made me heartsick for this race. My timing chip was afixed to the front of my number. It was on there with some kind of ironman adhesive. In order to get my timing chip off, I was forced to deface my number. This ruined what for me was probably the coolest number I’ll ever get in a race, #1111. Of course, I thought the race organizers used some super glue and everyone else’s number would also be ruined. But I didn’t see one other runner with a messed up number. Maybe it was operator error…

After a 10 minute race start delay, for unspecified reasons (maybe that helicopter was flying too low) the gun went off and we started moving. I positioned myself a bit behind the 4:15 marathon pace team, knowing that my run walk strategy wouldn’t let me stay with them, but thinking it would be a reasonable place from an early pacing standpoint. The start was quite crowded and it was tough to get moving, but we headed off across the bridge and on the way toward 26.2.

As an aside, I don’t mean any offense but… (Notice that whenever someone says that, they are getting ready to offend someone?) the Austin marathon was 85% full of people from the Austin area code. And, based on my racing experience, the overall attractiveness of the women in this race was lower than I’ve seen in my other races. So, by logical deduction, the female running population of Texas is less attractive than the female running population of Tennessee which leads me to believe the women of Tennessee are better looking than the women in Texas. Single guys looking for babes – chose Memphis or Nashville.

So, my running 9 minutes walking 1 minute was working perfectly. I passed the 4:15 marathoners between 1 and 2 miles and didn’t see them again (until later). My sore calf was not hindering me and my IT band was OK if not entirely peaceable. But, the Austin course is not flat, especially between miles 6 and 10. There was rolling hill after rolling hill and some of those babies were steep! Much of my outdoor training is on similar hills, so I was taking them easily and still in good shape. My nine minute running intervals were between 8:30 and 9:30 minute per mile pace. Just after mile 10, the half marathoners pulled off and left the remaining 16 miles to marathoners. It took me roughly 93 minutes to get to this point. Also, this is just about where my IT band started the beginnings of its assault on my brain. During a walking period, I cinched the band support up tighter on my leg, hoping that the increased compression would help. It didn’t. It is amazing how demoralizing pain at mile 12 can be when you know you have 14.2 more miles to go!

My 14th running interval was the last one that I had that was below a 10 minute per mile pace. At mile marker 16, those damn 4:15 marathon guys and their large squad of followers caught and passed me. Now, my IT band was really becoming an issue. When I would stop and walk the interval, I couldn’t get myself up and moving again. I’d shamble on like a degenerate zombie, trying to get everything loose enough to keep going. Around mile 17 I resolved to quit walking because it hurt so much when I started running again. I starting making deals with my brain. “Come on – we’ll just run to mile 20, then we’ll walk.” But my brain wasn’t taking the bait. I’d still stop and walk, but the intervals were becoming two minutes long. The final straw was between miles 19 and 20. I probably walked half the distance between these two markers. At that point, I decided if I didn’t truly focus on running, it would take me two more hours to finish the race.

So, I tried to pick it up and go steady. I rewarded myself with a bit of walking after mile 24 and little bit more near the end of the race. Unfortunately, Kathy caught me on film during that last stretch of walking.

Luckily, I noticed she was there and I picked it up enough so that she could get this shot of me.

Well, needless to say, I finished the race in a NEW PERSONAL RECORD (since this was my first marathon) of 4:39:19. I did not win. The chicken soup after the race was excellent and while it was crowded at the finish, everything appeared well organized. I got my technical running shirt, my finisher’s medal, and other assorted food and drink goodies. I want to thank the people of Austin – there was support along the entire course, even for those slow runners like me. Why they come out and watch the dolts like me who are passing thru their neighborhoods two hours after the winners, I’ll never know, but I appreciated the support!