2:25:16

I finished the Austin Half-Marathon! Yay for me! It was an absolutely gorgeous day. The temp was 37 at the starting line, which is really cold if you are like me and have to run in sleeveless shirts (for some reason, all the heat in my body seems to escape through my shoulders). But, we made it through the hour and a half of waiting for the start. The race started at 7:00 and sunrise was at 7:09, so we got to see the sunrise as we were running. The first 5 miles flew by. I was running with two friends and we ran together until a little after mile 6. Then we all ended up splitting up to go our own pace.

Really, the whole race flew by for me. I did my best time ever - 2:25:16. My previous PR was 2:26:55. AND I did that on terrible hills. The whole course was pretty hilly. I was running uphill or downhill for about 75% of the race...not a lot of flat surfaces. A lot of the hills were not worth mentioning, but there were 3 or 4 that were pretty tough. There were 2 close together around mile 11 and they were killer. But, once I got over those hills, I started running fast. I was going about an 8 minute pace for the last 1.25 miles. That's really fast for me...I average 10:30 minute pace. We finished by running around the state capitol building and then a straight shot into the finish line. It was perfect!

The rest of the trip was pretty perfect, too. We drove in Friday night, hung out, watched a movie (How I Marrieds an Axe Murderer, which I had never seen before and which was pretty funny), etc. I didn't sleep much at all Friday night, though. Saturday, we went to the race Expo to pick up packets and that was fun...I love race Expos! Of course, I bought a shirt and some socks that I probably don't need. I lost track of time and ended up being late for lunch with a friend...so rude of me!

After lunch, we went driving all around the west side of Austin...it is BEAUTIFUL there. There are so many hills (which are beautiful when you're driving and horrible when you're running) and nice houses. We drove around a couple of neighborhoods just looking at the houses and the views that they have. We stopped a dozen times to take pictures, including one time to get a free sample of beef jerky on the side of the road. This guy makes his own jerky at his house...I think it's at his house. Anyway, he was really nice and took a picture of us by his sign. Maradee bought some to send to her friend in Africa. I think she bought the Chipotle flavored jerky. He had like 8 different flavors! These houses we saw were amazing. They all had winding driveways and manicured lawns and beautiful doors and windows and detailing. One even had a putting green in the yard (we stopped for Matt to take a picture of this one!). We also stopped at the Marshall Ford Dam, which is overwhelmingly huge and cool. How does all of that work properly all the time? And how did they build it 80 years ago and it's still functioning? I am amazed by things such as this!

If I could ever figure out how to upload pictures to my blog, I would upload some from this trip to show how pretty Austin is. After the hours of sightseeing, we got lost looking for the restaurant we wanted to eat at. We finally found it and ate, thank goodness! It was this place called the Brick Oven and it was very packed full of people. We carbed up on pasta and had a wonderful dessert...chocolate with more choclate and chocolate mousse. I think there was some whipped cream on there, too. By this time, I was pretty delirious from lack of sleep and getting close to grumpy. Fortunately, we went home after that...I was close to falling down, I think!

So, I had to wake up at 3:45 on Sunday morning because we wanted to be downtown by 5:30 and I had to get ready, etc. So, I ran this race on about 4 hours of sleep. Considering that I got less than that on Friday, I'm pretty sure it's a miracle that I finished at all! We got ready, headed out around 5:00 and made it downtown pretty quickly. I was so happy because we found a place to park really easily and it was close to the race stuff. These are the things that stress me out the most about big races. Or maybe those are the things I dwell on so I don't stress about the actually running. Anyway, we dropped off our stuff too early at the clothing drop-off and then hung out in the Spectator's tent. Thank goodness for this tent! It was set up to serve free tea and coffee to runners and spectators, but the biggest benefit was protection from the weather. We were packed in there like sardines to attempt to stay warm! I actually ran into someone from work in there. Oh, there were about 12,000 runners in this race, so running into someone I know was a small feat!

We moved up to the start line, begrudgingly leaving the warmth of the tent, around 6:45. The start was just over this bridge, so we were standing on this bridge (i.e. over water) in 37 degree weather for a while. There were fireworks just before the start. It was pretty cool...at least a nice distration from the hypothermia! One thing that always makes me laugh in big races like this is that people put on so many layers and then have to shed them as soon as the race starts. It makes sense for the people that put on garbage bags and them throw them away, but there are some nice clothes on the ground! Like shirts and socks and LOTS of gloves! It just cracks me up how much there is just sitting on the side of the road. These guys were running behind us and stopped to pick up some gloves. Which sounds funny, but, if I hadn't had gloves on, I would have done the same! In Houston I know that the marathon volunteers come behind and pick up the clothes and take them to homeless shelters, so they don't go to waste.

After the race, we ate at this BBQ place, Rudy's. We had seen several of them around Austin and they came highly recommended : ). These people let you sample ANYTHING if it's your first time at Rudy's. I did not take advantage of this because I knew what I wanted and didn't care what anything else tasted like. The thing that makes me smile about Texas BBQ places is that you can always smell when someone has been to one...the smoke pervades into your clothes and hair and stays with you! Rudy's has a "Cutter Cam". "What is a Cutter Cam?" you might ask. This is a camera over the cutting board where your lunch is being cut. You can watch it while you're standing in line...classic BBQ place! Another classic aspect of Rudy's is that it is really a gas station. You can NOT pass up BBQ from a gas station in Texas...it has to be good. And Rudy's did not dissappoint me. Of course, I had just run 13.1 miles, so my judgement might have been impaired.

All in all, this was a fantastic road trip. We listened to great music the whole time and laughed a lot and saw beautiful scenery and I ran a 13.1 mile race and finished..the best part of all!