SXSW is basically a 2 week long holiday in Austin that aligns with “winter” making way for spring. So it’s only appropriate to use early March as the real start of the year. New trailers in Austin are cropping up all over the city spreading their delicious food to residents and visitors alike. In just this last year there are hundreds of new food trailers. Here are a few noteworthy trailers new to the scene in the last year. Hope you’re hungry!
click to see the full guide
Crossing the finish line of the LIVESTRONG Austin Half Marathon also marked the end of the Austin Distance Challenge. Five races spanning from early October to mid February, pitting Austin’s finest runners against one another in a little royal rumble friendly competition. Part of what I love most about living in Austin is the number of races that start right out my front door. In all I ran the IBM 10K, Run for the Water 10 Miler, Decker Half Marathon, 3M Half Marathon, and the LIVESTRONG Half Marathon.
The whole ADC was broken into two tracks: the Half Challenge and Full Challenge, which was determined by doing the LIVESTRONG Half or Full Marathon. Got it? Good. I chose the Half Challenge because I had bigger fish to fry later in the year and didn’t want to get beat up by the Full Marathon.
This was my first foray in to any kind of race series. It was a lot of fun working towards a progressive goal with each race only part of a larger challenge. Bottom line is it was a lot of fun. From a runner’s standpoint, I wish there were more of a social aspect to the competitors, either in an online community or in person at scheduled meet-ups. I think it would have created a fun element of competition through the interaction of the runners.
So how’d I do in the Austin Distance Challenge? Duh.
I actually only won my age group. Overall I came in 7th place, behind some crazy fast people. To brag be fair, there were a few races where I held back a little (like running 8 miles home from the IBM 10K or running 4 miles home from the LIVESTRONG Half), but I don’t think it made much of a difference in the overall standings.
Would I do it again? Definitely! But not this year. I’ll be out of town for one of the races so I can’t complete the entire challenge. It’s too bad since they added a sixth race to the series. Maybe next next year!
Brutal. That’s the only word I can use to describe the LIVESTRONG Half Marathon course. Where other races have rolling hills (or all downhill), Austin’s half course goes for long, endless, steep hills that suck the life out of any runner’s legs. But I was considering this race as just a training run for the Vermont Marathon, so no pressure. I just wanted to run 7 minute miles, which comes out to 1:31:46. Piece of cake…
Sunday will be my first running of the LIVESTRONG Austin Half Marathon. I’ve done the full twice before (including my second ever marathon and last year). I’m not really looking to set any land speed records here. However, this race is going to have all kinds of secondary goals attached to it.
Howdy folks! Just wanted to give a quick update where I stand in the Austin Distance Challenge rankings. After the Decker Challenge the ADC contestants were broken into “half” and “full” buckets based on the LIVESTRONG Austin Half Marathon and Austin Full Marathon. I’m running the Austin Half, so I’m in the ADC Half Track. Got it? Good.
Bear with me as I break it down:
In the Male 25-29 Age Group Half Track, I’m in first. By a mile. By ten miles. It’s a small field, made even smaller by splitting the runners into Half and Full groups. After adding up the four race times I’m leading by about an hour and nine minutes. And yes, I’m in first out of five remaining runners.
Overall in the Half Track I’m sitting in 8th. Best case scenario I can move up to 7th but no more than that. It’s shocking to me that my age group is the slowest group below age 55. For the record, I’m in eighth out of 64, so that’s at least pretty good!
I’d say based on where I stand now, I’m not looking to set a new PR in the Austin Half. The final times will be updated after the Austin Marathon weekend. Looking forward to wrapping things up and getting fully into training for Vermont!
I just kicked off my first week of marathon training for Vermont! So far we’re rocking the schedule. 8 miles, 12 miles, 5 miles, 9 miles. That’s the first four days (out of six). The crazy part about this schedule is that this week will finish up with 55 miles. That’s where the peak of my previous training planned topped out. It’ll be a delicate balance between increasing mileage and staying away from injury.
What’s in a name? With Snarky’s MOO BAWK OINK there’s both confusion and clarity. When I tell people about Snarky’s, I invariably get a puzzled look and need to repeat myself. On the one hand this is good. It means I got their attention. On the other hand, it isn’t initially clear that I’m speaking English. And on the other hand, it says exactly what they make. Confused? Read on to learn all about some outstanding sandwiches.
Now that I have my public goal of running 2012 miles in 2012, I decided to keep it public by putting it up on my whiteboard at work. Every day I’m updating it with my most recent mileage for that month, plus listing how much is remaining.
After January it looks like it will end up being a pretty easy soft sandbagging attainable goal, but I’ll leave it as it is. Continue reading
It’s that time of year again. No, not when I decide to switch to triathlons. The Capitol 10K is coming up on March 25th (right before the Texas Independence Relay). That means my company (National Instruments) needs to field it’s elite team of runners to defend its title. We’re going on 7 years in a row winning the Corporate Challenge. So the call for tryouts has been sent out and I have answered that call. This year it sounds like the competition will be fiercer. Early estimates show there could be as many as ten people vying for five spots.
Texas is a big place. Bigger than most (damn you, Alaska). So why not have a big race run from one major city to another? The Texas Independence Relay is a 203 mile journey from Bastrop (right outside of Austin) to Houston.
It’s setup to have teams of 8 – 12 runners make their way east, completing each of the 40 relay legs. Why am I telling you all of this? Because I just registered myself onto a team!
