Another Cap10K is in the books! Over 15,000 people took to the streets to take on a pretty tough 6.2 mile course through downtown Austin. For me it was my 3rd go at it. Last year I ran for my company’s corporate team en route to a PR. This year, with Boston NEXT WEEK, I chose to take it a little easier. But things don’t always go the way you choose.
I can get used to this. Three 3M Half Marathons. Three half marathon personal records. Heading into the race, I wasn’t confident in how the day would shake out. Last year I was in the middle of half marathon-specific training and feeling great. This year I’m coming off of a Half Ironman and some minor surgery that kept me off my feet for a bit. How’d we do? I’ll say this: let it be a lesson to you all who read my race preview and thought I was “being real” with my low expectations. I warned you!
On Sunday I completed the Ironman 70.3 Austin Half Ironman. Training for 20 weeks, completing every workout, putting in countless hours (153 hours in fact). A lot went into just getting to the starting line. Since this will probably get long (I’ll try to keep it interesting with pictures), let’s dive right in.
Sunday I ran in the CASA Superhero 5K Run. Like I mentioned last week, CASA is a volunteer-based organization that looks after children who have gone through tough times. Each volunteer is a superhero to a child, helping however they can to ensure each child can grow in a healthy, encouraging environment. This race is both raises funds and awareness for the CASA mission.
The triathlon season has officially begun for me now that the Couples Tri is in the books. My goal was to beat last year, and [spoiler alert!] I did! But my overall feelings about the race are mixed. Here’s why…
The goal: to qualify for the Boston Marathon. To do that I needed to cross the finish line before the clock reached 3:05:00. After months of training and years of dreaming, the only thing between me and my goal was 26.2 miles in the form of the Vermont Marathon.
Eleven runners. Two vans. Two hundred and three miles. This is just one of eleven stories to tell about the Texas Independence Relay.
Sunday was the 35th running of the Statesman Capitol 10,000. As you no doubt remember, this year I was a member of my company’s Corporate Challenge team. We’ll get to how that went in a moment. First, anyone who has been around me for more than 5 seconds knows I like running marathons*. Half marathons are cool too. 10Ks are not really in my bag of tricks. Not one to disappoint I set a pretty aggressive conservative who knows goal of sub 40 minutes.
Early in February I gave a preview of the team tryouts to earn a spot on the National Instruments Corporate Challenge team for the Capitol 10K. Well race day finally arrived. With seven people trying out for four spots, it was sure to be competitive. I had done my research and knew who would beat me and who I could out run. My research did not leave me feeling very reassured.
The biggest difference, as Colin pointed out, is that for the tryouts, I’m racing against people and not against the clock. In all my other races, it’s always me versus the clock. That completely changes the strategy. Time is steady. People are not. In any case, the group jogged 2 miles to the track as a warm up. We got a brief review of the rules from MC Rich, took a group photo, and got lined up.
The Serious Seven: Me, Misha, Ryan, Joel, Justin, Mike, Paul
From the start the group broke into three factions: 3 in the lead pack, 2 in the middle, and 2 falling behind. I was in the “2 in the middle” group, which meant only one of us would be getting a spot on the team. Unfortunately for me I was hanging with Misha, who is known for having a lightning fast kick (aka speed burst at the end). After the first lap, the lead group had a solid gap ahead of Misha and me. I decided in the second lap I needed to try to put some space between Misha and me or I could be in serious trouble later.
By the end of the second lap I was creating some distance but terrified (and paranoid) that there would be a late surge to knock me out. For some reason I thought doing this would be a good idea, maybe to psyche out the competition… or because of other, undiagnosed reasons.
We cruised through the next lap and at each turn I tried to gauge my lead without hinting at my fear. Around lap four is when I noticed that third place (Justin) was falling off the lead group. He was one of the people I considered much faster and catching him was out of the question. Over the course of the next lap I was able to pass Justin to slip into third. Again, my inexperience racing actual people left me worrying that I was now just a sitting duck. I tried to hold it together and maintain a solid pace and make him work for it if he wanted to pass me back.
The final results show I was able to put some decent space between Justin and myself (see above, Justin in distance). Misha had a tough time with the pace, but to his credit he ran his first ever marathon 10 days ago in 3:13. In Austin. The big news though is that I MADE THE TEAM!! My third place finish means I’m the 9th fastest person on the ten-person team. Overall I’m most happy about redeeming my crash and burn from last year.
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p>Based on my Garmin saying 3.33 miles, I averaged a
6:19 min/mile pace. Not bad, especially considering I’ve been doing approximately zero speed work since mid January. So with the tryouts behind me, it’s back to marathon training.
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…
