Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Austin 1020 race report....the patient lived....




I often think when I write race report posts that I should write them while I have that post race "after glow", but as with sex it fades way, way too soon! And then there are races like this one, where there is no real glow at all. I managed a nice fake "man I killed that course" smile in a post race pic, but it's more tongue in cheek that I added it to my Facebook page:



Don't be fooled people. I almost blacked out after this race, I actually went up to a EMT and told him I thought I was going to faint. He had me sit on the curb and watched me like a hawk for a while and the feeling finally passed. I faded so bad the last 2 miles it wasn't even funny - I've never wanted to quit running so badly in all my life. It was a bit warmer than any race this year, with horrible humidity (and a few raindrops) but nothing that unusual. My pre race ritual was the same as always, but 8 miles in and I was dying. Slower pace than I ran the Capital 10K in, and I felt great at the start, but I guess there are just those days you don't have it! The race was cool, you don't get to run many Inaugural races here in Austin, especially not one with 9,000 runners! Great finisher medals and t-shirts! I ended up 120th out of 190 males in my age group, so it could have been worse. Everyone around me at the end looked dead too. It was advertised as a flat course, and the elevation chart sure seemed to support that. But I felt like we were running uphill the entire time! I don't mind short, really steep hills, I love them actually....but these were different animals. Long, slow rises that seemed to stretch out to the horizon, blech!!! 

There were some really cool bands, one about every 1/2 mile. So I left the iPod in the car. Fail. I won't do that again, because there were points on this course I wanted to just shut out all the noise. Maybe it was That Time of the Month in my running cycle, lol. There was the omnipresent asshole at mile 9 telling us it was all downhill from there. It wasn't, and I shot him a look to let him know his attempt at humor was sadly lacking truth. I may or may not have said the same thing in the past at some point, but I never will again. It's just not fucking funny when you're dying out there. 

I had planned to meet my running buddies at the post race party, but I was too beat and I saw the rain rolling in. I hobbled to the car and got there just as it started raining. 

All in all, I'd love to do this race next year. I'll make this course my bitch.