What's up with my tardy blogging? I guess I'd know the answer to that more than you, huh?
Anyway, last Saturday, on a fairly moderate temperature day, but with super humidity, a smaller group of us gathered at the park off of Rbt. E. Lee Dr. for a 14 miler. The Chicago people had started at 5:30am for 20-22 miles, but we figured we could start later for our shorter run. I modified a suggested route to come up with our 14 miles, hoping to find water/Powerade support as a result.
We had a pretty good crew for the first part of the journey. Liliana, Diana, Patrick, Emily, Sally, "the Other Emily," Colleen, Wayne and maybe some others headed out at 6:00am for the day's journey. We did a pretty good job of pacing, and took our first quick fluids stop at the cooler I had dropped at O. Henry. Soon enough, we were headed up Exposition and all those rolling hills. We were using this route because we had been told it was the new Austin Marathon route, and wanted to get a preview of this hilly portion of the new course. It was certainly rolling, rolling, rolling up to 35th Street, and then we roared down the steep downhill on 35th to the dry cleaners at Pecos and 35th. So far, so good. We grabbed water there, and I took a GU. To the big hills on Balcones!
The course turned evil on Balcones, and was actually sort of dangerous running up the hills there with the occasional car careening down Balcones coming towards us. We huffed and puffed, and made it through a series of really nasty hills, much like climbing Bonnell, but higher. This part will be tough in the marathon...miles 10-12 or so. I was quite discouraged at how tough the new course is appearing thus far. By the time we got through the hills, I turned around and there were just four of us remaining. The others had turned around at about the 6 mile mark for an even 12 mile day. So, Wayne, Colleen, Diana and I rolled through the much easier stretch across Hancock and down Shoal Creek to our planned water stop at Shoal Creek and 38th Street. I was worried that Gilbert would have moved the coolers by the time we got there, and lo and behold, I was a prophet. :-) I had brought my CamelBak, so I had water, but the other three were a bit parched. As we stopped on 38th, I dashed across to the Randall's and purchased water and Powerade. Such a nice guy, huh? That turned out to be quite a long stop as a result. Oh, well.
Refreshed, we headed home. Up and over Mopac, then down the rolling hills of Exposition, and finally we grabbed more Powerade at my cooler at O. Henry. From there, it was about 2.5 miles to the finish. We picked it up a little for the last few miles, and stayed together in a nice little pack.
All things considered, it was uneventful, but a solid run for strength. We'll certainly be ready for the start of Austin training next weekend. I did 4 striders, which helped loosen me up. Full stretching followed for those of us who didn't go 20-22 miles. A good day, but I must admit I was really bummed about the new marathon course. Enough so that I'm seriously thinking of running another marathon in January/February other than Austin. I'd hate to waste my single yearly marathon effort on a course that seems designed to frustrate a PR attempt. I am trying to keep an open mind, but right now, I'm not too enthused about the course as it's been presented to us.
Splits: 9:45, 9:41, 0.44 miles at 9:45, water stop 1:52, then 9:39, 9:35, 2:33 water stop (dry cleaners), 9:41 (Balcones), 9:17, 9:06, 9:12 0.31 miles at 8:49/mile, 8:09 water stop (Randall's shopping trip), then 9:15, 9:08, 0.62 miles at 8:42/mile, 1:24 last Powerade stop, then 8:41, 8:34, and 0.45 miles at 8:31/mile. Total miles 13.89 at average running pace of 9:15/mile. With the long water stop time included, it drifted to 10:15/mile.
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