ARA 30K - A Spectator's View

This morning, I joined a bunch of Gazelles to volunteer at one of the water stops for the ARA 30K in hilly SW Austin. We were at about mile 7, and we had a full-service stop (GU, Gu2O, and water). The day started early in the dark, of course, and finished some 3 hours later when the last runner passed our position.

In between, the great crew efficiently managed to hand out all of our Gu2O, a bunch of water, and a gaggle of GU (I think Tri-Berry was the preferred choice among today's runners, narrowly beating out Vanilla Bean. Chocolate finished third out of three, but the GU staff reports that the super fast folks at the front of the race predominately asked for choco-GU.). We also did some serious cheering, especially for anyone sporting their Gazelles colors. By the time the runners arrived at our place, they were still looking pretty relaxed, and it was fun to yell at our friends.

We had the stop all buttoned up by the time the cleanup truck arrived, and I was done in time to scurry back to the finishing line to try and see everyone at the end. There was no available parking near the finish, so I took up residence on the last giant hill, right at the 18 mile marker, and cheered my friends up that last tough climb. All things considered, the Gazelles looked pretty darned good. I offered up my Dr. Pepper to Amy, but I think she was afraid of losing her balance and rolling back down the hill that she had worked so hard to climb. :-)

It was big fun, and I'm very impressed with the runners today. That course was just epic, and I'm sure it will achieve some sort of legendary status among Austin runners. It'll go in there with that double loop 20 miler up in Round Rock where the wind threatened to blow us backwards, the ice storm Freescale Marathon, and other races of that ilk.

Today we put away the Christmas decorations, which is always just the bestest time, and everyone then chose their own 30 minute anti-clutter project to complete. We might set a new record for amount of recycle materials on trash day this week. :-)