Austin 3M Half Marathon
January 25th, 2010 By: Jordan_JonesNow I’m not usually one to jump at a car upgrade but when Matt and I arrived in Austin and layed eyes on the filthy white Dodge Challenger in the rental car lot the decision was made. For a mere $15 a day we had the once in a lifetime opportunity to drive the bad larry that lay before us. Driving it made us feel dirty and sleazy but in a comedic pork chop sideburns kind of way.
We hit up the expected sights of Austin. Much time at the flagship Whole Foods, next to the company’s headquarters, where a bird stole Matt’s last piece of cookie right from his raised hand. The Austin Whole Foods is loaded with options, even a gelato bar and Texas BBQ area. Gotta shout out to our sponsors Mix1 and Justin’s Nut Butter which are sold there. Next onto Mellow Johhny’s bike shop where we gawked at the Radio Shack team bikes that were prominently on display:

Look closely, you can see the 2010 Radio Shack team bikes towards the back
Upon return home I have traded my Specialized bikes straight up with the girl down the block for her bike. It’s looks just like the one Lance will be riding. There has to be a secret to my new ride that will make me faster.
Friday turned to Saturday and Amy arrived. She was dismayed when I picked her up at passenger pickup with the Challenger’s windows down and Toby Keith blarin’. Similar to Friday, I ran 30 minutes easy in the morning and swam at Barton Springs. The water is 68 degrees year round which isn’t extremely cold but enough to have me freezing after a few minutes without a wetsuit. I was pumped to have brought my Rocket Science wetsuit so I could get in some real swimming.

Swimming in my Rocket Science wetsuit at Barton Springs
Race day arrived and we were warmed up and about to start when suddenly, a delay. It was so blustery that apparently the traffic barricades were getting blown over and the police couldn’t seal the course. This didn’t seem like a big deal but then the time dragged on and it was nearly 45 minutes past the scheduled start time. I was impressed with how the faster runners towards the front of the start were handling things. None seemed fazed by it, it really wasn’t going to make a diference. I saw Ewen North and Peter Vail who has run a 1:06 at this race. Peter gave wise advice to not be afraid of the downhill sections and take advantage of them while the opportunity was there to run fast. We were getting cold and Matt, Amy and I hid away in the start tower for protection from the wind. I wanted to do some extra running to stay loose but we had already done that once and Matt smartly convinced me to save my energy. I felt bad for the poor race director and was starting to wonder if this thing was going to happen.
At about an hour after the supposed start it was announced that we were going to go. They started the wheelchairs promptly and we were off a couple minutes later. The first bit of the race was uphill which worked well to get me warmed up again although it was slow. I was aiming for a 1:10 which would be 5:20 pace. The first two miles were in 11:07. Slow, but I didn’t care, I was about to start getting in it. Once I got past the two mile mark my body warmed up and I set off to start moving up. I hit 5:11, 5:08 and then 4:45 (this was the big downhill mile Peter was speaking of). Now I was getting excited. There were many miles ahead but I was extremely comfortable. I was steadily moving up, running smoothly on my own.
Next was 5:22, 5:19, and 5:16 to bring me to mile 8. At this point I started to feel a little niggle in my right hamstring which I started worrying about. It wasn’t horrible, maybe altering my stride slightly, but it felt like it was something that could explode into a major problem with a mile to go. I backed off a tad, which was tough since I wanted to really start pushing hard at this point.
5:13, 5:17, and 5:20 brought me to 2 miles to go. I realized that a sub 1:09 was within reach but I still had to manage my hamstring. Also, my legs were starting to feel odd like the muscles could seize up. They didn’t feel tight, there were just odd steps where they felt got that odd seizing feeling. This was kind of strange. Usually at this point I’m dealing with pure fatigue and aching for the finish. I didn’t have that, the miles were still cruising by, but my muscle tremors were of worry.
Next was 5:18, 5:16, and another 0.1 miles brought me to the finish in 1:09:08, good for 11th place (there were 4256 finishers). I was a bit bummed not to get the dip but I’ve learned with age that you gotta be happy with a good race, there’s always little things you could have done and you can’t dwell on them. I had gone in shooting for a 1:10 and had gone under that without the conditions seeming exceptionally good.
Matt came in with a 1:13, not a great race for him but one that will motivate him. Our friend Ashley ran a solid 1:21:02, and Amy came in with a huge race - 1:24:36. She’s been training for a 1:25 and thought that she would need everything to go perfectly to run that. I was pumped that she stepped it up big time on race day and executed well.
With this I’ve got my run confidence fully back and am looking forward to what I can do off the bike this season. I’m impressed with the results from the run training I’ve been doing. I’ve been primarily focused on my swim the past few months but have been running consistently, getting in about 48 miles a week. That’s really not much running but the swimming is awesome run training, especially with the near daily hard sets. Most importantly I’ve been doing relatively slow treadmill workouts, 6 miles straight at a time at 5:50 pace. I thought I could run 5:20 pace in Austin ( ended up at 5:16) but it was hard to believe sometimes since my workout pace was so far off that. The 6000 ft altitude in Golden, 1% treadmill incline, and just being on a treadmill combined to keep the workouts slow. But I didn’t miss any and there were always good albeit not great.
I think this race illustrates something I’ve learned since college. Race performance isn’t so much a result of a handful of great workouts but more from getting in tons of good workouts. I’ve been doing two tempos a week, never missing one. I didn’t have a single workout since I started fully running again in November that was notably better than average. The key is consistency and getting in hours and hours right around threshold.

Amy and I post race

Matt and I, lookin' sleazy







Pacific Grove










