14/50 - Livestrong Austin Marathon

Ah, Austin, TX...  I first visited this city 10 years ago when I was narrowing down my graduate school choices.  The discovery of 6th Street's plethora of live music bars, Lone Star beer and the Texas way of life made an impression on me.  In fact, shortly after returning from that trip, I named my first dog Texas.  It was a big name for a 10-pound shih-tzu!

It was time to return to Austin and re-kindle my love affair.  The Austin Marathon was two weeks after my Melbourne Florida Marathon and two weeks before my New Orleans Marathon…seemed like the perfect time to go!  With that race schedule, I planned on enjoying these runs more than chasing a PR.  I was still ailing from a nagging knee injury so I hardly ran (about 50 miles total) between the Melbourne race and the Austin race. 

These trips really have become less about the running and more about the cities.  So, let’s start with the beer.  It’s amazing how easily we take for granted the bounty of good beer brewed in the Midwest.  In Texas, the laws aren’t in favor of the little guy so unfortunately, you won’t be seeing the likes of Freetail Brewing http://www.freetailbrewing.com/ outside of the San Antonio area anytime soon.  It’s a shame, because that was a fantastic brewpub!

After a sampling of all they had and a tour, we filled a growler and headed to the largest purveyor of barbeque in all of Texas.  The Salt Lick http://www.saltlickbbq.com/ is a sight to be seen.  The setting is in the Hill Country on a sprawling vineyard property.  The grounds seat about 500 people and I don’t get the impression that the wait is ever less than 45 minutes.  This isn’t really a problem considering it’s a BYOB.  You’ll get the sensation that you’re attending your very, very extended family reunion and your great uncle makes the best damned barbeque in the state.  Enjoy!

This brings us to the night before the race with bellies full of barbeque and the equivalent of eight pints of beer.  She’s driving, so most of that beer was uncomfortably residing in me.  Obviously, I don’t get too regimented with pre-race rituals but even for me, this was a little overboard.  Suffice it to say, I may have fared better had I just gone the pasta route.

The race was a fairly beautiful course, winding through the many eclectic neighborhoods of Austin from the Capitol to South Austin’s art district through tree-lined neighborhood streets and around the University campus.  I had been warned of the hills of this race but they were a welcomed challenge.  Throughout much of the course, I couldn’t help but think, “wow, they sure do have a lot of food trucks!”.  That’s no lie.  I’ve yet to visit a city that prefers their food prepared from a lunch wagon over all other forms quite like Austin does.  In fact, several trucks lined the finish line of the course as we were apprised to run with cash in the event we craved a taco with our finisher’s medal.

Meat pains aside, I ran a fairly consistent pace and finished in 2:59.  The weather was a perfect 60F and partly sunny.  I ran several miles with my tattooed doppelganger which I’m sure gave rise to spectators questioning whether or not the circus was in town.  If anything, that’s one trend I’ve noticed more of in the pack of runners finishing near the top 1% - more tattoos.

Whenever possible, we prefer to book our stays at small bed & breakfasts.  After a one night stay at a B&B in San Antonio, we found The Adams House in Austin.  It’s owned by a young couple entrenched in the local art/music scene.  He’s a drummer so, naturally, we had to stay here!  http://www.theadamshouse.com/.  Eric provided us with some great neighborhoods and bands to see while in town.  The most interesting place we visited was a dive bar called Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon http://www.yelp.com/biz/ginnys-little-longhorn-saloon-austin where we spent an afternoon taking in the un-apologetic old school honky-tonk sounds of regular Dale Watson http://www.theconnextion.com/dalewatson/dalewatson_index.cfm?ArtistID=439 and drinking Lone Stars in a parking lot while others bet on chicken-shit-bingo near the front of the bar; not a bad way to spend a post-marathon afternoon.  Just as my stomach was beginning to feel better, we embarked on one last barbeque adventure at Stubb’s http://stubbsaustin.com/ .

We spent the following afternoon shopping the kitschy storefronts of South Austin for the perfect pair of Wranglers for these ol’ boots o’ mine.  Looks like I brought home a little Texas after all. 

13/50 The Melbourne Music Marathon

I made a bet with my wife after the NYC marathon that I could gain more weight than she could lose in the last two months of 2011.  I wasn’t going to start training for the Florida marathon until the middle of December so this gave me plenty of time to focus on the consumption of donuts.  I’d say I averaged about four a day.  These were good times, however our bet ended in a draw; I managed to gain 2.6 lbs. while she lost 2.6 lbs.  What are the odds?!

The Melbourne Florida marathon coincided with a conference my wife was attending at Disney World.  For the three days she was working, I rented a Harley and rode the coast of Florida.  Starting in Orlando, I headed east to Cape Canaveral and rode the coastal A1A (Vanilla Ice reference, anyone?!) to Miami.  What an interesting city.  The best I can describe it to those who haven’t been there would be “tacky opulence”.  I camped for the evening and toured a couple of homes once owned by members of the family I work for that have since been purchased by the state of Florida and are now showcased as historical landmarks.  If ever in the area, I encourage you to visit the Viscaya Museum (www.vizcayamuseum.org).

Next stop Key West.  The ride from Miami to Key West is a beautifully scenic four hours of split-lane highways, impressively long bridges over blue and green hued waters and unique tourist draws.  The city itself is where 50-somethings go for spring break.  This alone was worth the visit!  When they all turn in at 9pm, I was left with a small town replete with bars highlighting a rich Ernest Hemmingway history, biker bars, quaint seafood restaurants, Cuban pasty and coffee houses and cleverly disguised franchise shops. At the end of the day, I retired to a campground site located on the water and just across from an Air Force training center.  The jets proved to be an effective 8am wake-up call for my 400-mile ride back to Orlando. 

1,000 miles of motorcycle riding in jeans and a t-shirt is my ideal marathon taper.  The tranquility of riding solo on Florida’s warm coastal highways sure beats stressing out about the race and other minutia.  Maybe that’s why I wasn’t too worried about the race after having just injured my knee two weeks prior.  I had an eight-week training plan for this race and managed to run for six of those weeks, averaging about 45 miles a week.  Then, I fell on ice trying to catch my train one evening.  My two-week taper included very little running. 

The race is largely a half marathon race with 400 marathon participants and over 3,000 half marathon participants.  The course was a loop around a body of water with two bridges being the only elevation gain.  The marathon runners ran the loop twice.  Their description of these bridges really downplays the size.  Each bridge is about one mile long at approximately a 6-8% grade; fairly substantial considering I neglected to do any hill training.  The highlight at the top of one of these bridges was a tuxedoed man with a white grand piano belting out Billy Joel tunes!

I was alone for most of the race.  Spectators were hardly existent and competition fell victim to the heavy, warm ocean air.  At mile 8, I was already planning to re-visit Florida after dropping out of this one after the half.  Instead, I soldiered on, though the second half of my race was 10 minutes slower than the first half!  I finished with a not-so-satisfying time of 3:04.  I still finished in 7^th place so I knew the weather was taking its toll on everyone. 

After breakfast with my wife’s family (who came in for the race), we headed north up the coast for one last warm convertible ride to Cape Canaveral for a late lunch at Seafood Atlantic (www.yelp.com/biz/seafood-atlantic-inc-cape-canaveral) .  It was here that we were seated on the pier in front of a fishing boat named “Iron Maiden”.  Sure, I recommend the restaurant, but to witness the “Iron Maiden” is worth the trip alone!