Scouting the Austin Marathon Course

I'll be running the Austin Marathon on February 20. Since I live in Austin, I figured it would be to my advantage to start running portions of the course as I advance into the latter parts of my marathon training. Granted, I've done one marathon already (San Antonio back in November) but I am by no means an elite marathoner or even someone who takes his training anywhere close to "serious."

For those of you who are training for the Austin Marathon, let me just say that this is by no means a "beginner's marathon." Typical training schedules call for 16 weeks of training--not gonna happen with Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's preceding the event. I struggled to get in 10 miles per week from late November until January 1st.

Second obstacle: cedar. I was out the entire first week of January because of cedar pollen. Flat on my back, actually, and my first run the following week I could barely get 1 to 1.5 miles in per stretch before I was coughing up a lung on the side of the road. Very frustrating. But here I am, $125 bucks down and I'm gonna gear up on marathon day, even if it's snowing and sleeting.

Third obstacle: hills. Lots and lots of hills. The San Antonio marathon was nice and flat, but Austin sports 10 miles of hills in the first 16 mile stretch, with at least 3-4 of those miles at a steep grade. So if you're training for this course, go back and double that hill training, you're going to need every second of training you can get prior to the gun going off on February 20.

In any case, last Saturday I had a 15-mile run on the schedule, so I decided to run as much of the course I could. I started on Town Lake (convenient parking, but nowhere close to the course start, really) and proceeded down the path to the Congress street bridge. From there, I went down South Congress, or I should say, UP south congress (it's a gradual uphill for 2.5 miles) dodging hipsters and SoCo shoppers as I went.

Instead of turning at Ben White/71/290 (as I would on race day) I turned on Lightsey (about a mile north) and then turned north on S. First, which thankfully for my aching legs, is a steady downhill all the way back to Town Lake. From Town Lake, I ran up Atlanta toward Endfield (15th).

From Atlanta (which is where Run-Tex is near Town Lake) all the way until I finished running at Shoal Creek is one big steady climb, with Exposition in Tarry Town featuring at least 8-10 rolling hills, each seemingly steeper and more painful then the last. I am not ashamed to tell you that I had to stop and walk most of those hills and that my legs felt like they were being pounded on by a maniac with a meat tenderizer. Actually, to be more accurate, I was about 3 seconds away from crying like a little girl on the side of the road.

When I look at that same stretch of endless road on the map, it's only a mile and a half, but it seemed like 20 miles of torture. There were more hills on Exposition than in the entire 26.2 stretch in San Antonio. Being that they come near the middle portion of the marathon is pretty frickin' brutal.
At the top of Exposition I paused long enough to tweet "Whoever laid out the Austin marathon course was not hugged enough as a child." And it's true.

The Exposition stretch of the marathon ends at 35th street, where you turn right and go up a further steep incline (the Mopac exit) and then make a left turn on Jackson, which gradually climbs to Bull Creek, Hancock, and finally Shoal Creek. This is where I turned off, as I was ending my run at a friend's house, who volunteered to drive me back down to my car parked at Town Lake.

My time for the run was 3 hours 29 minutes, a painfully slow pace considering that I ran the first 15 miles of the San Antonio marathon in 2 hours 35 minutes, so nearly an hour off my pace.

Next weekend, the schedule says 18 miles, and I'll hit this section again, hopefully with better success. My plan is to test run the first 12 miles of the course at least 3 times come race day, so those hills on Exposition should become old (if not good) friends by February 20.

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