Race Report: UTSA Diploma Dash

Today, like pretty much any race, had its highs and lows. It seems a little cliche, but let's go with a classic breakdown of pluses and minuses:

Pluses:
1. Both of the peeps I coach (Chass and Emily) won the race.
2. I placed a solid 3rd to two very good local runners, Chass and Jose Munoz, with a pretty solid time (15:47) on a day where not many people were running too fast.
3. Training has been going great, and despite being a little tired going into today's race, I felt like I put out a pretty solid effort.

Minuses:
1. None of us ran very fast.
2. I got beat pretty handily, which is never fun.
3. This race dropped all of their prize money this year, as well as all of the cool gift cards they had last year. Kind of a bummer.
4. The race started half an hour late, and the last 10 minutes of the delay was caused by some woman leading all of us through a warmup routine, complete with squats and turning your head side to side and other assorted nonsense. Ridiculous.

us waiting in the start corral for a long long time...

Personally, I think all of us ran pretty damn well. Sometimes there isn't anything in particular about a road course that makes it slow - no giant hills, or consistent headwinds, or mismeasurement, but it's just SLOW. Unfortunately I'm not a big fan of making excuses and predicting what you "could" have run if only the course had been fast, or the competition been better, or whatever else, so I will leave it by saying that I ran well enough, and I'm pretty happy with where the rest of my little group is at, and I'm really excited for the next couple weeks.

What's up next? Well Emily is getting on the track for the shortest race that she has done since 2007, and Chass and I are headed down to the border to Hidalgo for a half marathon relay race, along with our friend (and Austin Half Marathon champion) David Fuentes. Should be a good time, and we will do our very best not to be kidnapped. But if we are we hope someone will pitch in for our ransom!

A Quarter of a Century Old?!

I can't believe Jer is 25 years old!! His birthday was on the 12th, but I'm just now getting around to looking at some pictures from that night.

We had a great time with GREAT friends! First we headed to Jer's favorite mexican restaurant, Panchitos, and then proceeded to Sherlock's. Afterwards Jer and Chass jammed out in the music room for a little while until they were officially worn out.

Feeling the love!

Showcasing the deliciousness

Jer showing off one of the awesome gifts he received that night

Don't let his face fool you, he loved the sombrero

No mexican birthday dinner is complete without the sopaipillas!

 It's kind of funny to think I've known him since he was just a wee 19 year old, myself only being 18 at the time of course : ). I love the person he's become and I'm so glad he had such a wonderful 25th birthday.

Why Didn't You Race?

This past weekend Jer and I wanted to go and support our friends running the Austin Half Marathon. We were able to catch Liz Eder and David Fuentes run by roughly 3 times. They were both pretty much in first overall each time we saw them too! Jer and I cheered as loud as we could and took fuzzy, non-recognizable pictures of them as we caught them within the first mile, around mile 8, and finally the last 200m.

Who doesn't look that excited after PRing in the half?

David defended his title and not only did Liz PR (and win also), coming in at 1:21:55, but she also got to say she was in the same race as Joan Benoit Samuelson! How cool is that?



1st place Austin Half Marathon Winners : )



The Walking Legend Herself

 
The only beef I had was our interaction with people during and after the race. Nearly every single person Jer and I chatted with asked us "why didn't you race"?  The most important reason being because we came there to support our friends who were racing. David supported Jer, Liz, Chass, and myself a ton during our big race at San Antonio RnR in the fall and is always keeping up with how we're doing. Liz is my BF, my M.O.H, and is always there for me. It only made sense to go out there and cheer them on during an important race for them, especially when there weren't any other obligations holding us back.

I know it seems ridiculous to let a little question like this bug me, but it's really the message behind the question. Well, you did the San Antonio marathon so of course you should be doing another half or full right? When I graduated, the big question was when, not if, I was going to do a marathon. Jer got the same treatment, but of course he was already training for his first one immediately after graduating. I on the other hand hadn't planned on doing a marathon for a long time to come. Why? Because I never pictured myself running one and had little desire to do it. I didn't even want to think about doing one after graduating just to show people you can still be a great runner without having to do a half or a full marathon. Most serious runners understand this and it's the novice runners (who are making up a huge population of the running world now) that assume it's a rite of passage almost. I do think it's great that more and more people are taking up running, but they don't really care to even consider shorter races just because it's not THE MARATHON. More competitive runners know that a 14:30 5k guy is a lot more impressive than a 3:20 marathoner. Odds are that 14:30 guy worked a lot harder than the 3:20 marathoner did, but you've got to know your audience.

So now that my rant is complete, the good news is: it IS actually time to race! We have already set up a schedule of races that we wanted to run this spring, including distances from 800m all the way up to half marathon. In less than a week we'll be toeing the line of the UTSA Diploma Dash 5k! We LOVE track and road races and we LOVE setting new PR's that we weren't able to get down to in college. With shorter races the training is completely different and allows us to participate in more races.

Racing is the reason we train...not to stay thin or have something to do in our free time. The races are why we get up every morning, do it again in the afternoon, repeat the next day, and make the sacrifices we need to make. So it's great when we're able to do more of what we love by having a different schedule in the spring. I love that we focus more on longer races in the fall and shorter ones in the spring. I don't want to speak for Jer, but it allows me to regroup and stir things up in a way that keeps me happy and sane as a runner.

So let's here it for racing time! Training can be monotonous without a little reward for your efforts, and Jer and I plan on getting out there and laying it on the line OFTEN this spring. And remember, marathons and half marathons are just longer races, not the end all be all of our running existence!

Snow Day!

Yep, that's right. It snowed in San Antonio! Although it was only about 3/4 of an inch it still made the streets look like a winter wonderland : ) It happened last Friday and I miss it already!

Unfortunately it was trash day, hence the nasty bins in the pictures!

So that morning Jer found out that no one was heading in to work until 9AM at the earliest while I found out that the two baseball games we were supposed to have got pushed to Saturday meaning no work for me. The news excited us both because it meant we got to do a longer run together in the daylight!! So we headed out around 6:45AM and noticed the streets covered in fresh snow. It was still dark, but only for about 10 minutes. We saw a little ice on a major street and thought it'd be a good idea to head to the park. As soon as we came through the main entrance we noticed just how beautiful the snow made everything look! The sun had just started to come up and all that we saw was gorgeous white snow with trees bordering the crunchy fluff. It's like we weren't in Texas anymore.

I couldn't stop smiling on the run. It was a sight we weren't used to seeing, but I have a feeling it's something the northerners would have appreciated too. Sun, crunchy fresh snow, and very little wind. We went for about an hour before heading home. As we came back into the neighborhood we noticed the snow melting a little and the ice underneath coming to surface. We also saw all the little kids building 6 feet inch tall snowmen on the sidewalks. It looked like everyone was enjoying their morning off.

Marzuki diving in to the fun!

When we got home we let our puppies out as they experienced their first snow day! They loved it! Marzuki followed Dexter exploring the white invader together. They even figured out it was edible and started chowing down!

YUMM!!

Dexter doesn't seem  phased by the chilled ground



Marzuki never seems to go too far



Jer and I made the most of the morning getting cleaned up, drinking  hot cocoa, and catching up on a couple episodes of LOST. Jer found out he had to go in around 1PM, but not before getting in some hardcore 007 time on Wii.

I was happy that the rest of the day was spent being as productive as possible. I cleaned the casa, did laundry, hung up a bunch of clothes, had some much needed phone time with my M.O.H, Liz, and went grocery shopping. Phewwww. It felt wonderful getting so much done!

In the evening I met Jer up at the track and did his warm-up with him. After, I spent the rest of the time being a coach, for my coach, as he powered through some 100's.

And then??? We celebrated a great Friday with Chili's! Who could've asked for a better snow day?!


Here's to hoping our yard looks like this next year!