I believe there were about 40,000 runners doing the race. It’s always nice to know when you start in corral 1 and turn around and just see a wave of people behind you (I think there were about 40 corrals total).

I somehow managed to have a great run given the little training I’ve been doing as of late. I think my results mostly have to do with me doing CrossFit and heat acclimatization runs during the hottest part of the day in Austin. Anyways, I managed to cross the finish line at Sea World in 1:28:05 which is a new half marathon PR for me! When I first started the race, I was chilling with the 1:30 pace group but after a few miles, I felt pretty good and picked up my pace. The course was mostly flat with some hills and some surprising highway running! My results ended up putting me 65th out of 13561 runners overall and 11th out of 601 runners in my age group. My splits were as follows…

5K: 20:54
6.3M: 42:35
11M: 1:16:07

I’m looking at doing sub 1:25 next, it should be easily reachable if I start doing more track workouts. On a side note, I got to spend some time in La Jolla, CA after the race which was nice. There’s nothing like a little post-race brunching and noshing in La Jolla. On top of that, it managed to bring back some great and interesting memories from last year. But alas, life’s too short for regrets, right?

The first stop on our brewery tour was Green Flash Brewing.

I’ll have to say, this is one of the most pleasant and unpretentious breweries I’ve ever been to. It also has one of my favorite beers, Le Freak, which is a Belgian Style IPA. All you have to imagine is a ménage à trois between an American IPA, a Belgian Trippel and some extra hops… so delicious. After spending $6 for 10 or so generously poured 2oz samples of all their beers, we were ready to move on. The next stop on the brewery tour was Stone Brewing which I almost confused for a winery given how nice it was. On top of that, the restaurant inside the brewery is top notch.

I’m a fan of Stone’s Ruination IPA and their selection of beers on draft was impressive… I mean they had Piny the Elder on draft which made me a bit jealous and salivate…

After awhile, we decided to stop the brewery tour a bit short because the lack of a designated driver and the desire to run a half marathon the next morning at 6:15am. So the obvious next choice was to stop at Trader Joes (since we don’t have one in Austin) and shamelessly fill up on chocolate…

In the end, I always enjoy my time in the San Diego area.

The ride takes place in beautiful Blanco, TX which makes for picture perfect Texas hill country cycling. What I did forget about Blanco is that the terrain is pretty hilly. There were several times throughout the ride where you saw signs about steep grade ahead… they weren’t lying. In the end, we went for the 65 mile route and finished in under 4 hours.

My personal highlight of the race was devouring a delicious ice cream cookie by KoolKones…

So good! I hope these cookies appear at other races in Austin!

This will make your meals significantly healthier. I find that my meals now come with fruit and other healthier items than starchy gluten-related things. On top of that, you get the extra laugh of looking at the plane attendants reactions while you chug a beer on the flight (I’m sorry, gluten-free beer is disgusting still… if you find a good one let me know).

Hope this helps and enjoy traveling!

For breakfast, all I had to do is see this and have some… I mean… come on…

The next culinary destination was ogórki ze smalcem. Apparently this was a meal popular with peasants and other common folks… essentially it’s pickles and lard you spread on bread. At 8 zloty ($2 USD), this dish could have fed a small army.

Next on the list was some plums wrapped in bacon… I mean… anything wrapped in bacon is delicious… it’s the chocolate of meats…

The other item I ate was Sledzie. This was an item I avoided in my youth as I just don’t do pickled fish. My mom would be proud to know that Sledzie was offered for free with every shot of vodka you took (a sign of a great food apparently).

And to top off any meal in Poland, no better way to do it then with some Polish vodka.

In the end, I loved my culinary adventure in Poland.

After two weeks of travel, I’m at least happy to report I can run a sub 20 minute 5K. I ended up finishing in 19:45 and finished third in my age group. That’s about 90 seconds away from my PR so I have a lot to do to get back on the running wagon. On top of that, I signed up for three 60K trial races in the Austin area. I’m looking forward to training seriously again now that my travel is going to die down quite a bit. Anyways, kudos to ARC for another superbly organized race.

Afterward, it was all about securing a margarita to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. I ended up settling for a mojito because something about Frozen XXL Margarita didn’t sound appealing (Cuba is close enough to Mexico). In the end, my friends and I secured some Kaiserschmarrn for dessert… easily one of the greatest things ever… who knew caramelized pancakes could taste so good?

There’s Cinco de Mayo in Germany for you.

One of the things I’ve learned over the years via all my travel is that the best way to fight jetlag is to exercise once you get to your destination. I don’t think there’s a large body of scientific evidence, but from personal experience I find that exercise does something to my body’s circadian rhythm that lessens the pain of jetlag. So the first thing I did when I got off the plane was to take advantage of Mainz and its picturesque trail that hugs the Rhine…

On a side note, a few of us went to a Chinese restaurant last night (I know, sacrilegious in Germany) and I was amused by my fortune cookie treasure…

You’re a winner! Thanks for the reminder…

All I have to say, is that I love bourbon… and bourbon that is made in Texas is even better. I was lucky enough to secure a pre-release 375ml bottle to sample the deliciousness. There’s a nice rich woody flavor that I haven’t found in any other bourbon.

Sometimes I wonder why I work in software still when I could be making bourbon! Anyways, I would like to thank Dan over at the distillery for the personal tour and look forward to great things in the near future.

Fredericksburg is a bit weird in a way that it’s this little bed and breakfast community in Texas with a German flair. German immigrants left their mark permanently on the city via all the beer gardens and the Texas German language. Anyways, the weather was near perfect and the blue skies definitely helped the mood…

My goal was to finish the 10K in sub 40 minutes but I fell slightly short of that goal. I started the race a bit slow to give my knee a bit of a break but I ended up finishing in about 42 minutes averaging a 6:45/mile pace with zero knee pain. It was nice to learn that I ended up winning my age group with a time like that, woooo!

All in all, well organized race and I’m happy my knee is back to normal.