We had some great runs during the course of the conference. There is no better way to start the day then getting some fresh air outside and get your body moving. I mean, who would resist the beautiful foliage in Ludwigsburg?

In the end, I hope everyone had a great time running!

I had the second leg which was a 10K and finished it in about 41 minutes which isn’t that bad for me. It was also delightful to run as a ringer on the Austin Runners Club women’s team. Overall, I felt good and think I’ll be good for the Chicago marathon in a couple weeks… my right ankle showed no sign of pain!

And then it got dark which made it a bit worst when it comes to detecting rocks… so of course I managed to roll my bad ankle again…

I ended up finishing in roughly 3 hours and 20 minutes… which I’ll take given the course…

We went for two legs each as we had some trouble forming a last minute team.

We ended up finishing in 1:07:03 which isn’t that bad… I ran about 15:30 on average… meh…

I’m always a fan of doing relay races so I was ready to conquer the 197 miles. I started out with Leg 5 which wasn’t that bad…

…besides the hill climb in the end… but I ended up running it in 43:00 which isn’t that bad. After that, Leg 17 was up  which was nice and flat 5.69 miles… it was a night run and I cruised in at 38:46 feeling pretty good.

A bit sore, but still good. My last leg was 29 and it was 6.11 miles full of terrible…

… the first 3.5 miles were essentially up hill with a nice steep grade climb to finish things off. After that, the downhill was probably the most enjoyable running I had the whole relay… I felt like I was floating. On average, I ran about a 7 minute mile pace the whole relay which isn’t bad given the status of my injured ankle. I think once my ankle recovers I’ll be back to my 6 minute mile pace. In the end, my team ended up finishing in 26 hours and 11 minutes (faster than last year!) which put is at 181th out of 1023 teams and in the 54th Open Men’s division.

‘Til next year where sub 26 hours should be in our future!

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?

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.

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.

My right knee held up pretty well and I managed to finish in ~1:53 which is a decent time coming off my knee injury. I could of easily ran the race 10-15 minutes faster if I pushed myself a bit. I didn’t push myself until the last two miles which was too late to catch up to the head of the pack. Anyways, after I finished I went straight to the free beer to medicate a bit…

What I didn’t expect after three beers was participating in a Gatorade chugging contest for a pair of trail shoes…

It was a complete failure on my part… I tasted defeat and it tasted like Gatorade…

Race Revolutions did a great job hosting the event.

I will be better prepared for the drinking contest next time.

I was running easy 6:40 splits until the last couple miles where a cramp started to eat away at me but I managed to finish in about 43 minutes. Overall I felt good and I’m confident my knee is just about fully recovered so I’ll be good for the San Diego Rock n’ Roll Half Marathon. On a side note, I was so close to getting the mark of the beast for my race number…

There’s always next time