Austin Half Marathon, part 2 recap

Last, I posted a more creative nonfiction look at the race. Now, a "traditional" race recap with pictures and numbers and all that good stuff.

Dark, foggy view of the Capitol as we walked towards the start line. Dan thinks I'm weird, but I'm a little bit in love with the Texas State Capitol building. It's just really cool and interesting and "very Texas Republic." It was a cool start/end point for the race.

 My goals going into the race were:
A) Finish in sub-3 hours.
There were times this seemed possible, but also times when I wasn't sure we'd manage. One time that I didn't think it would happen is when we took a NINE minute bathroom break (45 seconds to pee, the rest of the time waiting in line)
B) Run a personal best.
Our last half (also our first half) we ran in 3:06, so this gave us a little margin beyond the A goal.
C) Not die.
You should always have "not die" be one of your goals, right?

At the aforementioned 9 min bathroom stop. We spent a lot of time contemplating peeing behind that abandoned building.

Mile 9-ish. See the Capitol (the finish line) wayy in the distance?

Finishers!

 So how did we do?

• Mile 1: 12:59
• Mile 2: 12:59
• Mile 3: 13:15
• Mile 4: 13:23 (includes a walked water stop)
• Mile 5: 12:57
• Mile 6: 22:01.
  But if you take out the 9 min bathroom break at 5.6 miles, this was actually our fastest mile at ~11mins. I think I sprinted the first 0.6 miles because I had to pee so badly, and then finished out fast because I was mad about all the time we lost.
• Mile 7: 12:16 (includes a walked water stop)
• Mile 8: 13:04
• Mile 9: 12:23 (walked water stop)
• Mile 10: 12:27
• Mile 11: 12:50 (includes the world's most evil hill!)
• Mile 12: 12:37 (walked water stop)
• Mile 13: 13:07
• 0.3 mile bit: 4:38 (13:12 pace) (although I forgot to stop my Garmin when we stopped running, so maybe a little shorter?)

After the race, we picked up our finisher t-shirts, our medals, our post-race snacks, and (well-earned) beer! We had decided to check a bag with some warm/dry clothes. It wasn't very cold, but it gets chilly when you're all wet and sweaty, so we changed before hitting up the food trucks.
(I'm sorry to the food truck worker who had to handle the super-sweaty $20 bill that had been inside my butt pocket during the race.)

Mmmmpanadas! I had soy chorizo with brie, and it was delicious. The outside was awesomely golden friend. One thing I really loved about Austin was all the vegetarian and non-pork options everywhere. Houston food is yummy, but this is really a porky town.

Next up, a BBQ chicken taco for me, pork banh mi slider for Dan from The Peached Tortilla:

And awesome fresh guac and chips from Guac n Roll. This one had tomatoes, cilantro, onion, jalapeno, dried papaya and pepitas on it... the peptias gave it such a great crunch!

We sat at some nearby tables set up by the race to eat all our food truck spoils before heading back to the hotel for a shower and a nap... as you do, after running 13.1 miles.