In case you don’t know about the Silicon Labs Marathon Relay, I’ll give you a quick run down. It is a 5 leg relay with the leg distances adding up to 26.2 miles (12k, 10k, 10k, 5k, and 5k). Each leg starts and ends at Auditorium Shores in downtown Austin. A group of my friends and I have done this race for the past 3 or 4 years - we can’t seem to remember when we started. Besides being fun racing with my friends, I really like this race because every year but one my folks have come out to cheer on our team (and they can’t remember how many years we’ve done the relay either).
We all planned to meet at 6:30am on Sunday morning to set up our tent and chairs and get our race numbers pinned on before the race start at 7:15am. Terry and I got there first and started setting up. Missy followed shortly thereafter with our race numbers and packets. I spent a good amount of time roaming around while talking on the phone with my dad trying to figure out where we each were. Of course, we were standing within about 20 feet of each other. Eventually, I found Mom and Dad and got them settled at our tent. I grabbed a mini Clif bar, pinned my number on, and headed off to the start line. I was really glad to be the first leg of the relay. It is the longest leg, but being first to go gives me less time to be nervous. In years past, I’ve gotten really nervous waiting for my leg to start. It doesn’t make any sense, either, as my team just does this race for fun – we aren’t out to win it. We race because it is tradition and there is free beer at the end.
As I was waiting for the race to begin, Eli (of Red Licorice Management Team fame) stepped up next to me. Eli and I chatted for a few minutes and then the race began!
…And then we sort of just shuffled forward waiting to get across the start line (we didn’t seed ourselves well!). It was a bit of a rough going once I was past the start line, too. The road narrows considerably so there were a number of people all crammed together. After about a mile, though, I was able to get into my stride. Around that time I saw the remaining two members of our relay team arrive. Leslie and Chris were running late, but they were the last two legs of our team so it was no big deal. And it was cool to be cheered on by them as they were walking to our tent area. I got more big cheers by my team and parents as I passed them a minute or so later. After that, I was running down Congress Avenue and I had loads of room to move. I saw Eli again as we circled around the Capitol. He was recovering from a trip to Interbike in Vegas and a late flight home; otherwise, I never would have caught up to him!
Being the first leg of the relay has the nice perk of getting to clearly see the front runners. There are three “out and back” sections of the first leg of the course so you get to see the super speedy runners multiple times. I love that – somehow, just seeing the really fast people makes me feel like I can go faster, too.
Running out down Cesar Chavez wasn’t the most exciting part of the course. I did realize around that time that I was taking in too much water, too. There were a ton of water stops for this race. Even only drinking at every other one made my stomach a bit sloshy. I held off on water at the last few stops and felt much better by the end. After I rounded the turnaround point on Cesar Chavez, I saw my buddy Beaux on the other side of the road. That was fun because he yelled, “Work off that queso!” at me, which probably sounded weird to the other runners around us. The day before the relay, Terry and I and a few of our friends did a queso crawl around town. I love queso, but let me tell you – 5 quesos in one day, even shared among 5 or 6 people, is about two too many. I needed a race after all of that!
I passed back by my cheering section of friends and parents as I headed back down South First Street. I turned down onto Riverside Drive and saw Terry (he was the second leg of the relay) standing just past the finish line arch. Then, to my right, I saw my dad cheering for me. He had headed to the finish line to watch our relay hand off. I slipped off the bracelet/relay baton from my wrist as I crossed the finish line and handed off to Terry. We got in a nice double high-five and a quick kiss (awww….) and Terry was off. I headed through the food area and picked up a cookie and a water and then met back up with Dad. We walked back to our area, chatting about running (Dad was a runner in high school and college), and we rejoined our crew.
The rest of the day was spent just hanging out and watching people run the course. We’d all get up to go cheer for our runners coming in and then going out on the course. Then we’d head back to our tent for breakfast taco eating, newspaper reading, crossword puzzle doing, and just general hanging out. The weather was really in our favor, too. It actually got a bit cooler as the morning went on. I think my leg was the warmest leg of the race even though it was the first! Awesome people, running in downtown Austin, and perfect weather - I just loved the whole feel of the morning. It was like hanging out in the park with your loved ones on a nice, relaxing day with a few moments of “race day” excitement thrown in every little once in a while. A perfect morning.
After Chris finished (our final runner), we cleaned up our area and headed over to the beer tent for our free beverages and pizza. Sadly, this year they had no vegetarian pizza options. I find this odd since it seems like half of Austin is vegetarian, but I had free beer so I was okay. Free pizza just wasn’t as important. Also, I still had my folks there and they took me out to a lovely late brunch at Hyde Park. Even though I’m an adult, it is nice to have my parents take care of me every little once in a while!
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