Spent most of the week in Austin, TX, for business, and wanted to stay for the weather. Talk about perfect - the temperatures were in the 70's and I saw very few clouds. Ended the week with today's run back home in KC, but we'll get to that.
Monday I ran 6 miles easy, although easy ended up being closer to 9 minutes/mile due to the great weather and just generally being excited to be in one of my favorite running places again. I was in Austin with a co-worker, who doesn't run, and our hotel was downtown on 5th Street. For anyone who knows Austin that means it's a block south of all the restaurants and fun and just a few blocks north of the trails along Town Lake. I got out about 3:30 and the paths were pretty crowded with the usual runners, walkers, bikers, and dogs.
Tuesday I was supposed to meet up with an old friend for dinner, but I didn't hear anything from her so I went out for a run about 5:30. Come to find out Facebook was not delivering messages so we ended up not being able to get together, which was a total bummer. The run was okay although it seemed a little warmer than the previous day. I ran another 6 miles, with about 2.5 of that being at 8 minutes/mile. I was planning on going four miles at the faster pace but the heat got to me so I backed off and finished at a little slower pace. Since my dinner plans fell through and my co-worker had already eaten I walked all the way down Sixth Street by myself and ended up at Opal Divine's, one of my favorite places, for dinner. I was a little bit tired by the time I got back due to the run and the walk, but it was a good tired.
Our flight on Thursday left late morning, which meant I had time to run before leaving town. And I took advantage of the opportunity. I went another 6 miles on the trails, and discovered that the morning crowd is a mere fraction of all the people who are out in the afternoon. Guess everybody goes to work and then plays in Austin. I headed out at about 7:30 and once again the weather was outstanding. I'll be back in Austin in about a month, but only for a day, so doubt I'll have time to run while I'm there.
Today I ended up cutting my long run short, from 15 miles to 8.5. The Wife had a 5k she wanted to run this morning, and we all went and supported her. Unfortunately it started at 8 a.m. and I didn't have time to get in the run beforehand, meaning I had to start late morning by the time we got away and made it home. I was running in full sunlight (still no shade around here) and the temperature was about 80 degrees. I probably could have toughed it out but I'm a wuss, so there. And it was great to see The Wife do such a great job at her race. About 2-3 years ago this same event was her first 5k ever and she completed it but had a very slow pace. Today she improved on her time by over 10 minutes! I'm very proud of her and she's looking forward to her first 10k race in two weeks.
One other item of note from today: my virtual running partner called and registration for the Memphis Marathon has already been closed. No Memphis this year, darn it. We quickly decided to go for Plan B, which is the White Rock Marathon in Dallas the same weekend. I'll take the whole family and we'll stay with them and race in Texas. I thought we registered fairly late last year for Memphis, but guess not this late. Hopefully this will be a good consolation prize and the weather will cooperate. As long as the wind isn't as bad as the April 2009 Big D Texas Marathon I think we'll be fine.
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