Saturday was Clark’s 40th birthday, so we flew Friday to Austin, Texas, to meet Bart and Janelle to celebrate it all weekend. We ate a lot of good food, drank a lot of good beer and Clark and I even ran a not-quite-a-5K on his first day in his new age group.
Going back to last week though, since I didn’t post Friday — Tuesday morning, I ran before work, 4 miles at an 8:58/mile average. It was another beautiful morning here.
That evening, we were able to run a track workout for the first time in forever! It’d been seven weeks to be exact, between bad weather, school being closed for winter break and soccer games. There was a game that night too but it didn’t start until 7, so we made sure to be done with our workout by that time. We had a small turnout — Shawn, Rachelle, Dominick and me — and we all run close enough paces that we didn’t need to stagger separate groups, which made it easier.
We ran three 400s, one 800 and three more 400s. My paces on the first set of 400s were 1:46 (7:02/mile pace), 1:43 (6:54) and 1:43 (6:51.) Then we ran the 800, which I finished in 3:32, a 6:57/mile pace. And finally, the last three 400s were faster than the first set — mine were 1:42 (6:40), 1:41 (6:41) and then Rachelle and I pushed each other for one last fast one to cap it off, 1:34, a 6:11/mile pace.
With a brief warm up and cool down, I got in another 2.8 miles, and we were out of the stadium before the game started. Success.
Wednesday morning, I ran before work again, another 4 miles at a 9:08/mile average, and in the evening, I met the running group in Vista and ran a hilly 3-mile loop with Shawn at a 9:36/mile pace.
Thursday, I ran in the late afternoon, 5 miles at an 8:59/mile average. The sunset was so pretty!
Friday, Clark and I flew from San Diego to Austin. He’d been there before, but I hadn’t, and I was looking forward to all the live music.
We stayed in a hotel within walking distance of Sixth Street, the main drag, but first we went to Rainey Street, just a little bit more of a walk away. Clark said the last time he was in Austin, six or seven years ago, it was just a bunch of bars and restaurants in smaller old bungalows along the street. Those are still there, but now there are high rise hotels and apartment complexes surrounding them. It seemed like every street in Austin was under construction! It’s really growing like crazy.
Anyway, we got dinner at a place called Banger’s that specialized in house made sausages, but there was a really good band performing, so we stayed for almost their entire set.
We got a kick out of this description on the beer list that called out Clark:
He had the flat billed hat, but it was too cold for board shorts haha.
We walked back to Sixth Street after that and went in to see who was playing at Antone’s, a legendary blues club where Stevie Ray Vaughn used to perform, among many others.
Bart and Janelle arrived late that night and we went to one more bar with them, where a country music act was playing, complete with a live fiddler. After that, Clark and I were ready to go back to the hotel and hit the hay.
Saturday morning, I didn’t feel too hot when I woke up for our 5K ha. I think it was Deep Eddy’s lemon vodka shot that put me over the edge, but who knows.
Clark and I got dressed and drove to the site of his first race as a master’s runner, the Rockin’ Rhythms 5K. It was the only race in Austin on Clark’s actual birthday, so I didn’t look too far into the details before I registered us both.
It was on Camp Mabry, a state military installation. The entire thing was confined to a 1-mile rubberized track loop in a field, which we completed three times. There were 52 participants. Clark couldn’t believe I’d paid money for it haha. But you know what, it was a fundraiser for a middle school band, which provided entertainment for the runners and walkers as we did our laps, and as a former middle school band geek, I didn’t mind.
Anyway, I ran a little bit of a warm up, less than a half mile, before they called us over to the timing mat on the start/finish line. The race was at least chip timed, but since we just had to cross the mat three times, it wouldn’t really be a true 5K. I still didn’t feel great and just wanted to put in at least a tempo run effort, so I didn’t mind the “fun run” distance either. Not like I was going to be knocking on the door of any PRs that day.
There was one guy in his 20s in shorts and a singlet who I correctly pegged as the only serious runner in the field, who took off like a shot from the line. There were a couple kids and another teen who tried to keep up with that guy for a bit, but I’d loped past them all within a few tenths of a mile of the first lap. I stayed in second the rest of the way and was just glad first place didn’t get to lap me.
The run wasn’t anything memorable. I was already tired of the “scenery” on that track from my warm up — a few pieces of aircraft lined up along one straightaway, but otherwise just a lot of grass. Then I had to dodge puddles (it had at least stopped raining for the run) and the walkers in the race on the second and third laps.
My lap splits were 7:38, 7:47 and 7:43, and I wound up running a hair over 3 miles in 23:26, a 7:42/mile average. Three sub-8 miles with a hangover. I’ll take it.
I made a beeline for the bathroom and got out just in time to see Clark trot by on his way to the finish in 28:36, good for ninth overall.
Oh and the funny thing was there were only two age groups — 13 and under, and then 14 and up. So Clark’s first race in the master’s age group was in the 14-99 age group anyway. Oh well.
I did another lap around the track easy to cool down for a total of 4.5 miles.
We went back to the hotel to get cleaned up, and then we picked up Bart and Janelle to first go to a Tecovas store, where Bart talked himself out of buying snakeskin boots, and then the Yeti store, where he almost bought another $500 cooler instead, until Clark reminded him if he just ordered it online from his home in Delaware he wouldn’t have to pay sales tax. So he didn’t buy anything, but he had his next Yeti purchase picked out.
We went back to Rainey Street for a bit and then to Sixth Street. We had a good birthday dinner at the Iron Cactus. Clark’s parents had given Bart a wad of cash to buy some nice champagne or liquor at dinner, so he and Clark got snifters of some kind of fancy tequila (it all tastes like paint thinner to me so I don’t waste money on it.)
Clark and I stopped at a couple more bars after and finally Voodoo Doughnuts, and then we walked back to the hotel.
Sunday morning, we slept in and then checked out of the hotel. We picked up Bart and Janelle again and went to join the line for Franklin Barbecue.
This place is only open three hours a day, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and when it’s sold out, it’s sold out. But it’s gained a reputation for being the best barbecue in Austin, and the line was already massive when we got there at 11:10.
An employee came out and gave the line the rundown of which meats were probably going to be sold out by the time we got to order. And then she gave us an estimated wait — 2.5 hours from where we were! They were going to be minutes from closing by that time, plus that would eat up half the day and Bart and Janelle were flying out that afternoon. So we left and got barbecue instead at Terry Black’s. It was delicious but we couldn’t help but notice we were the ONLY ones who left the line when the employee announced the wait time, so maybe we should’ve stayed!
Terry Black’s was just on the other side of the Colorado River across from downtown. There’s a lot of green space along the river banks, and the sun had come out, so we went for a walk after lunch.
We hit one more brewery, Pinthouse, and then dropped off Bart and Janelle at the airport. I’m glad we could meet halfway like that to celebrate Clark’s birthday! We were talking about maybe making that a semi annual thing and meet at different cities in the middle of the country. I’ve never been to Omaha, Denver, St. Louis or Kansas City so I’d be down for that.
My mom had texted me Friday about a brewery she’d just read about in her “Garden & Gun” magazine, Jester King, outside Austin. We still had our rental car and a whole ‘nother afternoon to spend, so we drove over there.
Turned out it was on a 167-acre ranch. There was the brewery and then a barn with a stage for live music, a goat pen, a playground, wood-fired pizza and plenty of space to spread out.
We stayed there most of the afternoon until it suddenly started getting cold again. It was a really nice place with some great beers!
We drove back to downtown Austin. Clark wanted to go to a bar on Sixth Street called Buck Wild for one reason.
He told the operator he’d ridden a mechanical bull once before, and the guy knocked him off in 17 seconds ha. He let Clark go a second time and got him in 24.
Then Clark convinced me to try it. I’d never tried before, so the operator took it a lot easier on me at first to let me get the hang of it. I wound up hanging on for a minute and 43 seconds. It was fun!
We had dinner again at the Iron Cactus, and then we drove to a hotel close to the airport. We had a very early flight this morning, and were back at our house by 8:15 a.m.
So we were here when we got a special delivery from a local florist, courtesy of Aunt Helen.
What’s a milestone birthday without a giant bunch of balloons!
It’s been raining all day here again so I never went out to run, which is probably for the best, as I’m sure all the junk I ate over the last few days would’ve made it miserable haha.
We are flying out again Thursday, this time to Maryland for my 50K on Saturday. Right now it looks very cold but thankfully dry for the race, which I hope remains the case! I don’t mind cold but raining on top of it is not fun, as we all found out in 2021.
A Simple Running Log 