Keeping Austin Weird

From the time we landed it’s hard to believe that Austin is actually in Texas, except for the pick up trucks, country music, Mexicans as far as the eye could see and all the signs that said “Dallas” or “Houston”.

The trip out was great especially because we got the hell away from the snow. The biggest challenge came at BWI security when the TSA agent started lecturing me about the 3 oz rule. She pointed out that my shaving cream was in a 5oz tube. My bad...I guess I don’t need to shave. And further more is 3 oz of an explosive material disguised as shampoo somehow “safe”. 3oz is a completely arbitrary number. Why not only allow 1oz gels or 10oz gels? Can I only build a bomb if it’s more then 3oz of material? We really need to question these kind of universal decisions. Also once it was clear she was going to let me pass with the 5oz container she added, “don’t let them know it was from Baltimore”. As if I get stopped in Nashville or LA with the same bottle, I’m going to say...”well the lady in Baltimore said it was ok.”. Or even that somebody might know who that was referring to!

Other then our fun with numbers, the trip was great and Brian and Misty (and Jason) showed us a great time, taking us all around the city and to some great places including Austin Java and Katz’s (who disappointingly had run out of cheesecake earlier in the day!).

The race itself was easily the hardest course I’ve ever taken on with very large and very frequent hills, but I emerged rather well in a time of 4 hr, 7 min, and 36 seconds. Not great but not bad. For the record I was the 6th person (out of 12) from Maryland to finish and I placed 163rd in my Division (M30-34) and my bib number was 163 so I’ve got that going for me which is good. 20 down and ?? left to go.

I’m taking a break from Marathons for the better part of the year now to focus on the Triathlon so we’ll see where that takes me. But I love this stuff too much not to come back strong (maybe in the Fall). We’ll see.