Vienna Race Wrap-Up

Maria's smoking 1.2k

Maria totally rocked her race. We only got a couple of training runs in for this race due to our busy schedules here (Maria has gymnastics 5 days a week). At the starting line, the group was tightly packed with the 75 girls in the race. Although she was tired from our bus ordeal, Maria handled things really well. She started at a moderate pace and kept her discipline for the first loop, letting the fast-starters get ahead. On the second loop, she picked it up and was just blowing by girls like crazy. On top of that, she fought off a runners stitch (pain in the stomach area) in the process.

Maria's time: 6:09 for 1.2 km (equivalent to a 8:07 minute per mile pace!)

She placed 8th of 21 girls (her age) and 24th of 75 girls (ages 6 to 10).

Pretty cool. I am a proud daddy in case you couldn't tell. By the way, Maria's friends who traveled with us, Alexa (1st in her age group) and Florin (5th in his group) Bucur also did really well.

Miscellaneous Race Notes

If you're a real devoted Steve J fan like these Austrian gals who are shown here encouraging Steve J on Sunday:

but you couldn't make it to the race, this website had photo's and a couple of videos. Just click on "Wien-Energie Halbmarathon Teil 1" and "Teil 2" - then select either video, photo, or slideshow icons. Also, outrageously expensive race photos can been seen here at this website. Just click on the "Wien Energie Halbmarathon 25 Mar 07" and enter in our race numbers (Maria: 4016, Me: 184, Florin: 4017 and Alexa 4018).

The race goodie bag was a real nice haul. In addition to the medal and the T-shirt, they had powerade and plenty of food (sandwich, donut, fruit).

Running Geek Stuff

Finally, for my running buddies, here is a nice running-geek graph from my fancy schmancy GPS watch data:

As you can see my pace dropped steadily for the first 9 miles, then I slowed a bit at the finish. I probably should have run the first mile slower, but I guess I was pumped up by the crowd, the "Red Bull" I drank and hearing the music "LET'S GET LOUD" at the race start "HEY HEY HEY" - I have that in my head now. The last mile took FOR-ever and I really had to bear down to stay below 8 minutes for the pace. I may have been a little too aggressive in the beginning with my lack of sleep - or I just ran out of gas. However, although it wasn't perfect, I'm pretty pleased with the effort as a whole.

Looking Ahead

I've had a bit more time now to reflect on the race. It will be difficult for me to run another race in Romania (especially if it features such exciting options such as running in traffic like last October) . My perspective has changed after running a really cool, well organized race like this one. Also, unlike the Romanian race, they had real water at the aid stations and not the carbonated stuff. I stopped at every one except the first. Vienna is known for its super clean water and they served the racers right from the fire hydrants after mixing in some electrolytes. So, no offense to my Romanian friends, I think my Fall goal race will be out-of-country if we're still here.

I think another edition of the "Where is Steve racing next" blog race-guessing contest may be in the near future. What do you think?

Steve J's crazy Austrian Half

Pre-race "preparation" by bus.

First, let me write a wrap up of what will probably go down in history as my worst pre-race preparation ever. On Friday night after my last blog post, we settled in for a wonderful 4-5 hours of sleep. We got up at 3:00 am Saturday morning to get ready for the Bucur family to pick us up and get us to the bus station at the outskirts of Bucharest. By 6:00 am, the bus left for our 23.5 hour ride. I did my best to loosen up after every bus stop and Maria and I did a few short sprints in the Romanian city of Sibiu at about 2 pm (6 hrs in) on Saturday. I did my best to stay hydrated without overdoing it (the bus had no toilet - got it?). Thanks to the Helpmeet, I did have my pre-race pasta dinner on the bus since she brought some ziti's and grilled chicken along. We were near the Romanian border town of Adad by about 10:00 pm (14 hrs in). The Helpmeet was really cool. She let me get my own two seats while she sat with Maria so I could try to sleep (I sleep very poorly on any moving object). Unfortunately, a whole bunch of people boarded the bus at Adad and there were no empty seats on the bus. A Romanian kid took the seat next to me and ended up sleeping ON me for most of the night - nice. I may have slept for 4 hours Saturday night, but since I kept waking up every half hour to push this kid off me (personal space please!), I think 4 hours of sleep is a generous estimate.

In Vienna, finally!

We arrived in Vienna at 5:30 am Sunday only 4.5 hours from race time. I navigated our group to the apartment at 6:30 am. I did get to lay down for 30 min while Dana and Maria went out and scrounged up some coffee, croissants and a "red bull" energy drink for me to have before the race. At 9:00 we headed to the tram stop and then the U-bahn (subway) to the race. We saw a guy wearing running clothes and I asked him about where the race number and chip pickup was. He was Austrian, but spoke great English and was really friendly. The race started right at Vienna's largest shopping mall, called Donauzentrum.

Race Start

The place was a mad house, but a well-organized mad house. With 1500+ runners and their friends and families, you're going to have a crowd no matter what. We cut things a little close and I almost forgot to pick up my timing chip. Gabby, after watching many runners doing warm-up runs, asked me if I was going to warm up. There was just no time so I told him I do my warm-up during the race (I said this confidently to make him think I actually knew what I was doing). After dumping my clothes and stuff on Dana, I hustled to the start and tried to find a spot in the middle of the pack. All the announcements were in German, so the only thing I understood was the starting horn.

I don't know if it was the adrenaline or the "red bull" I guzzled on the U-bahn, but I felt surprisingly good when I started running. After all, this is supposed to be fun! The Sun was out and the temp was right around 50 degrees with no wind. After 36 torturous hours of getting to this race, I was finally relaxed.

The Course

The race course was really nice. It was a loop with 3 laps around the "Alte Donau" which translates Old Danube. I think it's a lake which was part of the nearby Danube river before it was diverted for flood control (If you're German is really good, just click the link for details). I like the 3 laps because I could see my six person "fanclub" at each 1/3 of the race and that was great encouragement.

My fancy schmancy GPS watch was the bomb. It was my first race running with this watch and it won't be the last. In addition to the really geeky map plots (see below), it really was useful for me to keep my pace in control. In a large race like this, you are constantly trying to get running room in the beginning and you tend to run too fast. My watch was set to "avg mile pace" so I could watch my pace during each mile.

The Numbers!

Finally, the moment you've been waiting for! From the really cool race site, here's the official chip data: (click on "Ergebnislisten" if you're bored at work today)

First 7 km: 35:23 (8:09 per mile pace)

Second 7 km: 34:03 (7:49 per mile pace)

Third 7 km: 32:10 (7:24 per mile pace)

FINISH TIME: 1:41:37

(566 place out of 1469 finishers, 124 out of 24o in age group).

In case your wondering, the Kenyans did not run this year and an Austrian (Roman Weger) won the race with a "slow" time of 1:04:36 (slow, yeah right). But who cares about him, when you can watch me near the finish:

With all the trouble pre-race (sickness from last week and especially the weekend travel disaster), I was really happy with this time. I chopped over 5 minutes from my first Half-Marathon in October.

I hope you guys enjoyed my race post. I may post again with some final thoughts and running geek stuff, but we're off to make the most of our last 24 hours here in this really cool race city of Vienna.

Ok, so I really needed a challenge....

Well, it's Friday night at 7:30 pm and you might think I'm typing this from my apartment in Vienna, getting anxious for the race. WRONG! We missed the flight from the airport today. No Joke. I'm back at our apartment in Bucharest. We (the supposedly seasoned travelers) arrived at the airport 2 hrs before our flight (at one of Europe's smallest international airports) and STILL MISSED IT. It's a long story, and I'll leave it to the lovely helpmeet to tell you about it on the family blog - as soon as she recovers from the shock and horror!

For my first Half-Marathon last October, we took an 8 hr train ride the day before and arrived at dinner time the day before the race. That wasn't the ideal preparation, but I still ran good. Now this is going to top that experience BIGTIME! We had few options, but thanks to the Bucur family and their friend Liliana, we came up with a way to get to Vienna before the race.

And No, I'm not kidding. At approximately 3:45 am tomorrow (Saturday) we are heading off to catch a bus. The bus will leave Bucharest at 6:00 am Saturday) and arrive in Vienna at................5:30 am (Sunday - RACE DAY)!!!!!! Yes, a 24 hour bus ride that will end about 4 1/2 hours before the starting gun sounds at my Half Marathon.

I just may have to adjust my expectations a bit, but I'm still gonna run this thing! If you're not a praying-type person reading this - start, please!

Back up and runnin'

It took a full week, but I'm finally getting over this nasty little head cold I had all last week. Nearly everyone a work had a taste of this bug. About the only satisfaction I got was spreading it to Bob, who is sharing my office until the end of the month. Just kidding - I hope he can kick it this weekend. While I was down-n-out, things were blooming at the park. I brought my camera along this morning to Titan Park for a slow (really slow) jog. There's nothing like a few pics to distract from this do-nothing blog.

Cool little winter project. This is an outdoor amphitheatre they started building in November. I thought it was strange back then since winter was about to start. However, with all the awesome weather we had this winter, they had no problem getting it done. I guess they'll have children's shows there, but I'm not sure.

For this week, the plan is 20-25 miles of easy running finishing up on Wed or Thursday to stay fresh for the race on Sunday. Hopefully the training I did before I got sick will pay off, and I'll beat my time from last fall - we'll see.

Unless something unusual happens, the next post will feature my Vienna running experience!

Stumbling at the finish line...

The week started out great with 3 days of running, but now I'm down again. Since Thursday, I've come down with "the crud" as they say in the Southern USA. I don't know if I've got a light cold, or if it's allergies caused by whatever is blooming right now. I've had no energy and this random cough which makes me sound like I'm 90 years old. With 2 weeks to go until the Vienna Half Marathon, this pretty much stinks. After 3 days of whining, I finally gave in and tried the Helpmeet's claritin last night, so hopefully that will kick in. I still have a nice chunk of miles logged in so far this year, so hopefully 1 bad week at the end won't do me in.

For my loyal readers (all 4 or 5 of you), I hope things will pick up on this blog, but who knows. Our travel season will be kicking in and the leaves on the trees will make better pictures in Bucharest (not the most photogenic city in winter, that's for sure).

Just checkin' in

Quick post today since this was a pretty uneventful running week. If you're bored, all the "partying" is happening on the family blog - or as Dana says "The cool blog". But hey, this is a running blog, so what did you expect?

Week of EZ running

OK, I admit I ran that 14 miler last Saturday a little too fast. I actually did run the next day for over 5 miles, but by Monday I felt pretty wore down. Since I'm a much less stupid runner than I was last year, I took 2 days off. I then decided to skip any speedwork this week and focus on some nice easy (EZ) pace running.

I hooked up with missionary friend John at Herestreau on Wednesday for a nice run after work. Temps were in the low 40's and it had rained that day, so the park was nearly deserted which was nice. After that, the weather improved bigtime for this weekend. For the long run today, I got out there at 6:20 am and it was already 50 F. I watched the sunrise and the city of Bucharest come alive in the early morning as I ran to (and around) Ceausescu's palace (Palace of Parliament) and then back home for a total 11 miles. Outside of a few comments (which I did not understand) from taxi drivers and several (non-violent) dog encounters, this run was pretty tame. I'll probably try to get a short run in tomorrow to finish up the week.