2008 Austin Marathon Sneak Peek

So, yesterday, I attended an Update and Information meeting for the Austin Marathon. Then I drank some beer, then I ran. The latter two things are not as important.

There are some changes for this year, some good, some a little sad.

The full and half marathon courses are essentially the same as in 2007. The most notable difference is that the start and finish line have moved. Lately, I've been walking down Congress at lunch to grab a sandwich and get my smile from the cute girl at Jimmy Johns that is no doubt too young for me, and I've been getting all excited around Sixth and Congress, where we thought the 2008 start/finish would be.

Unfortunately, due to all the construction that will be taking place downtown, we won't have the glorious start and finish on Congress Avenue anymore. If you ran or saw the event this year, count yourself as lucky.

The new start and finish will be on Auditorium Shores, which will still be pretty cool because of the new Lady Bird Lake Park (if you haven't seen it, you should check it out).

That change appears to be pretty well set in stone at this point, but be warned - the rest of this is unofficial. There's still a lot of work to be done on the course, and then they have to get the USATF to certify the course, which could necessitate changes. But here's some of the features as it currently stands:

Both the half marathon and marathon will share the course again, but whereas the half marathoners turned off Enfield onto Exposition, then split off from the marathoners at Windsor road, this year, the half marathoners will just keep going on Enfield. This means they get to miss some of the hills on Exposition.

From there, the marathon course continues as it did in 2007, until almost mile 22 or so. In 2007, we ran east on 46th from Guadalupe - we'd been steadily getting closer to the finish geographically - when all of a sudden, we turned exactly away from the finish line, to head north on Avenue H. The neighborhoods were very cool, including one house that had a big barbecue in the front yard to watch the race, featuring a sign that said "Running is better than Masturbating". I had to laugh at that point, thinking that these people were really doing something incredibly wrong.

Anyway, this year, it looks like we'll get to continue making progress by turning south on Avenue G, east on 45th, then south on Duval for a fairly fast stretch. This is more like the older marathon course, and it avoids the steep hill we had this year on 38 1/2.

The course resumes being like this year's, with the exception that there's a bump up and around the stadium. This throws a short, steep hill at you at about 23.5 miles in.

Mandy, Amanda and I ran six last night, picking up the last three miles of the course, and we all agree that this "bump" will absolutely suck. If it stays in, it'll be a priority location to make sure there's a band at the top and lots of cheering crowds.

In 2007, we turned right off of San Jacinto and had to go uphill on MLK to Congress. This was a killer in the last mile of the race. Right now, they show us crossing MLK, and turning up 18th. We didn't think it was much better than MLK, but it was nice to think it would be...

Left on Congress, around the Capitol, down Congress, to 4th Street, where this year's finish line was... then you turn right on 4th (bummer!), and go down past the coffee shop I used to work at (Halcyon) to Guadalupe, turn left, go across the South First Street bridge, turn right on Riverside, and finish to the cheers of thousands.

It's still gonna be cool. I've plotted out a rough version of the course on Gmaps Pedometer. Again, this is not official, and will almost certainly go through some changes until February. They won't publicize the early versions, because as soon as you do, the churches and a handful of residents will begin with the screaming. So, use this for your own purposes, only. Still, it's fun to think about.

I did not think to look at the remainder of the half marathon course after the turn-off, but I'll get that checked out and get back to you.

Other tidbits... it looks like RunFar might be back for the timing... there's talk of GPS runner tracking with text-messaging... this year will see the new 26 Miles for 26 Charities effort, which I hope we'll get involved in.

Start visualizing... this, or something remarkably similar, is gonna be your course on your day, February 17, 2008.