San Antonio Rock n Roll Marathon Preparations

Hubby and I are in San Antonio this weekend to run my (probably) final marathon of the year!  I’m super excited for the weekend getaway & to have a little romantical time on the Riverwalk.  Although we’ve been to San Antonio before for Fiesta with friends, we’ve never stayed downtown or done any significant sightseeing.

This is my 6th Rock n Roll event this year & will be my 6th full marathon of the year.  The weather is looking HOT with temps in the mid to upper 80′s on Sunday, even though it was 35 on Friday morning.  The course looks pretty decent, with the exception of a nasty uphill last 6 miles- what were they thinking!?!?

I’m excited that this course is *almost* a loop and starts very close to where it ends- near our hotel on the Riverwalk!  The course looks like there are fewer loops than some of their other rouses & hopefully the course will go through some nice parks and riverside areas.

I’m really hoping that the slope is so tiny on the last 8 miles that it’s hardly noticeable. It only looks like <150′ elevation gain over that distance, with a few small ups & downs in between.  Seeing that, I’d really love to go for a new PR (under 4:39 I ran in San Diego) and see how close I can get to a 4:30 marathon.  We’ll see how I feel that day & how the heat impacts me since I normally HATE running in the heat.  I’m signed up for the full in Vegas in December, but I have serious doubts about being able to finish in the course time limit of 4:30.

I will hopefully have another new medal in my hands by noon on Sunday & I think they did a great job incorporating the Alamo into the medal.

I’m more excited about this heavy medal though- my Super 6 for completing 6 Rock n Roll events this year.  I’ve got all my medals hanging up in my office & I can’t wait to add 2 more to the collection.

Snacks & race bag are packed- the usual assortment of foods: peanut butter M&M’s, Stinger honey waffles, skittles, PB&J sandwich stuff, peanut butter crackers, chips ahoy chocolate chip cookies, Gatorade.  Some goes in  my belt & the rest is in a package for hubby to meet me at the higher miles and restock my belt.  Got my camera ready again & will probably run with my phone.  No need for the hot hands for this race, but will have my visor, body glide & a washcloth to wipe my face.   Got some baby wipes, earphones, advil & cash inside the brand new pockets (with working zippers) on my belt.   Only thing missing from this picture is the brownies that I froze from a few weeks ago- I loved eating them in my Philly marathon last year.

Here’s the official shirt & it looks like a pretty big race- around 25,000 people the last few years.   Again, the usual split with  most people running the half-marathon and only a few thousand people completing the full.  I’ve copies a few blog posts and previous year’s race reports below.

4,530 in the full marathon and 20,500 in the half-marathon in 2010.

5,800 in 2009 and 7,525 in 2008.

Running-Advice.com 2010 San Antonio Marathon Recap

Whitney Bates 2010 San Antonio Rock n Roll Half-Marathon Recap

Endurance Isn’t Physical 2010 San Antonio Rock n Roll Marathon Recap

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Made it to San Antonio & having an awesome time with hubby so far- headed out to do some exploring and picture taking today.