WEATHER A CHALLENGE AT AUSTIN MARATHON
Austin business owner, former Longhorns running star top field of 3,600. Women’s champion Macsas overcomes ‘tough’ conditions.
As co-owner of Rogue Expeditions, an Austin-based company that guides people on running vacations to far-flung spots, Allison Macsas has run all around the world.
She’s competed in some high-profile races, too, including the 2016 U.S. Olympic marathon trials, but she ranked her victory Sunday at the Austin Marathon as one of her best efforts to date.
Just a week ago, Macsas was wrapping up her training in the Patagonia region of South America, where it was 50 degrees and clear, so the steam-bath like conditions that greeted the roughly 3,600 marathoners in Austin on Sunday presented quite a challenge.
“I can’t remember another race that was this tough,” said Macsas,
whose winning time was 2 hours, 48 minutes and 16 seconds. “It was about as bad as it gets. I pretty much threw all of my time goals out and was just aiming to win.”
The 32-year-old Macsas pocketed $2,000 for her victory over the women’s field. Caroline Veltri, a 26-year-old lawyer from New York City who competes for Central Park Track Club, finished second in 2:58.36, and Austinite Jennifer Harney was third in 3:07:26.
Though Macsas scaled back her pace, which took through the first five kilometers in 19:12, she discovered that she still had miscalculated, given the weather conditions.
“I went out faster than I should have, and I paid for that later on,” said Macsas, who has a marathon best of 2:39:58, set at the much-cooler 2014 Twin Cities Marathon in Minnesota.
Nonetheless, Macsas built a commanding lead over both Veltri and Canada’s Kari Elliot. By the 10K mark, Macsas had dropped her pace to 6:00 per mile, and was a full three minutes up on Elliot, the women’s champion at the 2016 BMO Okanagan Marathon in British Columbia.
Macsas hit the halfway mark in 1:21:22, and at that point, Veltri had moved into second, although she trailed Macsas by more than seven minutes.
By the time she passed RoyalMemorial Stadium at mile 25, Macsas had extended her lead to 11 minutes.
“It took an element of stress off of it, knowing that I had such a big lead,” Macsas said, “but at the same time, it becomes a much bigger head game because you’re just by yourself. Mentally it makes it really tough.
“I wanted to break 2:50, but there was no one to pace (her) and no one to run from.”
Macsas slowed to a roughly seven-minute per mile pace in the last 10 kilometers, but Veltri closed only slightly.
“It’s really cold in New York right now so this heat was really a challenge,” said Veltri, who picked up $1,500 in prize money. “Still my time today was a personal best for me in the marathon. My previous best was 2:59:27 at the City of Oaks Marathon in Raleigh, N.C.”
In the end, Macsas said, Sunday’s race “was the toughest I’ve ever run. It was pretty brutal.
“The weather did what I knew it would do, which was creep up on me. Sure, I may have gone out a little faster than I should have, but I think the weather was going to get me in the end regardless.”