Coming from out of state to run this race was totally worth it. Aside from the race and expo there…read morewere a bunch of pre race events all over town by run clubs and local business leading into race weekend. The race expo had lots of vendors and cool photo ops, race day is right in the center of down town which was pretty easy to get to since we were staying at a hotel in downtown. We did the half marathon, being from LA where we are use to hills I can honestly say the long stretching hills here in Austin were more challenging than I expected. Miles 1-4, 8-9, & 10-12 can gas you out if you hit the ground running too hard. But overall it's a great course, lots of crowd support and a great post race beer garden. After the race there are a lot of local breweries and business that have specials for race participants. If you're looking for an interesting city to travel to while have a great race as your other excuse to visit the Austin marathon is worth it.

When it comes to Yelp reviews, I try to be thorough in my experience and give the ultimate review…read more What's more thorough than waking up at 4:30 am to run 26.2 miles that you paid a chunk of change to do? I've never run a marathon before, but I trained for this sucker like it was nobody's business. It wasn't easy, and the universe kept throwing curveballs at me to try and stop me. Determination is what separates you from the corral. Makes you a doer. Packet pickup was a long and winding line of waiting the day prior. It's like Disneyland! After navigating through evil Austin traffic at 6 am, my cousin's fiancé and I got into the D heat after a good stretch, and just around 7:15 we were off. The course is a nightmare, I am going to be real with you. There are about 200 feet of constant elevation in the first 3.5 miles and many hills and "mountains" to get over throughout the entire duration. However, as someone who has lived in Austin for a year and a half now, it's a real showcase of some of the best places the Live Music Capital of the World has to offer. This is one of those courses you need to have people cheering for you at. Every time there was a person I knew in my line of sight, my energy increased tenfold. I was grateful to all the people who showed up, and the one who made me an incredible sign of me reviewing the marathon. She knew me too well. After suffering some major setbacks at the peak of my training, I hit a major wall past mile 20 and had to really push through to the end. It was a major accomplishment and has been a bucket list task for me since my middle school mayor gave this motivating speech about how he ran one. There is tons of live music set up along the route from rock bands to country artists to some DJs dropping heaters. It's cool to take in the sounds especially if your Airpods die. I appreciate the two gel stations, where they looked to be more generous with the gels. Take two. Take four. And the 22 different water and aid stations. There were many times when there was a line for the porta potties, so just know you will be waiting if you have to go. I did accidentally get their electrolyte hydration instead of water without knowing, and I was wondering why the water tasted so weird. The cups are different and they yell ELECTROLYTES at you as you grab it. I wasn't listening. I was RACING! Here's the course through my lens and memory: Starting on Congress, you quickly cross a Lady Bird Lake bridge and venture down South Congress, passing by Homeslice, The Continental Club, The Austin Motel, Hotel San Jose, and more. A quick turnaround on the 290 access road puts you on 1st Street, passing by the Long Center. You get to journey down Cesar Chavez, parallel to the Roy and Ann Butler Trail, before getting a view of the Lions Municipal Golf Course with Mozart's and Hula Hut just on the other side. You pass a cute chunk of houses on Enfield and go under Mopac before the nightmare mile 12 hill. After you survive the hill, you split off from the half marathon runners (bunch of rookies), passing Clay Pit (where I won the 2025 Rookie of the Year, by the way), the UT Austin campus, and The Drag. Hello, Scientology building. You get a quick run through the beautiful Hyde Park, where First Light Book Store and Allday Pizza call your name. Another golf course stands in your way before getting a look at the other side of the UT Austin campus and running under I-35. I will admit my memory is a little hazy for a few miles, but you do pass an ACC campus and a really nice park off Pleasant Valley where people had a great time playing soccer. I wish I could join them. If you survive all of that and a couple extra miles, you get to pass the "good eats" section of Austin with Justine's, Lil' Easy, Sawyer and Co., and De Nada. You pass probably your 10th Juiceland of the day. Cesar Chavez keeps going with a pass by the eager line of barbecue fiends at La Barbecue and Rockman, plus Juan in a Million and a beautiful Chalmers looking so delightful. A little journey and another Juiceland pass by take you to the formerly hipster East 6th Street for the final stretch. One more pass through under I-35 and you are on Red River Street, passing so many great venues like Swan Dive, Stubb's, and Mohawk, before climbing the monster hill off 11th Street at mile 26, passing the Texas State Capitol and running down the hill to the finish line. I got a finisher shirt, a little medal (that can also be a belt buckle, typical Austin), and some extra goodies along the way. I absolutely hated this. This was the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life and even still, I will probably do it again sometime. It is not an easy course. Quite frankly, it is an extremely tough course. The Hill Country Hellscape makes the win so much more worthwhile. Pray for my knees. Pray for my legs. Ay caramba. This was all for the Yelp review. RIYL: Running for 20 miles and still having 6.2 miles left to go. Yeesh.

I hate this place i went to it and it is poorly runned bad its bad staff i got hurt on The main…read morecable and we are forced to stay on the wibit to 11.00-3.00 stay away the worst camp one Earth.

We loved the water park at Quest! We took three pre-teen boys to the park and they had a blast…read more The "blob" was so fun to launch them skyward, and they loved the giant obstacle course. The slides and the swings were great, too. Being able to bring our own food helped us save some money, and all the people there were extremely friendly and supportive. The "big kids" were so nice to our kids and it made for a really nice environment. Will definitely be back.

This is a great neighborhood park in Southeast Austin. The park is reserved on the weekends for…read morethe Austin Soccer leagues, but during the week it is a great place to get a workout in. The greens are well maintained and always groomed. Watch out for sprinklers in the mornings (found this out the hard way). I like to come here when I don't want to fight traffic and to let my Boxer off his leash to run around. He enjoys the freedom of running around the open field. Well that and trying to piss on every tree he can. I also come because I find running on grass is easier on these old bones. There is a track, but I generally run the perimeter of the soccer fields for about 6 laps. You can get quite a few miles in doing that, but you have to watch out for soccer games, the occasional ultimate frisbee, football game, or kite flyers. Hopefully more of our SE Austin community will come out and enjoy this little neighborhood treasure.

If you're looking for a beautifully kept field to host a tournament, this is the place!…read moreThis is our second time participating in a large tournament at this field and we were not disappointed. Well, aside from the crazy Jurassic Park-like thorny stickers... The fields were well manicured, the parking was plentiful, and the and easy on-easy off the interstate. Overall, a well manicured field with plenty of room for all.

If you want to be part of the running group but on a tight budget, I highly recommend Austin…read moreRunners Club. This is such a great non-profit organization and I'm glad it exists. I don't have the luxury of paying hundreds of dollars to sign up for a running group. I am a former rower who has now become a runner. Training with Austin Runners Club is great because everyone is supportive of each other. I am a slow runner but this organization welcomes people who have a passion for running whether they are elite athletes or starting out. There are running groups that meet early morning or evenings at various locations. I happen to be with the group called Al's Ship of Fools which meets every Tuesday and Thursday evenings at O Henry Middle School. In addition the club has a group run on Saturday.

Maxwell trail is located off of 1826. The trail is approximately 5.25 miles; the Main (West) loop…read moreis approximately 3.25 miles and the Outer (East) Loop is approximately 2.0 miles. I discovered this trail when attending a trail run with East Side Beer runners. To access the trail, turn into the main driveway off FM 1826. Drive to the parking lot and you'll see an opening through a gate that leads to the trail head. There is limited parking available on site. There is a historical house and plaque about Mary Maxwell. Bikes are only allowed to ride clockwise, while hikers and those riding horses must use the trail in a counter clockwise direction. The trail had some technical sections with rocks and tree roots, but there were also some flat parts as well. A good portion of the trail was covered with grass so it was difficult to see rocks and other obstructions. I managed to finish the 5 mile run without injuring myself. The trail is pretty flat but there were a few portions that had some steps or a bit of elevation. Overall a good start trail for a mountain biker or trail runner.

It was a pretty trail, there wasn't enough tree cover. The grass was a bit high for runningread more

Delightful trails, tucked away min from everything Buda. Looking for a dog park I was thrilled to…read morefind this spot. The 2 areas for pups to roam free are large enough for big Zoomies. The trails are well maintained, great for running and scattered with interesting architectural details. Lots of moments for photographers and birding.

A recently retired friend wanted to meet up and go for an early morning Sunday walk. I was more…read morethan willing. I'd never been to this park so I was excited and it didn't disappoint. It has well established walking trails, some have pretty good shade because of the surrounding trees another area is more of an open park with more of the feel of a school track. Both are nice. There were a few people when we arrived early and as the morning drew on more people arrived. But the area is so expansive it never felt crowded. It was a very pleasant morning on this trail. I'm hoping to come back on a consistent basis to walk here as an addition to my normal workouts.

I stumbled upon this park/trail after visiting the tiny, cute Lindshire Park on lindshire Lane (off…read moreslaughter) There are several entrances but we entered on Lindshire. There is a gravel trail but no trailhead. The bluebonnets were amazing. There isn't really a way to get "lost" as you are nestled between neighborhoods, but there are lots of intersecting trails. Bring your phone so you can follow along if needed. I didn't bring water and my dog was getting thirsty so we connected back to the road and found a nice man who gave us water. I will definitely try these trails out again. We saw several people and dogs enjoying the trails as well.

OMG WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THIS BEAUTIFUL PLACE IS RIGHT IN A NEIGHBORHOOD?! What amazes me even…read moremore is that I've lived in south austin most of my life at this point and I never even knew this was here! A friend and I have been going out on Sunday mornings for walks and we try to find a new hike and bike trail to walk every week. She found this place and we knew quickly that we want to revisit this place. It has everything you want. Easy trails with no elevation or harder trails with moderate hills to get glute work in. It feels like you're a world away when you're inside the trails. We even ran into a small group of 4 or 5 teenage deer! This is just such a special place. Even though we want to try new places, this place is so vast we both agreed that coming back to do more exploring is a must. We were out there about 2 hours and we had a feeling we didn't hit everywhere. The entries to get into the trails isn't always clearly marked (we parked near an entrance but didn't know because it wasn't clearly marked from the outside) but I think that's part of the charm. Once you're in the maze of trails you get to wander and choose your own adventure. Also, it's a busy trail with a lot of people roaming but it never feels crowded. You're also never too far from coming out near a neighborhood so there feels like there's a level of safety. **BUT YOU ARE ON A TRAIL IN WOODS SO OF COURSE YOU NEED TO BE AWARE AND KEEP YOUR SAFETY AS A PRIORITY** We ended up coming out right where our cars were. It's just a slice of natural heaven in a south austin suburb...ENJOY!

Alright, this is an addendum to what I wrote earlier because of a particularly cool thing that…read morehappened to me this week. I was playing softball with my company team on Sunday night and as I was leaving I mistakenly drove off with my shoes and wallet on the trunk of my car. I realized this by the time I got to my destination so I ended up retracing my route in a panic desperately attempting to find my black wallet along the side of the road in the middle of the night... ugh. Of course I never found the wallet, but when I got home I had an e-mail from one of the guys that is an umpire for Kreig saying that he found it. He was super nice and had tried several means of contacting from my business card and other info in inside as well as calling my bank to let them know that he had found the lost wallet. Well I got it back the next day and I bought him a beer to show my appreciation. Because this guy was so cool I will go ahead and bump them up to a full 5 stars. Here's to good karma!

Is there anything more American than baseball? Apple pie, perhaps. Mall walking? Mexican food?…read more Actually, there is not much baseball played at Krieg Field. In fact, I think it is strictly softball. My husband plays on the softball team for Whole Foods. (GO HUGH!) Once a week my darling husband dons his cleats, team shirt (the Ten Hit Misfits), shorts, and ball cap, sticks a six pack of Lone Star in a cooler and gathers up his glove and sunglasses for a few innings at the ball park. The closer we get to the field the more he fidgets until he's worked himself into such a state of softball fervor that when we arrive he leaps from the car to slap hands with teammates, swig from a can, and throw the softball around- he calls this part "warming up". Now, some Austinites probably prefer the shiny newness of Dell Diamond, all of the concessions they have to offer, the cute uniforms the players wear, how fast they can throw the ball, etc, etc. While Krieg Field offers none of the above, true fans will appreciate the PASSION that the players here bring to the game. You can see it in the jaunty way they turn the bases, albiet middle-aged bellies jigglin and thighs-a-burnin. You can see it in the focus of the umps, all seriousness, spitting on the field, rubbing themselves, and shouting incoherently at the players. You can see it in the fans, all 5 of them, cheering and clapping and laughing hysterically at the foibles and often truly remarkable plays made by their significant others. (No, really.) When a team wins, it is pure joy....beers passed around, all, "Did you see that slide? Man..." "Dude. I TOTALLY tagged him out! That was an OUT!" All hand slapping and "Good game!" and "Let's go to the bar!" When teams lose, it is silent car rides home and regretful re-plays of mistakes made. It's dirty bathrooms (minus one star), dirty players, BYOB, cool breezes and sunsets, FREE all-American hilarious and sometimes tragic FUN.