Another run at the Austin American-Statesman Capitol 10K
By Paul Baltutis
They don’t make T-Shirts like they used to … they actually make them better these days. With that in mind, I have a long lost T-shirt and an old memory that I hope to reclaim when I run the 30th Annual Austin American-Statesman Capitol 10,000 on March 25.
If there is one thing I own, it’s a lot of running T-shirts. I have acquired a large collection of T-shirts from the 400+ races I’ve completed. While I can’t account for them all, the pack rat in me has kept most of them. All tolled, I have a dresser drawer full of T-shirts, dozens hanging in my closet, two large boxes of them in the garage and even a quilt made out of those shirts. Alas, the Austin American-Statesman Capitol 10,000 T-Shirt from 1978 is missing-in-action.
As you might guess, there’s something enduring to me about the 1978 Capitol 10,000. It was my second road race ever. It was an overwhelming spectacle that helped put Austin in the company of Bay-to-Breakers in San Francisco, the Peachtree 10K in Atlanta and the Bolder Boulder in Colorado.
This Capitol 10,000 is a true Texas original, complete with a unique race logo, which is an animated running armadillo. This armadillo has a distinctively “cool” attitude, complete with sport sunglasses. It was this initial armadillo sighting on the 1978 race flyer posted at a Fort Hood Gym that caught my eye and propelled me to make the drive to Austin to run the 10K.
Evidently a lot of runners from the greater Austin area thought the race would be “hip,” and so they entered. I don’t think the race officials were prepared for the number of runners that arrived on the morning of the race. I certainly had never had seen so many runners before in one race – and certainly nowhere near that number. The only other races I’d entered were low-key U.S. Army cross-country races and one other road race, which was a half marathon in Phoenix that had around 100 runners.
I had a hard time just making it to the staging area and then getting anywhere close to the starting line. There were thousands of runners and mass confusion all the way around. When the gun went off, it took an eternity just to get moving. This was before chip timing, so every second counted against you. I finally got clear sailing about a mile and a half into the race. I started passing lots of runners while I was hoping to make up the some of the time I’d lost. I picked off runners the whole way, and at the same time I tried to soak in the atmosphere surrounding the colossal event. I finished in 37:09, which turned out to be 137th place according to the Austin American -Statesman. It was a decent finish, but it was still about two minutes slower than I knew I could do. I chalked it up to experience.
I do remember getting the T-shirt they were handing out at the finish. Only about half of the runners got one, so it was a big deal. While I was really psyched about getting the T-shirt, little did I know that it would turn out to be a bit of a let down.
First of all, it shrunk about two sizes on the first wash, but it still was too wide around my waist. While the design was cool, the fit was atrocious. Then I sort of accidentally spilled bleach on it. But I continued to wear it, nonetheless. It made it through its natural life span, and I couldn’t see any reason to keep it in that condition, being that it was so tattered and torn.
But the spirit of Austin and the running armadillo on the T-shirt still lives on in my memory, and I’m determined to bring it back to life this year for the 30th anniversary. Back in 1978, the T-shirt industry was still trying to figure out how to make a well-fitting shirt; also, back then, it was hit or miss as to whether runners would even get T-shirts, and they were often only handed out as a “finisher’s shirt.” However, now in 2007, runners are almost guaranteed a T-shirt at packet pick-up if they register ahead of time. And with the improvement of the manufacturing of T-shirts today, I am certain this year it will fit like a dream.
Paul Baltutis is the manager of Soler’s Sports in Alamo Heights. He is a certified marathon coach for Team in Training. He can be reached at sage_run03@yahoo.com.
