When I decompressed from running a ridiculously soggy California International Marathon last December, I realized two things:
I was overcoming the anxiety that had paralyzed me and all but taken away my voice and confidence
I was gunning for the Oakland Half Marathon to be my “A” race
Two very different realizations, yes.
But running CIM a second time, during one of the worst periods of my life, made me think that if a marathon could make me overcome something so seriously wrong with me, maybe gunning for a new “A” race would continue to promote that healthy perspective. It matters, though, that Oakland was my first-ever half marathon in 2011. CIM was my first marathon the same year.
I have sentimental attachments to both.
And after emergency gallbladder surgery, a broken arm and an incredibly messed up training cycle, today, Oakland actually became my “A” race.
I’m not afraid to admit, there were some tears. There were also exasperated sighs. The moment after I finished, all I wanted to do was collapse into a ball and scream. I can’t relate the feeling any other way. It wasn’t anxiety, though this is the biggest race I’ve done since crap went down last October. (Confession: I had my first panic attack since last October this week. It wasn’t as traumatic as that one, but it took me right back to THAT day. And it kind of ruined my week and made me feel fragile again. The trigger was a very similar, hopeless situation like what happened to me last fall.)
Today, I felt pure bliss. I haven’t felt that in more than a year. My heart sang and danced. I felt more free than I ever have before.
That bliss came in an official time of 2:20:52. Nearly a two-minute better than my August PR time.
My husband called it, as if he knew I had it in me. Though he was a couple minutes off.
“I should expect you around 2:18, right,” he said as we circled Lake Merritt to go to the start.
I laughed.
“You’re out of your damn mind if you think I’ll be that fast,” I responded.
He wasn’t far off.
Last night, I was considering not even going to this race. I was throwing in the towel before I even started. The panic attack did that too me. It, again, made me doubt everything I knew. It paralyzed me with fear. I even offered my very-tired husband, who has worked six days a week at his engineering job since last fall for a rebuild project, an out. I told him we didn’t have to go. Fine by me. He could sleep.
I’m thankful he’s a man smart enough to know I was looking for an out. He wasn’t giving me one.
I also knew that on my list of consistent things that pulled me out of the darkness last year, running was at the top. With each run, the confidence came back.
Two years ago, this half marathon made me feel like I could do anything the moment I finished. Last year, I suffered through physical and emotional pain, doubting myself every step.
Today, it made me fearless.
I feel like I’ve been cheesy on a lot of my posts lately, but I can’t help but feel liberated these past couple months. Something in me has changed. And it’s not just the gallbladder being gone.
It means today I gave Oakland the race it deserved. More than anything else, those streets defined who I became as a person during my two years of graduate school at UC Berkeley. I became “me” in Oakland, away from my family, my now husband and my life before that point. That race deserved a better performance than I had given in previous years.
More importantly, I gave myself the race I always knew I had in me.
I hang my PR medal right in front of my computer in my home office. It’s to remind me of what I can accomplish. Right now it’s also reminding me of how far I’ve come.
Here’s something I’m not used to: Getting a finishers shirt in the mail. But I found this beauty shoved in my incredibly small, unforgiving mailbox on Thursday.
It’s a pretty nice shirt too. It’s a long-sleeved Dri-Fit. It’s not one of the cotton Dri-Fit shirts I normally wear when running (which I rotate out with my Lululemon shirts), which I’m kind of relieved about. This one picks up the sweat really nicely (yes, I’ve already worn it on a run).
I have to admit, though, I was a little confused when I got it. I didn’t realize it had a place for me to write something on it.
I’ve only seen a few photos of it online so far, though, for inspiration of what to write on it.
Some people write where they ran. I think if I put “We Run Tracy” people might think that’s my name. So I was considering something that was on one of my other shirts. Maybe I could go with something like “We Run Empowered” or something?
The problem then is that I have to write it.
I once won a third-grade penmanship award for my very straight handwriting. If you see my handwriting now, you likely wouldn’t believe that was ever the case. My cursive is much, much worse.
I know part of it has everything to do with a formally strained tendon that hasn’t been the same since I injured it shooting video a couple years ago. So when I sign my signature, it doesn’t really look like the pre-injury signature. Plus I can’t sign my husband’s last name well. I guess that’s the difference between 24 years of practice and five years of practice.
So I’m likely going to never write something on this shirt and have that awkward white area just sitting there waiting for something.
On the plus side, it’s a nice shirt. It’s looser than I’d like at the bottom, but fits snugly at the top.
Plus, it has a pretty nice design on the back too.
It, obviously, looks like many of the other Nike shirts I had already in my running-clothes collection.
My friend Jennie made a comment about long-sleeved shirts the other day, mentioning that so few races these days give that option. San Francisco has for the last two years, though I know before that they had short-sleeve shirts. California International Marathon gives both options if you sign up early enough. I always pick the long-sleeve version.
The Oakland Half Marathon is one of the few races that does as well. And that’s what I’ll be doing this weekend.
I’m heading over tomorrow to pick up my race packet. I have a really, really low number this year, something in the 2,000 area, which I was surprised about. I’m planning on getting in and getting out quickly, unless I have a friend accompany me. My husband is supposed to work (or so I think, he told me earlier he switched his day off to Saturday, and then I reminded him that we’d only had a conversation about 10 times about Oakland being this weekend).
Oakland was supposed to be my “A” race this season. But with everything else happening (gallbladder removal, fractured arm, blah, blah, blah), I’m just going to happy to get going and finish. Plus, there’s this marathon in less than two weeks I’m really scared about at this point.
Last year at about this time, I was writing about how this same race didn’t go as well as I thought it would. I’ve never sure how to approach trail races. I used to spend more time running trails. As I started training for one marathon, then another and then another, I moved away from that more leisure-like activity.
I’m joking, of course. It’s not leisurely at all.
Trails mean business.
And this trail was no exception.
It includes 400 feet of climbing in the course of a mile. Then more climbing. The first climb is a series of switchbacks that wreak havoc of every bone in your body on the way up. The first down is a quad destroyer.
The Badger Cove trail isn’t even one of Brazen’s toughest.
Last year, I was over the top anxious about this 10K. On Saturday, I was mostly fine. My husband had to work, so I packed up my belongings and drove myself to Livermore’s Del Valle State Recreation Area. The drive was about 30-minutes. I parked, thanks to a pre-paid parking pass sent over days before via email by Brazen Racing, and headed over to the sign-in area.
There was a lot of green. I normally don’t take photos of people’s butts or backsides for that matter, but this kind of illustrated the sea of green that was everywhere along the trail.
I headed back to my car after using the portable toilet. I warmed up a little, but mostly just looked through my goodie bag. About thirty minutes beforehand, I decided to head back over to the start and use the real toilets, which were a little bit of a walk away.
I walked by as the half marathoners were preparing to head out, 25 minutes before the 10K group.
It was chilly, but manageable. I didn’t need a long-sleeve shirt. In fact, I wore one of my only green shirts, a Nike Dri-Fit Cotton one from the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in 2011. (Does that seem like a long time ago to anyone else? To me, lately, it does.)
It was a peaceful, beautiful morning in general.
That view right there? That’s the reason to do trail runs. You get to spend more than an hour looking at hills and beautiful bodies of water. Plus, Brazen doesn’t charge an arm and a leg for races so you can do so for a good price, with a lot of support. (You can also run the trails for just the price of parking for free, but the support is amazing to have.)
I lined up for the start at about 8:20 a.m.
I held my arm close to me. I was afraid of getting bumped. And right when I thought everything would be OK, a guy walked by me and hit my shoulder. It stung a little. I think if I hadn’t had been so chilled, I would have likely been more hurt by it.
At 8:25 a.m., we took off.
Mile 1: 10:41 — I was worried about my calves cramping, as they have done quite a bit lately. I tried to hold the speed down to not aggravate whatever problems I’m having with my legs. A little bit of an uphill in this mile, but mostly the distance served to take us from the paved park to the trails.
Mile 2: 11:36 — Mostly flat, some small hills. We start the single-track area around here, which always causes some slowdowns, especially when people start to walk on the uphills. No problems here, the surface is getting choppy.
Mile 3: 14:10 — This may seem like a ridiculous pace for a mile, but this one is all uphill. It’s a battle. Switchbacks. Panting. Craziness. And yet, I took about two minutes off my time on here last from last year. I just kept moving. I never wanted to give up. I just wanted to move and keep going. When I finished this mile I was so happy, if only because I knew I had knocked a significant amount of time off that mile from last year.
I started to think that maybe I could come in quicker than last year.
Mile 4: 12:31 — Beginning of the significant downhills here. Normally I’m a little less cautious when descending, but for this particular run I had decided that I was going to take it slow, very cautiously. If I fell, I had no way to really pick myself back up. If I fell and hurt my right arm, I’d really be in a mess. I kept it nice and slow heading down, and then cautious when the hills started again.
Mile 5: 14:05 — One significant uphill here. I noticed the time and was wondering how bad I was doing there. It turns out I wasn’t doing that bad. I ran a 16:05 on that mile last year. I was doing significantly better now. But I didn’t know that then.
This was also the point where I was heading down a hill an suddenly felt like I was losing control. I can’t describe it other that it was like knowing that I had to stop, but not having the breaks to do so. I was scared for a minute. I thought of myself flying straight into a bush or, worse, a tree. If the trail hadn’t had made a quick turn uphill, I thought I would have just flown down a hill. That uphill gave me back the control I had lost.
I stopped and walked for a couple minutes after that. I was kind of scared. And, at that point, my arm had tensed up so much that it really, really hurt.
Mile 6: 11:15 — We start coming down from the hills an back to the flat trail path. I start thinking I can possibly come in a little under. I’m not really paying attention to the exact time, but when I see how far under last year’s time (1:26:53) and I realized it had been an amazing run.
Mile .42: 4:02 — At that point, I really started to push. I don’t know why at that sudden spot I did, but I just wanted to be done. My legs were tired. My arm hurt.
Around the corner and into the finisher’s shoot, where I was handed my very colorful rainbow medal with a badger on it (see beginning of this post).
I walked through a tent area and turned around to see what I would consider a Brazen pot of gold.
All the medals! The rest of these were waiting for other finishers to claim. I thought it was kind of fitting.
My final time: 1:18:13
I can’t even begin to say how proud I am of that time. It’s probably my best trail-run showing to date. It kind of makes me want to sign up for more, but I have a couple marathons I need to finish before I can head back out for the views.
Why am I running better? I don’t know exactly. It could be both mental and physical reasons. I know that I feel a lot better since the gallbladder removal. I know that I no longer have nagging abdominal pain or discomfort when I run. But maybe it’s also because I’m running a lot lighter lately. Not as many worries. A lot more happiness.
There’s a lot of good at the end of my rainbow right now.
This morning I woke up, calm, ready to head to Livermore and do my first official 10K in a full year. I didn’t believe it either when I realized, today, that the last time I ran a 10K was this same race, a year ago.
I’ve a couple shorter distances in that time, but I knew this was the first in a year when I opened the pocket on the water bottle and saw that I had the map from last’s year Badger Cove run tucked into it. I only use the bottle, a small Lululemon for Amphipod one, for 10Ks.
Last year I ran Badger Cover, with all it’s crazy elevation changes and switch backs in 1:26:41. I wasn’t too upset about my time for that one because I knew it would be tough. I also remember the nagging side pain I got during the greatest climb that caused me to keel over on the side of the trail and feel like I was dying.
We know now that was the gallbladder. This year, it’s gone.
And I’m better than I thought I could ever be, even with tired legs and a bit of a dehydration/potassium deficiency as of late. That’s why my calves have been hurting me so much lately. Three bottles of water yesterday and a potassium supplement and this morning I was good to go.
Today, I finished the Badger Cove 10K in 1:18:13, according to the results posted before I left.
When I left my house this morning, my arm felt more stiff than it had last night. I popped an Ibuprofen, for lack of not being able to find a Tylenol, and was out the door. It didn’t take the edge off. At the start line, a guy brushed by my left arm and made me cringe. I’m considering writing “I have a fractured arm” on my head.
But I started running. And I forgot about my arm. At least for most of the race.
I don’t know who this version of me is and what business she has earning two course PRs in less than a month, but something has lit a fire inside me. And I like it.
Yes. I’m running the Rock ‘n’ Roll Portland Half Marathon. It’s the day before my 29th birthday. I’m considering this my birthday present to myself, kind of a big celebration to welcome my last year in my twenties.
I’m heading up with my running buddy Sam. I’m crashing in her room. I’m going to keep costs down by being as frugal as possible while there, but certain things will happen. Voodoo Donut will happen for sure.
I’m excited. This will be my first race out of state. And, surprisingly, I’ve never been to Oregon. I’ve been to Seattle, but that was a long time ago. I haven’t been out of state since we went to New York a couple years ago.
My husband is stoked because it means he’ll have quite a few nights without me in upcoming months. I’m taking my students to a journalism conference in April. Then there’s this. I have his blessing to have a good time.
I think I’m more excited about this race than I am about any other coming up. It is sure to be a good time! Look forward to running PDX!
I’ve admitted that I’m having some problems lately with my calves. I’m not sure why. I’ve changed nothing about the way I run. I have new-ish shoes that didn’t give me problems at the start and my socks are the same. But I’ve been thwarted in recent runs by calves that feel like they are on fire.
By two miles into a run I’m dying. My legs are burning. By four miles in, I’m usually fine.
On Saturday, I signed up to do the Nike Virtual 10K, logging 6.2 miles outside on my Nike+ iPhone app.
The run was in conjunction with the Nike Washington D.C. half marathon coming in April. I’m not doing that race, but the virtual run was for a good cause. Plus, it gave me a reason to run outside. Lately, I’ve needed reasons to run outside (hello horrible fall that I’m still experiencing pain from and can’t extend my arm!).
So this was a good test of my endurance. A run. By myself. Through my neighborhood.
I’ve talked a lot about the fact that I run in another community. I don’t talk much about the fact that I have completely ample running trails less than a half a mile from my house. It’s only been lately that I’ve been running the trails in my own backyard.
The run started just as I thought it would: my calves burned for the first two miles. I tried to keep going to register a decent time.
By the time I hit a park for a bathroom break, my legs were feeling a lot better.
My averages went down into the 10+ minute mile area. At one point I was running in the nine-minute mile area.
My final time: 1:10:41
Not horrible, but not wonderful either. Considering I had to stop at every stoplight (sometimes I paused it, especially when I knew I would have to wait a long time), but mostly I just waited. I thought it went pretty well.
The real gem, though, was checking out my neighborhood and seeing it in a different light.
I have some great views in my ‘hood.
Well-manicured running paths? Yes. We have those. This whole area is just south of my house. It had been a long-time since I ran this area alone. I’ve been running it a lot at night lately with Jennie. She moved to the far end of the city awhile back and it’s easier for us to run at night in Tracy than Mountain House lately.
Plus, I no longer need the frequent portable toilets that Mountain House has to offer. (A good result of my gallbladder being gone, but also a bit of TMI, sorry.)
So I actually had a pretty good run.
Did I mention the views of the Diablo Range I see when I run here? Tracy is an ex-burb (there is such a thing) of the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s in San Joaquin County, which is considered part of the valley, but years ago it became kind of an extension of the Bay Area when the hordes moved out this way in search of big, inexpensive homes.
If you would have told me 10 years ago I’d live in Tracy at some point and own a house here, especially in my neighborhood, I likely would have laughed. But we’ve now lived here for five years. And I’ve grown to love it.
My hometown, Stockton, has become something I don’t even recognize anymore. My parents have become used to the sound of gun fire. My dad once told me about the “crack house” right down the street. There was a drive-by in front of my grandmother’s house involving people that my brother’s grew up with.
It’s become a city plagued by violence and sadness. It’s also where I go to work everyday still. It’s the place I consider home, but my life is in Tracy now. Jennie, who also grew up in Stockton, and me were talking about the differences between running in Tracy and Stockton.
I once made the mistake of going for a quick run around the downtown area before it got dark because I knew my day was going to be longer than I thought. It was an out-and-back path, four miles in total. I’m pretty sure I was called at least four names and had a guy chase me for about a quarter mile (that was scary).
Never again.
So my running paths here make me happy.
My freakishly scary photo from the run. I guess if I hadn’t taken time to stop and take photos, my time may have been better.
The 10K came a day before I finally finished my 15-mile run — on the treadmill.
I know it sounds like a cop out, but I had to run 15. And after the fall less than two weeks ago, I was still queasy about attempting the run along a path I didn’t know too well. So I took the easy way out. I hopped on the treadmill and just ran, watching “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” on Netflix. I got it done. Now I’m over it.
So what’s next? A trail 10K this upcoming weekend. Then the Oakland Half Marathon the following weekend. Two weekends after that I run the San Luis Obispo Marathon.
I’m know that I’m not as ready to run the marathon as I should be. I know because my training cycle was severely derailed by gallbladder surgery. But I told my husband I’m not about to throw in the towel and go for the half. I’m going to take it as it comes.
Last fall, in the middle of everything that went south in my life, one of my friends lost most of her home to a fire. It started with a laptop charger. The resulting damage is so much that she’s been forced out of her home for probably as long as a year. She lost nearly everything in the fire.
The little that was salvageable was whatever doesn’t reek of charred remains. We were talking the other day and she mentioned her race mementos: medals and shirts included.
Then she prompted me: Imagine, if everything was suddenly gone. She knows of my vast collection of race bibs adorning my home office walls, right next to my medals and my college and graduate school degrees.
“All your bibs,” she said.
I’d like to think we have protection for that sort of thing, at least to some degree. In 2008, my husband and I purchased a safe after our then rental home was broken into. It happened less than 10 days before Christmas. Our dead-bolt locks were kicked in, as was part of our fence. My dog Sky and I came home to massive footprints on our kicked-in doors, not knowing if someone was in the house.
Because I’m ballsy and a little stupid, I walked in with my husband’s ice ax prepared to greet the intruder.
I called the police.
They told me not to go in. I did anyway. (Again, ballsy and stupid.)
I found all of my jewelry gone. And two bottles of malt liquor. And some cheese. The presents, all wrapped, were still intact. Gone was a backpack, our video camera and every piece of jewelry I’d collected in my adult life.
I was devastated by one piece in particular: my antique engagement ring from my grandmother.
Long story short: Our insurance settled with us for nearly $5,000 in goods. But my high school class ring, numerous necklaces given to me as gifts and my first set of pearls my mom bought me were all gone.
So we bought the safe. And two more dogs. (A couple years ago, burglars were casing houses in my town by knocking on doors. If they heard a dog bark, they’d go on to the next house.)
It gives me solace, but very little when I think about the sense of loss and violation that I felt after our items were taken.
Which brings me to something as simple as a race bib.
I have them all on a wall in my office. Yesterday, I removed nearly half of them and placed them in a folder for safekeeping. And literally safekeeping. My intention is to put them in our fireproof safe.
It’s made me start to thinking about other memorabilia I have from running (and everything else I consider irreplaceable in my home) and how I wouldn’t be able to replace any of those items.
So I’m trying to figure out what to do with some of these items, specially ones I consider incredibly dear. My first marathon medal? I can’t replace that. Some of my favorite running shirts? Very few race organizers have extras years after it happens. And how would you go about replacing items from races all at once? That seems impossible.
I once saw a runner ask Big Sur International Marathon officials on the organization’s Facebook page if they had any extra medals because one was damages. BSIM is incredibly good about getting back to people. And race officials did, saying they had extras and they’d send one along. But I know other organizations give them away. California International Marathon donates the previous year’s medals to children who participate in a charity run the next year. One race I did ran out of the medal, meaning the organizers likely didn’t order all that many extras the second time around.
A race bib is probably the least of my worries if something like this happens, right?
Yes.
But bibs are one of those things that I’d likely look back on and say: “Wow, I wish I still had that.”
Especially fond memories. Like my first marathon.
I don’t want to lose any of my mementos from that race. It was a defining experience for me.
So I wonder what to do next with items like this, as opposed to just putting them in a fireproof safe. Is there something more? Should I scour Pinterest and find of what crafty people would do with race bibs and medals?
The ideas I’m found doesn’t include protecting items like this against disasters. Most just show you how to frame or display them, not really how to preserve something so prized.
I left off my last post eluding to what a night Sam and I had. Last year, I kept getting woken up by some annoying children in a room above us. When I booked this year’s hotel, I didn’t want to stay at that place again. It had paper-thin walls. I didn’t know when I booked this year’s hotel that it was, essentially, right across the street.
We went to bed around 10 p.m. because we had to wake up at 4:30 a.m.
Yes, that early. I felt like I was running the first half of the San Francisco Marathon all over again. Way to early. But we were told to get to the Rose Bowl by 5:15 a.m. even though the race didn’t start until 7:30 a.m.
We were tired. I figured we’d go to sleep pretty fast. That didn’t happen. We kept hearing screaming downstairs, people basically yelling things like “woo!” and other crap. I’m not kidding with the “woo!” it was so annoying. I think both of us literally got only four hours of sleep by the time our alarms went off.
We rolled out of bed and were rather efficient in getting up and out early. Our drive was less than five miles. We were there, trekking down the hill into the Rose Bowl parking lots before most other cars did.
Our reward for getting there so early? An awesome parking spot.
We were literally less than 100 yards from the starting corrals. Plus we were right across from a row of portable toilets. (Is it weird that I thought this was a pretty sight? The Rose Bowl sign in the background and all the portable toilets.)
It was a nice enough spot that we stayed in the car for about an hour. We kept the heater running and just kind of hung out as everyone walked by. At about 6:30 a.m. we decided it was time to check out the pre-race snacks and head to the portable toilets were knew were clean.
It wasn’t as crazy as last year, when I swear there weren’t as many porto-potties. But the morning was really, really cold.
I opted not to wear a long-sleeve shirt because I knew I’d end up taking if off. So I was freezing cold walking around. I was jumping up and down and even slightly running in order to get warm again.
The ground was still frozen when Sam and I headed to check out the banana booth. Bagels were also being handed out. I grabbed a small water. Sam took a banana, which she only ate half of.
As she was folding it up, a woman walked by and said: “Oh…save that for later, after you start the run!” We both kind of looked at each other and wondered where Sam was supposed to “save it for later.”
She figured out a way, tucked into the new water belt she bought at the expo the day before.
We were sure it would fall out though, so she just threw the rest of it away. (Sorry people who think that’s wasteful.)
By the time we finished going to the bathroom and getting fueled up, which included my pre-race Vanilla Bean Gu, it was time to hit the corral. We both worked our way over to corral six, which was the 2:20 corral. When I signed up I had no idea I’d be having my gallbladder removed only five weeks before.
The day was going decent so far.
After the National Anthem and some other talk, the start line began moving exactly at 7:30 a.m. It was then I realized I had to go to the bathroom again. I’m not even kidding. The anxiety had gotten to me as it had previously. And I had nowhere to go but out of the shoot, since the corrals were being released every two minutes.
That’s how far back we were initially. We’d be up there within minutes. Not enough time for me to go. So I decided to start the race and figure it out on the way, meaning I’d find another blue-wonder porto-potty along the run.
And that’s how I started the run.
Mile 1: 10:13 — Starting out strong and didn’t feel like I was going this fast. Maybe it was because I had to go to the bathroom, but I kind of kept going. I jammed up the first hill, which I thought was a bit of a monster last year. We hit a mile at about the top of the hill.
Mile 2: 11:42 — I actually didn’t slow down my mile pace here. I found a bathroom. I actually commandeered it, only the second time I’ve ever done so. I didn’t feel bad about it this time either. There were two rows of bathrooms, four on the front, hour on the back. There was also a portable toilet set up for persons with disability. No one was in the toilets on the back. So I grabbed one. It probably added about a minute or so onto my time, but I had to go. And I got a toilet without waiting. Score.
Mile 3: 11:19 — The largest hill here. I ran up it most the way, slowing down a little to stay consistent.
Mile 4: 10:28 — The start of another downhill. Still feeling good.
Mile 5: 10:24 — Getting consistent now. No issues. Not feeling tired. Downed another Vanilla Bean Gu right here.
Mile 6: 10:33 — Starting to really see the time I was running. I wondered if I should keep pushing it, or if I should pull back a little. This was also the start of the later out and backs that then take runners back to the main street.
Mile 7: 11:27 — Decided to pull back a little. I start getting a twitch in my ITB band on my right side. I wondered if that would be the end of the good run.
Mile 8: 11:04 — Still feeling really good despite some more hills. Not too bad.
Mile 9: 12:21 — The worst of the hills. I slowed down a little bit. A huge hill. I walked up the last little bit to the top. I was starting to get tired. I downed another Gu. I was really in need of water.
Mile 10: 11:08 — This mile was mostly downhill, but I was trying to be conservative in my approach. I didn’t want my leg to give up on me like it did last year in mile 10 of this run.
Mile 11: —12:30 — Then I hit the WALL. I rarely hit the wall in half marathons these days. But I hit it hard here. I could see the finish line as we started around the Rose Bowl and adjacent golf course. This is also where I started to experience a little bit of the dizzy spells I’ve been having since the surgery, just generally feeling off center.
Mile 12: 13:04 — Which let to me running into a woman en route to finishing this mile. I actually didn’t really run into her as much as body checking her. I was so embarrassed. I nearly took her out with me. I had a moment where I nearly collapsed. She grabbed my arm and asked: “Are you OK?” I put myself back together and explained I had surgery weeks before and still wasn’t feeling very stable on long runs. “Should you even be running?” she asked, surprised. “I’m at mile 11, so I’m doing OK.”
Then I ran off. So if you are the lady who was concerned about the slightly drunk-looking runner in mile 12, I’m sorry. I wasn’t drunk. I just run off centered lately and tend to veer toward the right side. Forgive me. I felt bad long after that.
Mile 13: 10:14 — And then I found something in me that I’d lost for about a year. I found a will to continue, despite the pain and slight confusion. I was so “on.” I kept saying: “Run, Tara, just run.” And I ran. And I passed the 2:30 pacers. And suddenly it wasn’t about “just finishing” anymore. It was about getting in under my time from last year.
Mile .21: 2:04 (9:51 pace) — I high-tailed it up the hill and ran down the shoot and looked at my time. I managed to cut off 20 minutes from my time last year. That’s huge.
Official time: 2:28:21
Garmin time: 2:28:36
And my first thought: What the hell just happened?
I walked through the finishers corral, picked up all the fun drinks and snacks and made my way back to the closely-parked car. I figured I’d get a bag so that Sam and I had a place to put everything when she finished.
I called my husband. I told him about the run.
Then I went and sat down by the “G” marker, for other reason than that’s just where I wanted to sit.
That’s where I drank my fat free chocolate milk and pondered how in five weeks I’d got from being in a hospital bed to running one of the best half marathons of my life.
And because it was one of the best half marathons of my life, I broke my self-imposed rule about buying running clothes, with my husband’s blessing of course.
So what happened in those five weeks. A lot. Everything. I went from self-loathing to being confident. I also realized that I had it in me all along. Somewhere in the ridiculous journey of the past five months, I’ve realized that I’m stronger than I think. And I’m better at running than I gave myself credit for.
Pasadena wasn’t supposed to be my “A” race, but I’m comfortable kind of letting it be for a minute. Oakland was my new “A” race even though it’s only two weeks before I run a marathon in April. Sometimes we surprised ourselves with just how much we want something.
I wanted this race. I needed this race to prove that after all the work-related crap, I was just as strong, if not stronger, than I was before it all happened. My friend Jennie tells me bad things happen for a reason. She believe my reason is to prepare me for something better. Nowhere did I feel that more than sitting under the “G” sign in Pasadena after finishing a half marathon I had no business running five weeks after having an organ removed.
But it felt amazing.
To top it off, Sam and I checked out the Far East Movement playing at the end of the run.
I’m not a huge fan, but they put on a pretty good show. We got back to our hotel by the noon hour where we quickly showered than jumped back into my car to head back to Northern California.
I wasn’t expecting it to go as well as it did, if only because last year was a disaster and the scars from the surgery are still bright red and fresh. But Pasadena turned into a redeeming run for me. Now it’s time to train for the flatter, faster Oakland.
There’s always a little bit of anxiety when you start toward a race expo, especially one that’s more than 300 miles away. Why? A lot can happen in three hours. Between traffic and other things, it’s always best to start out a little earlier than normal and hope that there are no snags along the way.
On Saturday, there were no snags. None whatsoever. Everything seemed a bit too easy.
My running buddy Sam and I hit the road at about 10 a.m. from Mountain House, which is west of Tracy. It’s also the place I do a lot of my runs.
We hopped on Interstate 5 and just kept on going. We only had to stop once, about 50 miles before The Grapevine, the stretch of road that takes drivers from the valley floor over the Tehachapi Mountains. On one side, there’s an expanse of land before you, on the other a metropolis.
We made the long journey on one tank of gas plus some. And we arrived in Pasadena around 3 p.m., which gave us ample time to scope out the expo.
Pasadena is only in its second year as a “tour stop” for Rock ‘n’ Roll, so the expo is still relatively small in comparison to the flagship San Diego run. It didn’t take us long to work out way through the bib pickup, even with a small wait for our $10 parking pass for the Rose Bowl.
Speaking of which, a lot of people were really upset about the whole “pay-to-park” thing. Most of the other races don’t required it. I’ve been in a lot of races that actually make concessions and find people places to park. Apparently other Rose Bowl-hosted races don’t require this. Because we had paid last year, waited in the traffic and hung out in the morning, Sam and I were prepared for all this crazy.
I purchased the pass ahead of time.
We picked up our red Brooks event shirts and our swag bags and headed into the expo where we quickly bypassed the Brooks area, outside of checking out a very interesting display with fake beer.
Fake beer is the way to sell pint glasses, I must say. But I didn’t buy one. We kind of just ran through that area because I’m on a “no new clothes” kick right now. I didn’t even look.
Sam and I checked out all the booths and she picked up some new running equipment. A fire at her house late last year means she has absolutely no gear. We picked up a new bottle set for her, which was a discounted $15 and had four small bottles and a place to stash stuff. Plus, it was Nike, so she got a deal.
I loved this label on another belt she looked at. Penguins. For penguin runners? I don’t know. I kind of consider myself a penguin.
The sad part of the expo was that we didn’t find the “cake booth.” It’s some sort of organic, healthy cake that we’ve seen at multiple Rock ‘n’ Roll expos. The reps at the booth gave out these amazing slices of cake, with frosting even, that were incredibly delicious and apparently good for you as well.
See all those awesome running clothes? I didn’t buy any at the expo. I was so proud of myself.
The real purpose, though, of our expo visit outside of picking up our stuff was to hit up the main Rock ‘n’ Roll booth. Sam has a Tour Pass for this year, meaning she pays a flat amount and can run as many races as possible. I’m really noncommittal about races going into the later part of the year after I run two marathons in the first six months, so I didn’t go that route.
Sam wants to run San Diego again.
After last year’s disastrous run there, I was reluctant. I kept waiting for the course map to be posted online. By the time it was, the price had gone up. So my only chance to register at a lower price was to do so at the expo.
So we ventured to the booth to do so.
I saved $15. The downside? We didn’t register for the 2014 Pasadena run for $70, which will be the lowest price all year. But I really hate making a decision on something like that this far in advance.
For registering, I also got a Rock ‘n’ Roll San Diego T-shirt, which was pretty rocking.
After those few things, we were kind of done at the expo.
So we left. By then it was later than it was last year when we finished. We had planned on meeting one of my friends for dinner. But we saw that the Macy’s across the street from the expo was having a closing sale.
So we went.
Because we needed shoes and all.
Not really. But we bought shoes.
We were starting to get a little hungry though, so I sent my friend a text message. We hadn’t yet checked in our hotel room. But both of us were more tired than we thought we would be anyway. My friend was caught up with something, which was a bummer, but we figured since we were already out, we’d find a place to eat.
Last year we ate at this ridiculously bad seafood place right down the street from where we stayed. We both still laugh at how bad the service was and how bad the food was.
This time, we found a great Mexican place. Both of us ordered fajitas.
The food totally made up for last year’s horrible fare.
It was amazing. Plus, we had a ton of leftovers that we both of us ate when we got all the way home the next day. The food was just as good as leftovers.
We finally checked in to our hotel room around 7 p.m. Saturday. The room was nice, toasty and, we thought, would be a little more quiet than last year when we heard people above us making loud noises all night long.
We were so wrong.
Another one of my friend’s stopped by for about an hour to catch up (I know a lot of people in the Los Angeles area, more than I ever think I do). Then it was off to bed for a 4:30 a.m. wake up even though we were only four miles away from the race start.
Why so early? The parking lot closes at 6:15 a.m. for the 7:30 a.m. start.
Unfortunately we didn’t fall asleep all that well. Instead, we heard people screaming in the parking lot and on E. Colorado Blvd. at midnight. It was ridiculous. Both of us woke up numerous times. It seemed our hotel management did nothing to make it stop. In fact, unlike most the hotels I’ve been to, this one’s lobby wasn’t even open at 5 a.m. when we headed down to my car.
It was still dark when we ventured to the Rose Bowl.
I can’t explain it. I don’t think I even want to try really.
I knocked 20 minutes off my course time from last year’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Pasadena Half Marathon. I had a couple challenges, including kind of running into a woman at mile 12 (there will be much for elaboration on that later), but I ran my little heart out. I left everything on the streets of Pasadena.
I picked up when I was dragging. I powered up hills as quickly as I could.
I had moments when I slowed down, when I walked and when I wanted to give up.
But when I saw the 2:30 pacer ahead of me just slightly, I pushed it at the end.
“Just run, Tara. Just run,” I kept saying to myself.
And I finished in 2:28:21 officially.
My first thought: Oh my God. I just ran my my fourth best half marathon. Five weeks after surgery that derailed my entire training plan for this run. I’m not even sure how it happened. It was even a tougher course than I’m used to, with rolling hills and gradual inclines and declines throughout.
I sat waiting for my running buddy to finish and literally said out loud: THAT. JUST. HAPPENED.
Hours later, including a four hour car trip home, I’m still in shock about how well I did today. Only last week I was debating not even making the trip. I was thinking there was no way I’d be ready to run the race. There was every reason for me to fail.
But I didn’t. I’m hoping this bodes well for the “new” Tara, sans gallbladder and all that’s been weighing me down for the past year.
Oct. 18: Nike Women's Half Marathon Nov. 8Clarkburg Country Run 20-Miler (Tentative) Nov. 14 Beat the Blerch Sacramento Dec. 6 California International Marathon
