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Posts tagged ‘half marathon’

Mar 24

A sort of runniversary

A year ago, I was scared. This time last year was the eve of my first half marathon. It was one I signed up for with hardly any training. But after a January full of running nine and 10 mile training runs, I figured, why not?

Thomas and I ventured to Oakland on a rainy day in late March 2011 to pick up my race packet. I was nervous. I’m glad we spent the rest of the day looking for new furniture for our family room.

Today was a similar type of day as we ventured back to Oakland to go through the same process all over again.

We went early, to avoid traffic and lines more than anything. And we were in and out in about an hour.

The Oakland Running Festival doesn’t have a huge expo. It’s only in the third year. Last year went well. The run wasn’t overcrowded or too exhausting. But at mile 10, my body nearly decided to give out. I wasn’t running nearly as much as I am now. I’m hoping tomorrow will be better than last year.

But I finished.

And it was my first half marathon.

I couldn’t have been more proud of myself.

Tomorrow, the Oakland Running Festival Half Marathon will be my ninth half marathon. It will be the first one I’ve repeated.

The expo was held at the Oakland Marriott. We arrived around 10 a.m. The line was short. I already had my eConfirmation printed out with a bar code on it. Funny, though, no one asked me to scan in or anything like that.

I grabbed a bag for the items I’d be picking up. I walked over to the bib table where there were no lines.

There were tons of race guides out on tables. I grabbed only one, as opposed to last year when I took a handful because I thought I’d figure out a way to preserve them forever. (That hasn’t happened.)

I then went and grabbed my race premium. People get really up in arms about race shirts. I have so many that I always wonder why. If you don’t like it, don’t wear it. It’s that easy. But more often that not, especially with the growth of social media, people complain about race shirts.

This is the 2012 half marathon shirt:

In the middle is a script-type font that says “half marathon.” I’ll be honest, I’m not in love with this shirt. Since I saw the race organization post it, I thought it wasn’t too attractive. Last year the designs were simple. It was just a vertical block with the race information. I still consider my blue premium from 2011 one of my favorite race shirts.

So I likely won’t wear this much. It’s a shame too, because very few race organizations go the full-sleeve shirt route. I appreciate Oakland for that, but am just not that into this one. The 5K had Cal colors, which I liked more. The marathon race premium I wasn’t digging too much either. It seemed as if the race organizer was trying to pull colors from local teams, in the half marathon case the Oakland Raiders, for each shirt without considering consistency.

But the shirt doesn’t really matter.

We walked around the expo, but outside of a couple booths, there wasn’t much to buy. Let’s face it, I was just starting to buy good running clothes this time last year. I think I only owned one pair of Nike capri running pants. You don’t want to see my closest now.

Once upon a time, I would have been tempted by cool socks and craziness like this:

Now, not so much. I buy for function (hello Lululemon obsession), and not because something is one color or anything. And really, would anyone wear cheetah socks to run? Not unless you really wanted to stand out.

The longest part of the entire expo? Waiting in line for “official merchandise” because there were only two people taking payment. And the woman I went with seemed to just want to get me through as fast as possible, no hello or anything.

I bought a great green shirt with a tree (for Oakland) and names of the streets run. We don’t run all of the streets in the half marathon, but we run a lot of them.

Then, not so suddenly, we were at the end of the expo. There was nothing left even though we hadn’t been there all too long.

I picked up a couple more couples, particularly for restaurants tomorrow, and we headed back out. Quick in and out trip to Oakland from Tracy. That was it.

Thomas and I had talked about a new burger place in Tracy for a couple weeks now. The Squeeze Inn opened sometime earlier this month. We’ve heard all about it, but had yet to partake.

So we stopped by and ordered two hamburgers, an order or regular and an order of sweet potato fries. It took awhile and we literally had to “squeeze in” because at a point there were a ton of people.

About half way through my meal, my burger wasn’t even all that broken in.

Now I’m home doing laundry and some cleaning. I don’t really have an projections for my race tomorrow. I’d like to do well, or at least better than I have lately. But I also know this is a new route. That means I can’t compare it to last year in terms of time. I also saw a mileage chart that registered the distance now at 13.4 miles.

So I’m not sure where I stand.

But I’m getting ready for my runniversary. And I’m glad that, a year after my first, I’m still at it.

Feb 21

Rockin’ through Pasadena: Part II

I figured I’d be out incredibly quick on Saturday night. I’d worked an 11.5 day before and fell fast asleep on Friday only to have to wake up early to get ready for Sam to pick me up. I stayed awake for the trip. I can’t exactly sleep on the road.

And I had a headache by the time I went to bed. So I took an Ibuprofen hoping I wouldn’t wake up with a nasty one the next morning.

That wouldn’t be the problem. No. I couldn’t even get to sleep.

When I finally opened my eyes for real at 4:53 a.m. I knew that it wasn’t going to the best day for running. My whole body was dragging.

Too much work and no sleep kind of does that. But we got dressed and ventured out.

We made our way to the Rose Bowl and only got stuck behind about 10-minutes worth of traffic getting into the parking lot. It wasn’t a bad parking situation actually. We made our way quickly from the car to the staging area. The portable toilets were plenty. I’m not kidding, there were enough toilets that it didn’t seem like there were any people waiting.

Nice. That was good because my stomach was turning knots. One after another. My stomach was killing me.

I’m not even going to pretend to do a recap. Every mile was painful. Every mile was hard.

And this is what it looked like:

OK. I didn’t hit the 13-minute average range. But still. This was a bad run. I did a Gu on mile four and mile eight.

That propelled me through a little bit. But it wasn’t enough. I just never picked up pace. At mile 10, though, I felt as if I could run awhile longer. I did. Then my butt started hurting, as if I pulled a muscle or something.

Then I slowed again.

Along the way were beautiful sites, including the Colorado Blvd. bridge, and Old Pasadena.

There was a ton of cheering. This was my second Rock ‘n’ Roll event, and I have to say I enjoyed it just as much as the first in terms of fun, but my heart just wasn’t in it. I was tired.

Too tired.

And by the time I reached the end at 2:48:19 I knew I’d given it all I could.

I pushed myself a little farther, passed the finish line and was handed my medal by a nice volunteer who gave me some strong encouragement.

I snapped this photo as I saw a member of the Half Fanatics group as for a second medal for his sister, he said. And, more shocking, the volunteer actually gave him one. Really? Wow.

I loved the medal. I actually held it nearly the entire way home because it’s so awesome and I really felt like I’d earned it for the five or six times I felt like quitting during this one.

When I got to the finish, I waited for Sam as they tried to kick me multiple times out of the area. I actually stood in one place for about 10 minutes before being asked to move. And yet a lot of people were around that weren’t being asked to move. I think I was just annoyed, which made this all feel so much worse.

Ugh. Double ugh. Triple ugh.

Then Sam crossed the finish line:

She’s somewhere in all that. She grabbed her medal and we headed off into the rest of the finisher’s area, which wasn’t nearly as packed as it was in San Jose during the October event.

I grabbed a Gatorade and some water. A volunteer gave me a heatsheet, even though it seemed a little warm and, by then, I’d already put on long-sleeve shirt.

And I was done.

The one good thing about this half was that the band that played at the end was Sugar Ray. I was really looking forward to seeing them, especially since I should have been finishing around the time they started playing.

By the time we finally got to the finish, after picking up our bags from bag check and getting some food, Sugar Ray was in the last half hour of the concert.

But they rocked.

I have some great video of Mark McGrath rocking the cowbell which I’ll post another time. Overall it was an excellent concert. When it was over, we headed to the merchandise tent where I picked up the gray shirt photographed above. And we headed to the car. It was a quick ride back to the hotel room where we cleaned up and packed within an hour.

And then, it was back on the road, our whirlwind trip to Pasadena ending.

Four and a half hours after we hit the road, we were home. I was tired. I fell asleep quickly on Sunday night, which was great because of the Monday holiday.

And now, as I reflect on it, I think part of me knows it was the result of fatigue. But I also know I’ve gained some weight recently that hasn’t helped.

I run the Oakland Half in a month or so. I want to be more prepared for it than I was for this. I thought I was prepared for this. Nope.

Now I’m taking a look at my diet and training plan to see where I went wrong. I know bad runs happen, but they also make a runner reflect on what he or she did wrong and right. That’s where I am right now.

So did I really rock through Pasadena? No. Was it still a good time? Of course. And I’m glad I did it, despite the pain and discomfort of all 13.22 miles.

Feb 20

Rockin’ through Pasadena: Part I

My car breaking down on Thursday should have been the first indication that things for our quick overnight trip to Pasadena weren’t going to go as planned.

At 70 miles per hour, my throttle body went out. I drove it to the dealership. The damage? $1,650. Even worse, I don’t get it back until sometime Wednesday or Thursday of this week because of the long holiday.

I’m hoping this doesn’t turn into a repeat of last year when it was gone for two weeks. Still crossing my fingers on that one.

In any case, our plans for me to drive changed fairly quickly. Sam, last year, mentioned wanting to do more of the Rock ‘n’ Roll runs because they reward runners with some awesome swag if you do more than one. (Heavy medals anyone?)

So we signed up for Pasadena, the first California Rock ‘n’ Roll Half during 2012. It was also an inaugural event for the series.

We knew it was going to be a quick trip, basically there and back all within a less than 48-hour period. But it turned out to be a bit more strange than we were anticipating.

We left at 9:30 a.m. from Tracy and headed down Interstate 5 toward Pasadena. The trip was, basically, uneventful. Except there were a lot of idiots who didn’t feel the need to move over when they weren’t going the speed limit in the fast lane. Of note: I was tired. I ended up working an 11.5 hour day because my car broke down and I needed to take it to the dealership Friday morning. More on that later.

We stopped and ate in Buttonwillow, about 20 minutes from the beginning of the Grapevine, the stretch of Interstate 5 that weaves into the Los Angeles basin.

There was never a point where we weren’t going to make it before 5 p.m. but I think we kind of rushed down hoping for an expo to the degree of the San Jose one last October. That wasn’t what we came to.

The front of the pickup line was empty.

Sam and I had little trouble walking up to get our numbers. Next came the shirt booth.

The shirts for this half were actually fitted. Much better than last time in San Jose when Sam and I both got medium sized shirts only to have them basically be dresses on both of us. I opted for a Brooks large, which gives me a little extra room. This shirt has a nice back/front design. The front is above.

This is the back:

We also got our swag bags which serve as gear-check bags too. The Rock ‘n’ Roll series and the San Francisco Marathon, where I did the second half last year, are the only other races that I’ve been given a gear-check bag that’s actually a decent reusable bag. Nike gave me a heavy plastic bag, but not the same quality.

It’s good because I didn’t bring something for bag check and we ended up actually using it since we were there alone, without anyone picking us up.

We made our way through the Brooks area where they sale merchandise. I ended up buying a shirt.

Then we checked out the booths. There weren’t many. We did get some awesome samples of organic cake. That was a plus. We got some Snicker Marathon bar samples too.

It was a beautiful day outside the expo.

And inside we got to see the beautiful medal we’d be getting after finishing.

But there wasn’t much there. We did get $15 off for signing up for the Oct. 7 Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose half marathon. We also got a free shirt for the inaugural Pasadena event since they didn’t have any San Jose shirts. Had I of know we’d be scoring those awesome shirts, I probably wouldn’t have bought another one. A day later and I’m wearing the teal-colored T-shirt at home.

After only 45 minutes, we were done. I don’t even think I spent that little time at my first half marathon expo.

We did score a pair each of CEP compression sleeves. Sam opted for black for her first pair ever. I went a little wild with pink.

They look at little something like this:

I actually wore them during the race and they were incredibly comfortable. And I love the color.

So we headed to our hotel, which was a Travelodge on a main street through Pasadena. It was quaint, and OK for the price we paid. But we had a problem: We had about five hours to kill and nothing to do.

Sam started looking at places we could potentially go. We ended up heading to the Citadel Outlets in Los Angeles. Sam needed a water bottle. Despite our best efforts, we didn’t find out. We did find shoes. Lots of shoes. Well, only one pair for me, but lots of shoes for her.

She ended up with four pairs on an amazing sale. And then we decided we needed food. I had a bit of a headache. We opted for a restaurant literally right down the street from the place we were staying. We should have tried something else.

To say it was the worst experience I’ve had eating out might be an understatement. We waited nearly an hour between the time we sat down and the time we ate.

I didn’t tip. The waiter refused to even acknowledge us most the night. (Did I mention we had some crazy experienced on the 110 freeway in Pasadena? Wow, it was nuts. We saw two nearly overturned cars in two places this weekend. Seriously, it was amazing.)

We then headed back to the hotel to settle down. Sam seemed to fall asleep immediately. Not me.

About an hour after I went to bed and I still wasn’t asleep someone checked into the room above us. It must have been a group with girls. They laughed for hours until they went to bed. I couldn’t sleep. I turned on the fan on the window cooler for white noise. Still no sleep.

I finally got t sleep only to awake twice in the night.

I knew when I finally woke up for good at 4:53 a.m. that I hadn’t gotten enough sleep. We had to be at the Rose Bowl before 6:30 to be assured a parking space (which we paid $10 for). It was dark. We looked for a Walgreens too. Nothing.

When we finally made our way to the Rose Bowl it actually wasn’t a bad parking arrangement. We got in and out of the car pretty quickly.

And we had an hour or so to go before race time. Good thing, too, because my stomach was feeling a little bad.

I should have known that was a sign of something bad. But I didn’t realize my run would be one of my worst yet.

Oct 23

A DNS on the half

Today I didn’t bonk because I didn’t even start.

I stayed up late watching the website I work for update. I napped during the day so I could get more sleep. It was all to no avail.

I woke up exhausted. My body rebelled at every step.

My third half in a month, the one in my hometown, was a definite no go.

And, despite feeling guilty about all the nice Facebook and text messages encouraging me this morning (thanks everyone), I knew it was the right choice.

My body wants no part in 13.1 this morning. And I need to listen to that.

Oct 22

Two half marathons in two weeks

I didn’t sleep well last night. I haven’t been sleeping well at all really. Last night, though, was pretty bad. I woke up four or five times. I ended up taking a nap at midday. It was a good thing I woke up early, though. I had to drive to Stockton and pick up my race number and packet for my second half marathon in a two week period.

I signed up for the St. Joseph’s Half Marathon because it’s a local event. I’ve run so many races outside the area I live (mostly in the Bay Area) that I figured I should probably give back to the community I work in everyday. This race was an especially easy choice because it supports a program at the college I teach journalism at.

What I didn’t realize was how tried I’d be after the Nike Women’s Half and three weeks of swimming. My legs are sore and tired.

I ran two miles on the treadmill on Friday and felt as if I was dying.

I’m not 100 percent sure I’ll be competitive during the race. I heard of a bunch of people say they’d be walking it. I don’t want to do that. Thomas and I already after afternoon plans so i need to finish in a decent time frame.

I’m using this more as a training run since I have my nice new half PR from the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half earlier this month.

So I stopped by the Stockton Fleet Feet store, which recently moved to a new location.

I have a love/hate relationship with Fleet Feet. I love what I can buy there and all the supplies available. I hate the money I spend there. And I usually end up spending a lot. I went in today for my race packet and came out with a new pair of Zenzah compression sleeves for my shins. I am definitely planning on wearing them tomorrow.

It didn’t take long to get my number (which is three digits and scares me because I’ve grown accustom to larger races, small races are so lonely) and was given my reusable bag (with nice printing on it) and tech shirt.

I also got a running vest, which is a little large. I’ve never wore a running vest, so I’m not 100 percent sure what the purpose of one is. I think it it had pockets I’d be more in love with it. I do like the reflective nature of it, though.

The line at the register to buy the compression sleeves was long, but I waited it out. There were a lot of people crowding to get the cards they were handing out to get signed by vendors for a chance to win a heart-rate monitor. I passed, if only because I already have a heart rate monitor (with my Garmin 405CX) and I needed to get going and get a lot of errands run.

The expo was on the brick walk outside of Lincoln Center in Stockton. And it was a nice day, so there were a lot of people checking it out.

So I grabbed my packet and left. I’m washing my running clothes for tomorrow right now in hopes of laying everything out for tomorrow.

I don’t have high hopes for a solid half. I’m really hoping to just hold everything together. And, more than anything, I’m hoping I wake up tomorrow and really want to run.

Low expectations? Yeah, maybe.

But I think my body is physically exhausted from all I’ve been doing lately. I think I’m pushing myself a little too hard lately. It’s showing in the quality of my runs.

So after this half, I’m not running another race half until Big Sur on Nov. 20. That gives me some recovery time. But I have an 18 and 20-miler to do in between this and that too.

We’ll see how this goes.

 

Oct 18

I ran to be empowered

Words can’t describe how it felt to get to a rather warm San Francisco morning with two of my closest friends for the Nike Women’s Half Marathon on Sunday. I was excited. I was nervous. I was elated. I had a moment or two where it just really felt unreal.

It should of.

Six weeks ago I wasn’t running this race. I hadn’t made it into the lottery in April. Neither had my two running buddies. There was little to no chance of us running this well-known, women-centered, ridiculously huge race.

Then I gained entry thanks to Somersault Snack Co. in Sausalito. Jennie and Sam were happy for me, but I was saddened by the fact that they weren’t running with me.

Then someone posted a Nike+ code on our running group’s Facebook page. I called Sam. She called Jennie. Within 10 minutes they were both signed up to run with me. It was meant to be. I’d gone the entire year thinking there was NO WAY I’d run this race.

We didn’t train for hills. Instead, we ran flat surfaces more than anything. We didn’t even have enough time to train for the massive hills in San Francisco. But we knew we wanted to run this.

And so we did.

My husband dropped us off near Union Square. There were a ton of people. And spectators everywhere. It was a madhouse in every respect.

There were people everywhere. I was to meet the Team Somersaults runners on the corner of Geary and Powell at 6:15 a.m. for a photo opportunity. I got lost in a sea of people. The Safeway team had the same shirts we did. I kept seeing people wearing our colors and trying to follow them. I should have known better, as Team Somersaults also had cool yellow sweat bands and sunflower clips for our hair.

That’s my swag, post race and washed. Those sweat bands come in really handy during a run, let me tell you.

So we gathered on the corner for a quick snapshot. I was able to meet a couple more of the team members. It was crazy hectic. People were walking in front and behind us. But we got a couple snapshots for the Somersaults Facebook page.

Sam also snapped one, despite holding two water bottles for me.

These are a group of awesome ladies who represent such a great company. It was wonderful to get to know them. Shout out especially to Jamie, I found first this morning and who I ran with two weeks ago. She has an awesome blog too. She’ll be running a race I’m also running in the near future, so I hope I get to see more of Jamie.

Sam also snapped a slightly blurry and unflattering photo of me while I walked back to her. We started walking to the bathrooms and literally turned around and lost all the Team Somersaults members. That’s how crowded it was.

I put my phone away shortly after this. We waited in a bathroom line until the start. And then, when we didn’t move for 15 minutes, we ended up all taking over an empty stall near our corral. There were too many people in the bathroom line for anyone to see three or four of the portable toliets were open.

Then we started running and, for only the second time ever and the first time during a race, my Garmin malfunctioned. It refused to pick up the satellite. Lame. I waited nearly 10 minutes as we were corralled to the start. Nothing.

I’m assuming it was because there were likely 5,000 other devices also trying to pick up signals.

I started with my 405CX just keeping time. It finally picked up and kept a signal a mile in. But, by then, the damage had been done. My “first lap” was 26 minutes according to Garmin. The mileage was way off. I took this as a signal from someone or something out there to not take this one as seriously as I have been recently.

Have a good run, I thought. Don’t think about it.

Miles 1-3 were relatively flat.

Miles 5-9 were hilly. But we hung together.

Miles 10-13 were recovery, with one very need bathroom stop.

And we all stayed together until mile 11 when Jennie (who is faster than she thinks) decided to move ahead. She finished 3 minutes ahead of Sam and I.

Jennie was waiting for Sam and I to cross and hug us. We then walked to the shoots to get the coveted Tiffany finishers necklace. I can’t tell you how beautiful it is. You have to see it to understand. It’s just amazing. Everybody was stopping to take photos of the fireman handing them out.

Including me.

On a silver platter, nonetheless. Love. After making my way up massive hills and pounding my way down them, these men were a sight to behold. That said, I was more interested in picking up my finisher’s shirt and getting something to eat than checking out my necklace. I didn’t open the box until about 20 minutes later AFTER Sam had showed me her necklace.

And it was as awesome as I imagined.

I own one other Tiffany & Co. item. It’s a scarf. This will be a treasured item for years to come, believe me.

The finishers shirt was an awesome yellow one too. I’m considering wearing it for the half I am running next weekend. Why? Well, if I’m slow it will show people that I’m crazy enough to do two half marathons in two weekends. Plus, let’s face it, it’s pretty awesome too.

Once we settled down and caught our breaths, I had time to reflect on how awesome the experience was. My husband (who lost me, or I lost him, I don’t know, but we miscommunicated) brought me my bag and a change of clothes. Thank goodness too. It was a warm day in San Francisco. I smelled. I was sweaty. I changed into a new shirt I bought at Niketown on Thursday. And we celebrated with a photo.

The photo above is really what his race was about. Friends. Love. Happiness.

I walked away from the Nike Women’s Half with my slowest half marathon time to date. My time was 2:53:30. But it was my best race ever.

I ran with my friends. I ran representing an awesome company that gave me a gracious free entry. I ran to be empowered. I was empowered by the 20,000 women (and men) who ran with me. Even as I was weaving in and out of people and waiting in ridiculously long bathroom lines, I enjoyed nearly every moment of it.

I’m on a runner’s high. I can’t describe it other than that. My high is as tall as the Golden Gate Bridge, no kidding. We, by the way, ventured that way to head back to the East Bay and home to the valley. We even stopped by In-and-Out Burger in Sausalito for a post race meal.

It was an amazing day filled with amazing happenings. I can’t say much more about how awesome it was. I consider myself a very lucky girl to have such great opportunities (again, thank you Somersault Snack Co.!!) and good people around me. Because that’s what it is about really. I have friends who help me navigate the marathon that is life and also help push me through a 13.1 road race.

That’s love. And it’s a nice metaphor for life in general.

That said, it’s also a little about this:

I also picked that shirt up at Niketown on last Thursday. There’s fun involved too.

We all have our reasons to run. I ran my first half to be stronger. I do my training runs to be powerful.

I run, sometimes, to be sexy and fit into my slim jeans. (I don’t call them “skinny” because I’ve never actually been “skinny.”)

Sunday, though, was proof that bad runs can be good runs. And good friends and good company are the reason why.

Oct 14

The signs are everywhere

I haven’t had much time in the last 48 hours to run let alone blog. I worked late on Wednesday and came home and ran 6 miles. Thursday, my rest day, I worked part of the day before venturing via BART to San Francisco from Dublin to pick up my Nike Women’s Half Marathon race packet (really just the number) and check out the offerings.

I’ll be blogging a full race report after I present at a journalism conference in Sacramento on Saturday (the main reason I had to go to San Francisco on a Thursday). But I thought I’d add this because it kind of sums up my excitement for this weekend.

I literally was off BART for 3 minutes when I saw this sticker on the window at the mall in San Francisco.

The signs for the NWM event were everywhere.

Counting down now…two days.

Oct 2

Rocking my way to a new PR

I’m going to say I’m disappointed. I was consistent for nine miles of this race. My aim was to run a 11:30 mile or under. In fact, I was moving along so well, I actually ran seven miles under an 11-minute mile.

I’m actually not disappointed by that. Not at all. In fact, it got me a new half marathon PR by 14 seconds. Yes, only 14 seconds, but still a new PR.

I’m a little upset because I think I could have ran EVERY mile under 11 minutes. I probably could have. But I was getting tired later in the race. My body wanted to keep going. My feet kind of hurt, though.

It wasn’t a total disaster. Quite the opposite actually.

Four weeks ago I couldn’t run at all. I’ve spent a good deal of time reinventing my training plan. I added in rest days. I’ll be adding in cross training this week. I did good today. Only two miles were horrible. And they were under 12:30. And I paced with the 2:15 finisher group for about five miles of the course.

I did well today. I’m allowed to have some regrets, though. I do.

My day started out at 4:45 a.m. I rolled out of bed, took a quick shower and got dressed. I woke Thomas up as I finished packing my gear in the swag bag I got my the Saturday expo.

I grabbed a small bottle of Gatorade and did a 50/50 mix of it and water in my bottle.

We left around 5:45 a.m. to pick up Sam. We were on the road by 6:08 a.m. Moving along. Today’s trip to San Jose went by much faster than yesterdays. No traffic. We were there by 6:50 a.m. We looked around and saw few people. Within 10 minutes thousands were embarking on downtown San Jose.

One of the first sites we see as we make our way to the start line was a huge pack of ambulances. I’m not kidding.

That didn’t sit too well with Sam. She’s a first-time half marathoner. I could understand. No one wants to end up on one of those during a run. (Later in the race she saw a guy go down near mile 12, I’ve been watching the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon Facebook page to see if anyone has information on him, but there is very little confirmed yet).

We checked out the finish line and grabbed some photos before it got too hectic at the main area.

We made or way to the portable commodes (not nearly as cute as the Brooks dressing rooms during the expo) and started warming up. Lots of people were running up and down the street. We kept moving until we had to make our way to Corral 10 for the 2:30 time finishers. I could see 16 corrals in total with about 1,000 each. That’s a lot of runners to get moving that early in the morning.

The race started promptly at 8 a.m. Our corral was projected to move across the start line at 8:07 a.m. We actually went at 8:04 a.m.

My Garmin was under four minutes off race time the entire run. That was nice. I’ve been in races where the clocks are way off, which causes a bit of panic when looking at the Garmin.

Mile 1: 10:14 — Well good morning legs, you are used to the Sunday long runs so lets get you moving.

Mile 2: 10:23 — Not bad timing here. I can see the 2:15 finisher sign.

Mile 3: 10:39 — Bands! We have music.

Mile 4: 10:39 — Lots of cheerleaders out here. Love the cheers about runners.

Mile 5: 10:18 — This pace feels good. Keep moving along.

Mile 6: 10:47 — Ugh oh, getting a little tired. Better have some Gatorade.

Mile 7: 11:38 — Walked one minute when my heart rate did a strange peak.

Mile 8: 11:29 — Moving along, slower now.

Mile 9: 12:26 — Walked through a rather congested water stop AND had a guy step on the back of my shoe and nearly pull it off. Seriously dude, walk much?

Mile 10: 11:47 — That’s a little better, but suddenly feel tired again. More Gatorade.

Mile 11: 11:04 — Yay Gatorade!

Mile 12: 12:25 — That small hill near the end just seems like cruel and unusual punishment. I slowed, but didn’t walk.

Mile 13: Look at Garmin. I’m coming in under 2:30. RUN! RUN! RUN!

Mile .3: 2.42 (average pace of 8:58) — Yeah, I ran 13.3 miles. I wasn’t watching the tangents well with this.

I crossed the finish with an official time of 2:27:20, a new PR by 14 seconds. My Garmin reflected 2:27:27 but I always forget to turn if off exactly as I cross (my husband even asked if I had remembered to turn it off this time, I once drove five miles down the freeway with it still on, that REALLY messed up my time).

Woo for a new PR!

I called Thomas to find out where he was. Turns out he wasn’t too far away. I was handed my medal (which was heavy) and started to figured out if I could wait through the crowd for Sam.

She came in at 2:32:59. She rocked it too even if her initial thought was “finish in under three hours.” She did so, no problem.

We had to make our way out a huge horseshoe-shaped area to the crowd. We were handed water, bananas, oranges and some Snickers Marathon bars. They taste like candy bars, so I keep wondering if they are really good for me.

Sam opted to get her knees wrapped in ice. She tells me if felt really good.

To me it just looked REALLY, REALLY cold.

We sat down for a little bit, just to cool off and decompress. I think both of us needed it. And then we did the obligatory photo opp thanks to Thomas. He was patient enough with us to take our photo and wait while we complained mostly about random stuff and how bad we were hurting.

We headed to the merchandise tent to purchase a new shirt for me. I usually prize my PR shirts and I wasn’t too hot on the unisex size medium I got at the expo. I got a “finisher” size small shirt. I also bought two pint glasses with the race logo (because they were cool) and a pin. All that got me a free shirt, which I gave to Sam (we joked later that it’s because I’m a Dri-Fit snob, I only like clothes I can run in).

Then we hobbled over to P.F. Chang’s for a second day in a row (Sam and I ate there in Plesanton on our way back from the Expo). Our race bibs got us $10 off, so we had lunch for three for only $21. And that included a beer. Good deal.

Overall a successful first half marathon for Sam and a great PR race for me, even if I was a little inconsistent.

Oct 1

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Getting ready to rock it in San Jose

When my friend Sam and I signed up for the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon we did so because we didn’t get admission into the Nike Women’s Half on Oct. 16.

We figured we needed something to train for. Rock ‘n’ Roll would be our October half. It would also be Sam’s first.

By a strange twist of fate Sam, our friend Jennie and I all gained Nike entry in the past month. But that’s for another post.

The race is tomorrow. Today we ventured to San Jose to pick up our race packets (I’m always slightly annoyed by this practice, but understand nonetheless that part of what these races do is bring people into the area) and check out the expo.

Sam had never been to an expo before. I fear she may be spoiled now.

For one, the race medal is awesome. It’s not ridiculously small, like the last two I’ve received. And it’s heavy – very heavy. It’s a beautiful medal. I can’t wait to get one in my hands in fact.

The race packet pick up was by far the best I’ve ever experience. No long waits. In fact, we both walked right up and grabbed our bib numbers. We were handed an extra packet with four safety pins. That was a perk. So often I’m handed bib numbers without any way to attach them to my shirt.

We then moved to the “shirts/swag” area. Our blue Brooks shirts are nice, but they are a unisex size medium and I can swim in it. No kidding. I’m actually kind of in love with races that have sex specific shirts. My favorite so far is from the San Francisco Marathon, but I digress.

We picked up our shirts quickly and found our way to a swag bag table with reusable pull-string backpacks (the first image in this post) that actually double as sweat-check bags. The next stop was the race-specific merchandise area where the prices were a little steep for Brooks gear (one of the sponsors) with official logos on it.

We checked out some of the booths, including some fine Moving Comfort goods. We also checked out some sweet smelling portable toilets (if only because they didn’t actually have a stool in it).

The main floor of the expo was really awesome. There were representatives from big and small name companies. There were brands I’ve ever of and some I never knew existed.

We got free energy bar samples. We tried some recovery drinks (Sam found the Muscle Milk booth) and checked out the booths for other races, including the Oakland Running Festival which we’ll be hitting up in March.

We got to a small booth hidden away on the side of the hall where we got race-size Body Glide for $1. I also got a larger stick for $7, which is as much as I paid for my smaller stick awhile back.

I also found a neon green pair of Zensah compression sleeves for my legs. I’m not too keen on the color, but at $25 the price was right and I figured if I wear them at night people will at least people able to see me.

I’ve already tried them on and I love them. I don’t think they’ll be making their debut in the race tomorrow, but I might try them on one of my shorter runs sometime this week. The sleeves are much more neon green than the photo shows, believe me.

Sam had her stance evaluated at one booth. I think she would have taken the plunge and bought some new insoles if they weren’t so expensive.

We then found a booth for “The Stick” massage stick. The representative literally spent a minute on my leg and I was convinced I needed to own one. I’m planning on rubbing my leg out later with it before I go to sleep tonight.

I may have to add it to my “favorites” list if I love it enough. Sam wasn’t as convinced, but she felt the deep tissue version.

That said, she ended up buying a sweet little massager for her muscles. While she was getting a preview at that booth I saw that Marshall Ulrich of “Running on Empty” fame. I ordered his book from amazon.com the other day. I’m supposed to get it on Monday.

But then I saw him there. I nearly had a squeal running geek girl moment. I contemplated not going over to shake his hand and say hello. I was recommended his book by a friend who said it would be a good read when training for a marathon.

I sucked up my nerve and went over and said hi. I could barely ask questions I was so nervous (awkward for a journalist, yes). I talked to him and bought a book on the spot. I’ll send the amazon.com one back. He signed my copy. It was totally worth it. I’ve never been so inspired during a five-minute conversation with someone.

Seriously. He signed my book saying “the only limitations are in your mind.” I’m using that to get through the 13.1 tomorrow. And, hopefully, the 26.2 in December.

Our parking meter was coming close to expiring, so we had to get moving quickly. It was too bad too because Sam was actually loving the whole expo experience. I’ve been to three other expos for half marathons and this was the best of them all. It was well-lit, had a lot of free swag and good deals on other items. Garmin was even there with a booth. I nearly bought a new heart-rate monitor, but I figured I’d wait until mine actually went out.

I’m stoked about running this half marathon for a couple reasons. The first is that there is entertainment along every mile. I think I’m going to enjoy that. The second is that it’s the first half since I hurt my leg in August. I thought for a minute there that I may not run the rest of the year. I had a two-week period where all I wanted to do was cry because my leg hurt so bad.

I feel good about this run. Now I just need to pick out what I’m wearing.

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