Big Sur Marathon

On Sunday we took part in, and completed, the Big Sur International Marathon. This was our second marathon, and, what a difference 9 months makes.

Anyone who knows anything about this marathon knows two things:
1) it is often considered the most beautiful marathon in the country.
2) it is one of the hardest marathons in the country.

These two factors seem to be appealing to us, though it might take some soul searching to figure out our attraction to more and more difficult goals of completion rather than picking something easier and doing better. This is the kind of thing that is drawing us closer to the ultra marathoning world and further away from the flat course optimum speed marathons.

I think the reason for this is probably a combination of not being naturally fast, our desire to run our races together, and our past life hiking these same trails that we now run. We seem to be in it for the challenge of completion and the beauty of the journey. Perhaps speed will come, (and I'll come back to that in another post), but for this marathon, again, completing it was the goal, enjoying the course was paramount, and a sense that we did well and ran strong for our current abilities in the face of adversity important.

However, I was also asked several times about what time I wanted to run. Since Big Sur is said to be 20 minutes or more slower than other marathons I said if I could PR (against my other injury plagued first marathon), or break 5 hours, then that would be complete success. With the six hour time limit and the prospect of more hill running than I'd ever done, I imagined a scenario where I could only walk uphill, limp downhill and generally walk aimlessly for hours until I was either pulled from the course for taking more than 6 hours or preemptively leaped into the Pacific Ocean. I hoped that wouldn't be the case, but couldn't discount it completely as I truly wasn't certain my body was ready for this.

Finally the time had arrived. My parents were visiting from Australia and my parents-in-law took on Kelly early Saturday morning while we packed up and drove south the 2 hours to Monterey. Our pack list filled all the space of a notepad page, imagining hot or cold race conditions, cold start with warm finish (note: buy throwaway gloves at expo), cold waiting for bus (what if they have run out of TP? camera?) , post race needs (what if we need to stitch our own arm back on?), if we had our car nearby, or not, what to bring to eat (what? 8 packets of Gu??), what to buy down there (pasta place reservation?) etc. We had a surprisingly complicated checklist for what should require a pair of shoes and some sunscreen.

EXPO

Down at the expo we picked up our race numbers and chips and then shopped for a while. I came away with $80 of Big Sur branded (mostly Asics) gear, so really hoped I'd finish, and also a signed copy of Bart Yasso's new book. He's the chief running officer at Runner's World and maybe the nicest most interesting guy in running. He also has a quoted as saying that if he could run one marathon he'd make it Big Sur. How can you not like the guy?

I asked him about running the course and he said to negative split it, that although the second half in hilly, it's a net downhill and to save yourself in the first half and use the energy to work the downhills in the second half.

Later in the day we saw Jeff Galloway talk. Now here's my problem: I'm a runner. I'm a sucky runner, but still a runner. That means, I run. I don't walk. Walking is not the challenge running is. On the other hand, I'd rather make it through an event strong than 'run' hard the first half and then implode at mile 18. So, we listened to him answer questions about his walk running, the strategy of dropping the walk run ratio down to 1:1 or 1:2 on the hills, and other Galloway wisdom and by the end we both thought for this race it could be worth a shot. For this kind of course, where the ups and down were going to make energy conservation critical, we thought it couldn't hurt. We'd keep our planned pace, but we'd do some walking.

RACE PLAN

So we formed a race plan over our spaghetti and marinara that evening, largely formed off advice we picked up at the expo:

1. We'd use 4:1 run/walk ratio. This was very different from any walk/running we'd done before (mostly either walk through the aid stations only, or walk 1 min every mile). When the time hit a 5 min mark, we'd walk a minute then run again. We'd do that until Hurricane Point (a 2 mile climb starting at mile 10) where we'd do 2:1 (run 2 min, walk 1) to get to the top. If the going got tough later on we'd do 2:1 and then 1:1 until we completed the course.
2. We'd run 11 min/mile average pace until the hill. After that we'd do the best we could for the last half.
3. If Jeff Galloway ran by us (pacing for a 5 hour finish), we'd run with him.
4. Eat a Gu shot 15 minutes before the race and every 45 mins on course
5. Run down hills with caution, don't brake, shuffle. Save the quads!
6. Drink a cup of water at every aid station.

RACE

We spent the night in Salinas, CA, about 30 minutes of iceburg lettuce fields east of Monterey. Set alarm for 2:45am, woke up at 2:30 and made coffee. Yes, 2:30am. It was vomit inducing. I put on my race t-shirt and shorts. Stuffed an iPod shuffle deep into a pocket in case the going got tough. Added 8 Gus. Yum. Over that I layered a long sleave shirt. Over that stuff, a pair of fuzzy pants and a fleece. We grabbed our stuff and headed back to Monterey. Outside it was warm, already. I knew I wouldn't need my fleece.

We parked in a garage and boarded the school buses for the start line. It took more than an hour to wind their way down the coast in the dark. Half the people on the bus were talking loudly to each other, nervously telling strangers about their lives, while the other half stayed quiet, silently knowing what lay ahead, that perhaps by the time that made it back to the finish line hours later they might be changed forever. That makes some people disappear into themselves while others cover it up with apparent mindlessness.


The area where we started was filled with people already. It was good people watching. There were people doing push ups. There was much personal grooming. That a large number of people still run in cotton socks was an interesting fact. After a final trip to the port-a-potties we headed to our start spot on the road. A lone bagpiper played nearby. Once in position, it wasn't long before the national anthem was sung and the doves released. I'm not kidding. The gun fired and (3 minutes later) we were off. This is the point when you wonder how you got yourself into this again. Too late though, there's only one way back home. Start running.

For the first couple of miles it was hard to settle into anything, and walk breaking was difficult for fear of being run down. But we did it. Patty took charge of calling '5 seconds'. In 5 seconds we'd try to find some road shoulder to walk on. Way before 60 seconds we were itching to start running. But we held steady. Slow now will get us there faster later. Don't worry about the people running by. Stay on the plan.

We ran through redwoods towards the coast. Some kids were out now to watch us and the sun was out. It was already in the mid-60s and I'd started in just shorts and a t-shirt and never even begun to feel cold. I had a moment of thinking that was a little bad, but perhaps that should have worried me more. It was going to be hot. For now, it was perfect running, looking at the trees and the little streams and campgrounds or two nestled down in between trees. And the running was easy too, so life was good. But hold steady. Our pace settled into an 11:01-11:03 average. Perfectly on plan.


By mile 6 we'd cleared the trees and headed straight towards the coast and the Big Sur lighthouse perched atop a piece of marooned coastline. From there we curved north and started up along the coast. The road climbed slowly past cow fields with the Pacific ocean behind them. Cresting the hill we headed down to sea level and then onto the big climb: Hurricane Point. This hill was approximately 600ft up over 2 miles. It's work, but it's very doable and never gets too steep. Both of us felt strong the whole way up. At the top we stopped and posed for pictures (in hurricane force wind), the view was spectacular. People headed up the hill behind us, a trail of runners stretching along the coast in front of us.


Then started our way down. Easy on the quads. Easy. Easy. Easy. At the bottom was the famed bridge that is seen in many photos of the area. It was also 13.1 miles, halfway there. As we ran across the bridge a man was playing a baby grand piano.


Behind Patty the ocean was a deep deep blue. "This is Californian living," said Patty, "this is why you moved here." It was magical. And it was living.


We continued on. The next major hill I came too was the first sign of fatigue onset. It wasn't too bad, but the climb up the Big Bad Boy had taken something out of me that I wasn't going to get back before the end of the race. It was only going to get worse. The course became a fairly steady stream of climbing and dropping with little which you'd consider flat. Where there were hills, which is to say, everywhere, they had no name, but were still the equal of any heart break hill elsewhere. It was hard running. By mile 18 I was getting tired and my legs and I were having conversations. Our pace average had taken a hit on the big hill (with one mile in there taking 13 minutes), partially recovered on the following downhill (ran some nice sub-10 sections in there) and stabilized at about a 11:12 pace. All in all, the race to mile 20 was pretty good. Why don't they make races 20 miles long?


I remember at the San Francisco marathon a pace group leader giving the following assessment of running a marathon: run the first 10 with your head (be smart, don't go too hard), run the second 10 with your legs (it will get harder, use you legs to hold the pace), and run the last 6.2 with your heart. Not long after mile 20 I knew where she was coming from.


Around me the scenery was only more spectacular. Cliff sides we ran along were covered with flowers and dropped spectacularly into intimate little coves that you'd never see from a car. Sea gulls would soar by us against clear blue sky, while a we ran by a musician playing the harp. This is 80 or 90% of the experience of running Big Sur. The beauty of Big Sur far outweighs the challenge. And the two experiences become separate. While your legs can be saying lets stop. We're done. Your mind can be saying "Hell no, this is living. Let's keep going. This is fun."


By mile 23 I was hurting on the uphills. I was tired, there wasn't too much glycogen left, but largely it was this: I was very dehydrated. My HR was high and I unable to keep it down on the hills. Patty, we need to do 1 minute run, 1 minute walk, okay? What? My HR is 195! You know, like, as though I was sprinting the final 400 yards of a 5k, only we're doing a 12 min/mile up a hill and there's still 2 miles to go. I don't want to blow up here. So we walk-ran up the last few hills and cruised down the final downhills. They still felt good.

Soon we crossed the Carmel bridge and headed into the finish line. People cheered. It was amazing. A life moment. Our chip time was 4 hours, 57 minutes. A 10 minute PR for the two of us.


One of the organizers shook my hand as he placed the hand crafted medal around my neck. "How was it?" he asked with such sincerity. "It was hard" I said. But I felt like it wasn't a very good answer to his question. It was a momentous spiritual journey that I'll never forget. And it was hard.

CONCLUSIONS

Well, I'm still digesting this. The race itself was a perfect race for me. We beat our expectations on all levels. Our second half was less than three minutes slower than the first half (and some of that was picture taking). Not quite Bart's negative split, but I'll take it.

But there were things to learn from it, as always. Here are some initial thoughts:

Water. Hydration was the big issue. By the time we finished it was in the high 80s. Under those conditions I know I need a lot of water. It seems likely I need more water than I can reasonably take in at an aid station. I either need to practice that, or I need to run with a bottle like I do in training. And then I need to think about sodium intake.

Food. The 100 calories (1 gel) every 45 minutes worked well.

Knees. My knee is still a problem, but my PT and I are working on that. After the race I had someone at the medical tent tape ice onto it. It was borderline annoying during the race approaching 'pain' in the final few miles. Ugly afterwards. Back to those exercises.

Walk/Run. This was the brave experiment of this marathon, and I think it works. It doesn't sit right with me, but at this time and this place it made for a much better (and faster marathon). Being a slave to a watch is not fun either, but being in control of the outcome of your race is. Like they say: walk before you're forced to.

Hills. Good technique down hills worked really well. The final hill we ran down was our fastest. After 5 hours our quads were still going strong (not as good today!) Something to take forward. We can always be stronger running up hills, but all our trail running certainly helped. We'll get stronger.

All in all, we had a fantastic time. I haven't even mentioned how well organized this is too. Everything was perfect for every aspect of this event. Like the half we ran last November this is a class act.

done. running.

Sequoia 30K

On Saturday we ran our first race of the year, the Sequoia 30K. This was our first trail run with Pacific Coast Trail Runs. And what an experience it was.


BUILDUP

Our goal this year is to run a lot more trail races and a lot less road courses. When we are running down a road, some part of us is always wishing for a beautiful single track winding through the redwoods. But some part of us also knows that we're not strong enough for the trail runs around here and the thousands of feet of steep elevation gain (and loss) they bring. It's the former hikers and backpackers in us that love being on the trails.

Our lead up to this race was actually a build up for the Napa Valley Marathon. Since the half marathon in November last year we've increased our long run up to 20 miles and our weekly mileage peaked at 32 miles. We've run about 260 miles since then. It wasn't ideal. There was the usual winter sickness. There was travel. There weren't enough mid-week runs because work squeezed them out. But for us there was a good sustained set of miles stretching back to last October, and it's nice to head into the year with as many miles as we have and being in probably the best shape of our lives.

A few weeks ago Patty and I talked about what our goals were as we felt ourselves being swept towards another road race (Napa Valley Marathon). We thought about what and when we enjoy running, and it's always running in the hills which makes us happiest, so we scrapped the marathon plan (at least as a goal race), and set our sights on doing what we need to do to finish our first 50K ultra this year. The first step was to jump right in and see how these things work. That led us to this race, which is held practically in our backyard and on trails we've run many times.

RACE

We arrived early and picked up our bibs. Our friend Eric was there and we chatted a bit. He was running the 50K, us just the 30K (18.6 miles). There was little of the usual pre-race craziness, just people greeting old friends and getting ready to go. The lines for the bathroom were there, of course.

It was chilly, but I shed my long sleeve shirt and reluctantly discarded my fuzzy sweat pants. But soon we started and off heading out of the meadow and towards the first climb. From our back of the pack position, the field came almost to a halt as we were funneled into a narrow track that climbed up to Sequoia-Bayview. Most of those around us walked and so did we. In fact, we couldn't have run if we wanted to. It was a road block.


At the top people started to settle into their pace on the gently uphill trail that is one of our favorite runs. Around us people chatted about if they were planning to do Western States this year, or this or the other ultra. Below us we could look across the bay towards a foggy San Francisco. In front of us the trail followed the hillside trying its hardest to stay level as it ducked into gullies of redwoods and trickling steams and then out again for bay area views. We crossed over Skyline Blvd (were a volunteer made sure everyone crossed okay), and arrived at the Moon Gate aid station. Being our first run of this type we checked out all the offerings, dug into some of the potatoes and I filled up my bottle and drank two cups of water. I knew it would take us close to 1.5 hours to get to the next aid station 7.3 miles away. With just a 20 oz bottle to work with, better top up!

GPS track

From there we dove down into Redwood park towards the French Trail. It was just steep enough to fly down, and I was feeling strong at this point and didn't need to brake much. Even cruising down as fast as I was we were caught by the 20K lead runners who flew by 'on ya left!'. They had started after us. I tried to stay roughly to the right, but figured if they were going that fast into traffic while plummeting into the valley, they'd have to be the ones to make sure they were safe.

As soon as we hit the French trail (one of the nicest trails we know), we slowed down and started to power walk the steep parts and run the rest. People continued to pass us running the shorter distance, but mostly we'd found our place in the 30K field. I felt like the trail was more runnable than I remembered from training runs, but perhaps I would have felt better later if I'd not moved through this section as quick. At the time it was just fun and hard and beautiful.

At the end of the French trail we climbed up to the west ridge (walking), and then headed onto the out and back section for the 30K and 50K runners. This took us down a long hill section of fairly tight trail. Here we encounted the first of the lead runners running up the hill at full speed. Steve Stowers was headed for a 50K course record (at a 7:36 min/mile pace!) followed closely by Victor Ballesteros, who wasn't going much slower. For the good runners, these hills clearly aren't a problem like they are for us.

At the bottom we took Golden Spike trail into the main Redwood park area. Along the way we had to keep jumping off the trail for runners headed the other way. We greeted Scott Dunlap along here, whose blog I've read for the past year. We also ran into Eric who was placing well.

Eventually we made it to the mid-run aid station (at around 9.5M). I filled my bottle with cliff sports drink, drank another couple of cups, ate a cookie (which didn't work too well), so went back for the potatoes and bananas. It did feel good to break the shot bloks with solid food. After that break we headed back the way we came. I was happy to see there was plenty of folks headed towards the aid station still, so my fear of us being the last one there hadn't actually come true. Of course I didn't really know how many of them were 30Kers.

We headed back to the hill where we'd seen the lead runners. It was our turn to head up. In my imagination, before the race, I thought maybe we'd maybe run this hill, and normally it was pretty runnable. It was long, but not horribly steep. But there was no way. We slipped into a power walk, which by the top was more of just a walk. Fatigue was setting in, and uphill progress had become painfully slow. I'd hit a wall. If I was on flat or heading down, I was beat-up, but okay. If I was going up then it had become a real struggle. My HR was high and my pace was slow and getting slower. Basically I was done, but I still had 4 miles left to run. I stopped and poured several rocks and small trees out of my shoes. It felt good to sit on the ground. Nice ground. Birds chirped happily. I noticed it was just warm enough in the shade for this kind of lazying around to be the ideal way to spend a Saturday. Then remembered I was in a race. Sigh.

The next couple of miles were great. They were all uphill. I loved it! Actually, they were pretty horrible. We walked a lot of the 500ft climb behind Roberts before arriving back at the West Ridge. I joked about being lapped by the lead 50Kers right as we were, in fact, lapped by the lead two 50Kers.

At this point I knew the climbing was basically done. We were back on a trail we've run dozens of times. Although I'd probably never felt so horrible any of those times, we knew the end was within our grasp. Patty took off, sensing the finish line was waiting for her. We stopped briefly back at the Moon Gate aid station and downed some more potatoes and other snacks, and for some reason I had my bottle filled. Then we were headed back across Skyline, back along Sequoia Bayview and then down down down. I did notice that when it came to some small uphills I did surprisingly better at running them than walking them. Perhaps I should have run more of the hills through the race?

Eventually the finish sign appeared over one last hill, a heard a couple of voices coming up behind me while Patty was 30ft ahead of me, clearly doing much better than I. I was pushing as hard as I could. My HR spiked up to 197, my GPS registered me at the break neck speed of a 10 min/mile! It was all I had. I crossed the finish line right on 4 hours and 15 minutes (about 75 people ahead of me, 25 people behind me). Patty finished 9th in her age group. I finished... well, lets just say I finished. We'd done it. And I was SO done.



CONCLUSION

• Trail runs are fun. And even when they aren't fun, they are still beautiful.
• People were super friendly and this event was really well organized and marked. I had a great time!
  
• Hills, hills, hills: We need to incorporate hills, both running them and power walking them into our training. There was over 3000ft of elevation gain. Much of this was in short steep bits on 'rolling' trail. I see walking up and down Mt Diablo, Lyon steps, and Lovers Lane many times in my future if I want to improve at this.
• Water: I was somewhat dehydrated at the end, but about what I expected. I need to drink more if the race is going to be longer. I need at least 20 oz every hour. The distance between stations and our slowish pace meant I couldn't get that much with one water bottle. I should think about running with two.
  
• Food: I stuck to my plan. I ate 100 calories in shot bloks before the race. I ate at the aid stations and liked the results. A ate 100 calories every 30 mins between aid stations (again, shot bloks). I drank 20 oz of sports drink between aid stations (Accelerade on the way out, Cliff on the way back). I don't know if it was enough. It didn't seem to be the problem, but perhaps more food would have helped.
  
• Strategy: I went through the French trail too hard as it turns out, but I was there for the lessons. I wasn't going to run it as slow as I ran it in training, I already know I can do that. But running it as fast as I did burnt me out on the uphills. The lesson is probably that I need to train for that better. Train to power walk the really steep stuff and to run the moderate hills. And keep doing it for 32 miles!
  
• What gave out: apart from uphill muscles, my upper back was pretty sore especially walking up hills. I also got a couple of good blisters, but I'am retiring those shoes anyway. On the positive side, I felt like my hip flexors held out better than they have in the past, so maybe the core work is starting to pay off. My other known weak points also held out: my IT band twinged around mile 3, briefly signaling the end to my race. Then didn't bother me the rest of the time. Outside foot and peronials also didn't present a problem. A case of runners knee we've both had this past few weeks also didn't present a problem.
  
• A couple of days later I'm a little sore in the quads and calves but in basically good shape. Yesterday afternoon I even went for a jog at the track. In some ways it was as hard as the marathon. Certainly the course was harder but the duration shorter. But I feel much better than I did after that.
  

So, our feet wet, we'll be back for more. We're still deciding if we want to run Napa Valley as a training run, or perhaps hold off a month and run the Big Sur Marathon. After that we have our eye on Pirate's cove and then the East Bay Triple Challenge (Tilden Tough Ten 10M, Lake Chabot Trail Challenge 13.1M and Woodminster XC 9M), beyond that our goal ultra is the Skyline 50K.

Christmas Relays

This weekend Patty and I ran the Christmas Relays at Lake Merced in San Francisco. Our running club put together 9 teams, each of 4 runners. Each runner completed one lap of the lake, about 4.5 miles.

On my team one runner couldn't run because of a knee problem, so Ken stepped up to run two legs, each at a spectacular pace (sub 6 min/mile). My leg of the race went well and I held roughly my previous 5K pace for the 50% longer distance. Of course, that meant I was passed by a lot of people as the position Ken had put us in was totally out of my league. At one point I was running down a hill at just under 7 min/mile and people were flying by me on both sides like I wasn't moving at all.

The course itself was tougher than I thought when I drove around it. There's a hill at the start which you run too hard because it's the start, then a lot of downhill with a lot of people moving faster than you. Here you fly, too fast. By the third mile it's a slow uphill and the reality of how fast you ran the first two miles and how far it is still to go sets in. The final push to the finish also had a untimely hill. On top of that, the whole time you know there's a guy standing at the finish waiting for you. That keeps it moving along. I finished my leg in about 39 mins. Our team was the second LMJS team to finish.


Anyway, a fun time was had by all. After the race Patty, Patrick and I ran around the lake again to keep our miles up. It was a little rough as Patty and I were thinking 12 min/mile and Patrick was thinking 10 min/mile. Oh well, the legs were already trashed from the race, so what did it matter.

Two weeks to go

Week mileage: 22.3 Miles (4hrs 4min)

Another pretty good week, although there's signs of overtraining.

It's been a pretty fast climb back up to decent miles, both for our long runs and total miles. Because of this we've now peaked for our half marathon and will hold at this level with some easy running this week and then taper down the following week so we're fresh at the start line.

This weekend I did my first real race since the marathon three months ago! We did the 15km race at Lake Merritt. Both of us were pretty happy with our run. My time was just over 90 minutes, which was my goal.


According to the GPS we ran quite a bit over 15km, probably because of poor tangents at the beginning (and maybe GPS error). Apart from the first two miles, which were fast, we basically negative split each mile until the end, with the slowest being 10:00 mins (actually our goal pace) for mile 3, and just under 9:00 mins for my final mile. It was good to be able to finish strong like that. Patty finished so strong in fact that she kicked my butt by 30 seconds.


From this race I'm supposed to draw conclusions on how fast to run the half marathon. I feel like 9:30ish pace is probably doable now, with 10:00 being pretty easy and 9:00 being probably too hard for that distance at this point. That puts our goal between 2:05 and 2:10.

We'll see.

San Francisco Marathon

Yesterday we completed our first marathon. Patty and I crossed the finish line together in 5 hours and 8 minutes. What a weekend!



Expo

After collecting our race packet Friday, we returned to the expo site Saturday to watch some of the talks. There was a crazy mix of people presenting, including the race medical chief telling a room full of people that they didn't need to eat before or during the race. The highlight was seeing ultra marathoner Dean Karnazes talk. He was funny and inspiring.

I also managed to meet up with a couple of Internet friends: Steve from the Hal Higdon v-team message boards and Mary who lives in Florida and has been blogging about her marathon training since March.

We went home and ignored the race medical chief and had a big plate of pasta.


The race

We were awake and up by 3:30am. I downed a cup of coffee, drank a last glass of water and ate a granola bar and yogurt (sticking to my standard pre-run breakfast). By 4:30am we were out the door and driving across the bridge. We were beyond ready to go by this stage, no room to feel tired from the early wake up.


We made it over to SF and parked fairly close to the start/finish. People were emptying out of their cars, attaching timing chips to shoes, bibs to shirts, jogging around. We used the potties and ran into one of Kelly's teachers two people in front of us in the line. We walked over to the start line and watched the first wave go off, joined the potty line again, and had basically the perfect amount of time to join our wave, find our pace leader, before we were off.

We decided we'd join the 4:30 pace group. Not because we planned to run 4:30, but because we didn't want to start faster than this. It was fun running with them for a little while, easy running, but staying with a pace group would be hard for the whole race. At the first aid station we slowed, grabbed a couple of cups of water and looked up to see her halfway up the Fort Mason hill! We couldn't believe we were blown away by her so fast through the first aid station so we ran a 9:37 mile to catch her. At the end of Crissy field the same thing happened again and by the time we sighted her she was halfway up to the bridge. We blew her a kiss goodbye, we were on our own.

Up on the bridge it was very foggy. A refreshing wet wind blew through the gate. No view, but it was better to have it cool. The running was at it's most congested here and the walkers who didn't move to the right drove us a little crazy. Really, do they think running 3 across and then coming to a relative halt is helpful to the thousands of people coming up behind them? Half way across I heard "Go Patty! Go Peter!". It was Mary, who'd caught up with us. She was more or less naked (sports bra and skorts). We stayed with her for much of the rest of the bridge and then she was gone.

Also interesting about the bridge was that my IT band started to act up. This is Patty's designated problem and I haven't had any problems with mine in all the training runs. Oh well, if there's one thing we mentally practiced during our training, it was that anything could happen and we'd take it and deal with it.

From there we headed south to the park. We were keeping roughly a 10:30 pace for much of this time. This section was underrated for hills. They are not steep, but they wear you down then you're not paying attention to them. We started to walk one minute every mile too, realizing that we had a long way to go. During this period my foot started to hurt again. Slowly, each mile, it got worse and worse. I knew it would come at some point during the race, but I had hoped for later rather than sooner.

We passed the half marathon mark in 2:20, almost a half PR! I'm looking forward to running another half some time soon and see what I can do when I don't have another 13 miles to run. But back to the business at hand.

The course soon headed back up the park from near ocean beach. This section was where we dived. It's hard to say where 'The Wall' was, but for us this was it. Our pace dropped a minute or two a mile with the long long uphill and never rebounded. My foot hurt. My knee hurt (IT). My hips hurt. And generally, as far as my body went, things were all downhill from around mile 15 or 16.

Around Stowe Lake was one of the low points. We weren't moving towards the finish line, just going around in a circle and my foot was now so troubled that I seriously was considering the nearby half marathon return buses. This is the only point where I started to doubt things. Then something happened. I don't medically know what went on, but around mile 18 the buildup of pain all of a sudden gave way and there was a feeling of having something very cold poured on it, followed by a slightly mushy feeling and dull pain. I could almost feel the internal bleeding. Yikes! But the good news was that it was then much easier to run!

From the park we re-entered the city and ran down the middle of Haight street. This was a highlight of the race and the energy coming from the spectators there gave me a big lift. Mile 20, a point I was looking forward to (and dreading) came and went without us spotting the marker. We ran across Market street and I knew then I'd make it. Finishing sub-5 hours now seemed doubtful, so it was just a matter of getting it done.

This was a much more industrial area of old rundown buildings and bikies mixing the tunes for the runners under freeway overpasses. To be honest, I didn't care for the music by this point, but every spectator gave me lift. One had a sign for "Patty" and yelled "Hey, a Patty. Hey, we made a sign for you!" They put a smile on my face and really helped to keep me going.

But in general those were tough miles for us and there's some take home lessons there. Like have a slow walk-run backup plan for when/if the wheels fall off, don't just start walking with no plan to start running again. We didn't have too many clear thoughts in there.

By the final two miles I regained my focus and actually felt good and strong. The "dog patch" area was the turning point where the course turned to face the ball park and the Bay Bridge. The effect of seeing where the finish line was overcame everything else. I was ready to run the rest but Patty wanted to walk more because of the old IT knee thing.


We passed AT&T park, with a game about to start, there were people everywhere, but we were a secondary attraction to some guy called Barry Bonds I suppose. Rounding the park was the 26 mile mark and the finish line was in sight. I picked up my pace with what I had left and ran strong across the line.







The aftermath

My foot is now a mess. A red-blue bruise now covers half the side of my foot. And of course much of my lower half will take some recovery time.

All in all, we're really happy. When I hurt my foot 5 weeks ago I thought that's it, no marathon this time. Then I got some more running in and hurt my foot again. Again that was it. But I cross trained like a crazy person and did make it to the start line.

"The only way you really fail is to not try at all"

I wanted the experience and was willing to take a cost. I felt like even if I dropped, I would still learn things for the next one. So I did all that. As a bonus, I finished.

Physically, this race was a serious challenge. But I never stopped enjoying being out there and being in the event. Even in the final miles I knew it wasn't going to be the last. I wasn't saying to myself "how did I get myself into this thing?" like I probably should have been.

Was running my first marathon a defining moment in my life? Unfortunately not in the way I thought it might be. It was almost anti-climatic. But it really was living life and that's what it's all about.

We're already deciding what's next, but first I need to see about that foot.

Lake Chabot Trail Challenge

This past Sunday we took part in the Lake Chabot Trail Challenge Half Marathon. We signed up because we thought the course looked beautiful, because ultimately we'd like to get better at trail running (so why not dive right in?) and because it fit into our schedule and general sense that a few tough races would do us good on marathon day, if we survived. If the San Francisco Marathon is our A race, then this is our main B for the spring. On one hand I couldn't wait and on the other I kept thinking "once I get past that Chabot run then it's full speed ahead to the marathon."

Initially my expectations were that we'd go in it, try to have fun, and run with a bunch of people who went as fast (I mean, as slow) as us. Most races have a pretty good range of abilities. But then a week or two ago we started to look at last years times. They were fast! The last person in my age group last year finished in 2:33. Not normally too fast a time, but over a rough course with 1800+ ft of gain/loss, that seems to me like a pretty competitive field. Perhaps we were completely out of our league here. And what's more, there was a course limit of 3 hours. We started to become a little scared. What if we got to the finish line and they'd already folded up the tables and everyone had gone home? What if the race results just showed "LOSER" instead of a time next to our name? I'm not really a big fan of signing up for something that I'm clearly going to completely fail at. Perhaps this was really a bad idea.

So, meetings were held, expectations beaten with a large stick and goals were reset.
In order of importance (and decreasing order of likeliness) they now read:

1. finish first trail race
   
2. finish in under the 3 hour time limit
3. try not to injure self or severely hamper training week ahead
4. enjoy it!
5. beat at least one person in my age group
6. run under 2:30hrs (an unlikely goal)
   

The race:

I woke up after a bad night's sleep and really didn't feel too good. Nothing felt right in my stomach but I was willing to head out and give it a go anyway. Race nerves or oncoming illness? Who knows?! Our baby sitter arrived just after 7am and we were out the door, headed into the unknown.

When we arrived at the lake, the street nearby was already swarming with runners parking along the road and heading down to the lake (there's a $5 parking fee to park in the lot). We too parked on the street and followed them to the start line and picked up our packets, then made a pre-race bathroom stop. That left us barely enough time to put down a granola bar and get a little pre-race stretching in before the start. A ready. Set. And go! and we were off and running. It was all so fast I didn't even start recording my HR until around mile one!

Patty and I at the start

The race initially followed along the lake on a paved bike trail. A guy went by on his tandem bike (alone) and said he was catching up to his 11 year old daughter who was running. She'd done several half's before. Then he was off. First mile went by in around 10:00. Still plenty of people around us.

At 1.5 miles we hit the first real hill and headed up. We imagined the fast people half way home by now. We ran to the top of this hill with perhaps a little walking near the end. Some people started to fly by us on the way down the other side (perhaps the steepest downhill of the whole race). At the bottom we noticed one of them was covered with a smear of dirt down one side of his body. I don't think you need that so early in the race.

At the bottom of this hill the course runs along the golf course for a few hundred feet through tall trees and ferns to a cool wooden bridge and an aid station at the 3 mile mark. We later noted that this few hundred feet was the only significant flat section of the course!

Across the bridge was the major climb of the run. Something like 650ft straight up. Pretty soon we realized running was out of the question here and started to walk and settled into a power hike to the top , practiced through many years of hiking up bigger hills than this one. We noticed that we were gaining here on lots of people. We caught up to the guy with who'd fallen. He said "you guys walk faster than I can run". Yes we do. Still, my HR was up in the 180s just walking. As we continued up the hill. we passed several more people as everyone in view started to walk eventually. Back behind us was a beautiful view of the lake nestled within the green hills. I tried to appreciate how nice this section was scenically and ignore the incline. Goal 4.

The top was an aid station, at 4.5 miles, and we stopped for a minute or so and tried to swallow freezing cold Gatorade. Brain freeze! My stomach was still not pleased too, so I didn't drink too much. For what would be at most three hours running I was willing to risk a little dehydration. I carried a hand bottle filled with Cytomax and sipped this from time to time. Mostly I just wanted to practice running a race with it, the aid stations would have been fine. In hindsight I probably could have used more fluids.

The terrain after this aid station became a very welcome gentle downhill before becoming steeper as we entered the loggers loop. This area was filled with gum trees and smelled of home (Australia). The trail was a little slick with their leaves and nuts; we had to be careful. Goal 3. The second half of the loop regained the elevation lost and we walked several sections here. On the way up I felt like a pebble had gotten behind the heel of my shoe. At the top I reached in the see what the problem was. No pebble. Hmmm. I kept running. A little later I figured out I had a blister, caused by all the steep uphill walking. Note to self.

The miles from this point on became a bit of a blur. I do remember the mile markers coming by faster than I expected so I took this as a good sign. I didn't really feel any real pain anywhere, just growing fatigue. I think perhaps I was numb by this point. Patty was yelping at anything like a downhill with a sore knee and/or IT band problem. Overall though we were feeling pretty strong.

At the half way point I calculated that we might run 2:45 . And the hard hills were behind us. That was exciting but we had to keep moving. And moving we did. By the time we hit 5km to go it was 2:01. We had 29 minutes to do a 5K. Easy. Normally. I set off at a faster pace. Patty yelled at me for going so fast. I yelled back "Let's give it a go!" And both of us were off. Each mile mark we seemed on track. It was going to be close. We rounded the final corner and the clock read 2:29:22. 40 seconds! No problem!! I don't think I tried to kick at the end, just ran it in. Final time 2:29:35 (unofficial). Patty came in a few seconds back from me.

Here's a graph of elevation (blue) and HR (red):


Afterwards we sat around on the grass with Patty's friend Julie and her son and watched the rest of the field come in. It turned out that Julie had run with the eleven year old girl for several miles. They both came in just after two hours (and both won their age groups.) An eleven year old running that course in two hours. My daughter is such a slacker!

It felt nice sitting on the grass when I probably should have been walking around. They gave out pies and bags and water bottles. When I got up later I noted that I could barely put my weight on my right leg without intense pain. I also noted that walking around had my HR back up to the 150s! Interesting! We went home and both soaked in an ice bath for 10 minutes and popped 800mg of Advil. After that we were good to go.

Conclusion

We're elated! We achieved all of our goals for the race. We entered and finished our first real trail run. Our time exceeded both our expectations by half an hour and any reasonable prediction. Looking at the results I was not last in my division (the tough 35-40 men group), and most importantly I felt like I had fun and arrived at the finish line in okay shape. Marathon full speed ahead!

Links

• Official website
• Map of the course