getting to the finish line one inch at a time.

San Francisco 1/2 Marathon July 2010 Race Report

Let me start by saying that the morning prep for the San Francisco ½ marathon did not go well.

Before going to bed the night before, I had laid out all the various odds and ends (shoes, socks, bib number, race belt etc) so my morning would be uneventful. I do this for every race as, on my best of days, my brain is not at 100% first thing in the morning. I peak somewhere around 3pm.

I had also had the forethought to coordinate with friends to share a taxi to the race start. A race start I’d like to add, that I would normally walk to given any other circumstances. The circumstances being that

a)   It would require me getting up 30 mins earlier. Uh no.

b)   I was already planning on running 13.1 miles and enough was enough.

This is where it all went wrong…

I was ready to go at 7am waiting on the call from my friends. I went to look for my phone and couldn’t’ find it. It’s the only phone in the house, I couldn’t call myself. The phone was also not ringing, my friend was supposed to call when she was on her way. I began to panic. Had she forgotten to call me? What if they were waiting on the corner and I didn’t know? What if she’d overslept and she wasn’t coming at all? If I needed a cab how was I going to call one because I COULDN’T FIND MY BLOOMIN’ PHONE!

I have a tiny home. It shouldn’t have been this hard. After turning every room at least twice I finally found my phone. Drama level: Defcon 1.

We headed out to the race start.

More ridiculousness…

Let me paint you a picture. It’s July, summertime in a park.

Do you have a pretty picture in your head with green grass, flowers and sunshine?

Yeah, well erase that. We’re talking about San Francisco. They had heaters.  Heaters people!

Yes, by this point I was officially wound as tight as a drum and I still had to run 13.1 miles through hilly San Francisco in the (now you know) freezing cold.

I sounds like it was terrible right? Well funnily enough it wasn’t.

I positioned myself at the back of the wave with the 2-2:30 finishers. Let me remind you, my last ½ marathon in Pasadena was run at a 2:50. I didn’t care. Being with my friends was helping my mental health much more so faster group it was.

You know what’s amazing? I kept up.

Almost immediately I realized that I was pacing somewhere around a 10:15 – 10:30/mile pace. Significantly faster than I’d run ever. Really, ever. What was even more amazing, was that I was keeping up the pace as I ran out of the park about 6 miles later. And as I charged through the half way point I came to that wonderful realization that I was on pace to hit a personal record. I felt great both physically and mentally and knew another big secret. From the next 4-5 miles (pretty much) we were running downhill. I knew that if I took advantage of gravity, I could get myself ahead so far that even if I walked the last couple of miles I’d come in under my goal. 

I’ve talked about how Gu is my fuel of choice for helping me run long distances.  On Sunday’s race I was fueled by the excitement of beating myself. It’s a magic elixir.  

So the long and the short of it, I killed it at the first of the ½ marathons in the new Marathon-A-Month program.

Finishing Time -  2:18:36

Finishing Pace - 10:35/mile

Crap, now I’ve set the bar.

Half Marathons: I like them because they’re shorter…and I’m lazy like that.

I stole this phrase from the Running Divas. I bought a shirt from them today with the phrase blazoned across the front. It made me laugh out loud.

I’ve often told people that the ½ Marathon is the perfect race. They’re long enough to require you to get out and train, at least a little, but not so far that you can’t go out for cocktails that night. I’ve lost count of the number of ½ Marathons I’ve run, somewhere in the double digits I think. They’re fun, and they DO get me to haul my backside out of bed in the morning. But then again, I already said…I’m lazy like that.

I’m running a ½ Marathon tomorrow morning, the 2^nd half of the San Francisco Marathon. Looking at my schedule for the back half of the year, I’m also signed up to run the Santa Rosa ½ Marathon in August, the Semi Marathon du Provence (yes, France) in October and the Las Vegas Rock N’Roll ½ in December. Did you notice something? If I find a race in September and November I’ll be running a ½ marathon a month for the balance of the year.

That little fact didn’t go unnoticed by me.

What’s also been bugging me was the shabby attempt at goal setting at the beginning of the year. I was sidelined every time I turned around.

I started mulling around the idea of running a ½ Marathon a month for a year.  The idea certainly has merit. As I’ve mentioned, ½ marathons are totally doable and I always do better when there’s a goal to hit. Originally I thought about starting in January and writing off 2010 to make 2011 the “Year of the Late in Life Athlete”. In chatting with my friend Colleen she said “Why not start now?”

Why not indeed?

Why write off 2010?

So I’m not. Tomorrow starts the ½ Marathon a Month plan.

Not surprisingly I’ve already found races in September (Chicago) and November (San Francisco) so I have 2010 taken care of. I’m working on the 2011 schedule now. Take a look on my blog for the race schedule; I’ll make sure I keep it updated.

Care to join me?

2010 Danskin Triathlon Race Report

It’s funny; I have good years and bad years with the Danskin Triathlon. If you’ll remember, last year I had my best time ever on the course. If I had been true to form, I would have undertrained for the race and performed poorly. It’s been my pattern after all.

This year, however, was different. If you’ll remember, I’d been coming off the leg injury and right as I was healing from that debacle, I was sidelined again with surgery. In my initial consultation pre-op I’d asked my surgeon (no this had nothing to do with my leg, more on that later) how long it would be before I could run again. I knew that the Danskin Tri was looming in the not too distant future. “2 weeks” he said. I did the math in my head and realized that from surgery date, I had 7 weeks before the race to get back into swimming, biking and running. 7 weeks is not long to prepare for any race. I was a bit scared.

I’ve had surgery before, twice before. Frankly, I don’t ever remember being able to run ANYWHERE 2 weeks after going under the knife. I wasn’t confident. I was also sad, much sadder about the potential of bailing on the Danskin than any other race in the past. This was, after all, the race that started it all. Laura  and I have been swimbikerunning the Danskin for the last 5 years in a row. We’d agreed to keep doing it until we just couldn’t. Year 6 seemed ever so early to be backing out of that plan.

So the couple of weeks leading up to my surgery I jumped in the pool, hopped on my bike and hit the pavement as much as I could. I figured that the stronger I was going into the surgery, the faster I would recover on the other side of it. I figured that maybe, just maybe, I could get out there and try the tri.

My surgeon was wrong. When I tried to run at 2 weeks I barely made it down the block. At 3 weeks I made it down the block but then could barely move for 2 days. The clock was ticking.

I decided that maybe it was the running that was bothering me. So I got back on the bike. Success!

And I kept biking….getting stronger…telling myself that showing up and participating was the most important part. As long as I was there and finished, that would be enough. I kept telling myself that while I avoided running and didn’t get back in the pool.

Now I’m not totally insane. I needed to try the swimming portion before getting in the lake with 100+ other people. Not being able to swim would be a deal breaker. The night before I left for Austin I got back in the pool. This was the test. I knew I could handle the bike portion, and I could walk the run portion if needed. Could I handle a ½ mile swim?

Well I went to Austin and joined the 3000+ other folks participating in the 2010 Austin Danskin Triathlon. Yes, the swim that night went fine. I was IN.

The most wonderful thing about the race this year was the attitude I had this year. I didn’t go to beat my time as I have every year before, I went to finish. That alone would be a prize for me.

You know what happened?

I had my best swim time EVER!

While I chatted to folks on the bike course and didn’t push myself AT ALL I still only went one (yes one) mile per hour slower this year than I did the year before.

Ok, so the running stunk. At a little over an hour on the course I was out of juice and probably walked 50% of it. Let’s not talk about that.

Overall, I finished a mere 6 minutes slower than I had the year before, my second best time in the past 6 years.

Who knew? What a triumph!

You should know though, I wouldn’t have done it without Laura. She’s the reason I had to do it this year. She’s the reason I had to show up. She’s the reason I’ll show up again next year.  

Laura, you’re my partner in crime for the Danskin Triathlon. Thanks for getting me there this year. J