Big Sur Relay
So, we made it. Greg, Michael, Arnon, Anthony and Herzel, running at this order. A lot of emails went before we finally arrived at the start line. Evidently, despite everyone being experienced runners, there need to be some level of coordination in order to finish a relay. Did you know about the wrist thingy that need to be passed from one runner to the next? do you know who get a time chip and who does not? who get your shirt, your medal, etc? and the most complicated question - how do you get your sweats bag ? ....
I know this is common knowledge, so I will leave those questions and go to describe the run. Well, it starts much earlier in the morning. A wake up at 4AM just to get to the shuttle bus, about a mile from the hotel, at 5AM (it's very dark outside). Then wait for the RIGHT bus or else you find yourself at the wrong switch point, hmmm. It takes about an hour of drive, and I arrive at 6:10 to my switch point on Hwy 1. Did I say I and not WE ? right, not only we drive to different switching station, the busses leave at different times, so I did not have a chance to see my team in the morning. I hope they all wake up.
The race starts at 7AM. I'm on leg 3, which roughly means miles 10-17, starting just before the climb to Hurricane point and ending 7 miles later. You may wonder, what would anyone do between 6:10AM and 8:10AM, the earliest time I could expect Michael to arrive ? the orgenizers took care for that. Apart from a table loaded with coffee and bananas, there is also a very long line to the bathrooms. If you go twice you already used much of this time.
At 7:51 the first two runners pass by at an amazing pace of 5:15 minutes per mile. A couple of cars, police motorcycles and one helicopter escort them. Wow. The third runner shows up 5 minutes later (he's already one mile behind !!). Gee, he IS a fast runner too. Runners keep coming in, as well as some power walkers. Some of the walkers actually run pretty well - I mean, with both legs up. It certainly gives power, thus it is not a walk. Probably they have some kind of a special walk-run strategy.
At 8:15 I eat my first Gu, half a cup of water, and take off my long sleeves. I'm ready for the switch. Five minutes later Michael storms right into the switch station "go, go, GOOOO". And here I go, quickly passing the guys with big drums who play right at the bottom of the climb to Hurricane point. That's a two miles uphill, from 25 feet to about 600 feet. Now you see what the first gu is for. I arrive to the top at a sub-9 pace, and then speed downhill, taking the third mile at a 6:49. Waiting there is the beautiful bridge, and you can hear the grand piano playing at the other side of the bridge. A lot of words were written on this legendary piano man, Johnaton Lee. Sadly he passed away last October. The player was a 14 years old student of him, continuing the tradition of his master. Another mile passed before I got my emotional explosion back and looked at my wrist watch. There are only a few hills between here and the next switch station. I cruise at a sub-8 pace and storm into switch point #3. My time is 56:22 for my segment, just about 8 minutes per mile.
I cannot tell you how surprised I was to see both Herzel and Antony. They took the wrist band and zoomed away. Herzel was supposed to run leg 5.
I took a rest, waited for Debbye to arrive, and we both continued on a slow pace towards the end. Debbye has the third leg in her team - "we are family". Proceeding 1o more miles to the finish line was not as easy as thought, because we both gave all our energy into the third leg.
Aparently what happened was that Antony did not feel well, and so he ran leg 4 with Herzel, but had to stop for the bathroom on the way. Herzel then continued for leg 5 and through the finish line, running almost 10 miles of hills at 8:20 per mile. Our total time was 3:32, 8:05 minutes per mile, place 36 out of some 270 relay teams.
Overall, it is a very hilly course. Probably more hilly than Alma. Anyone planning on the full marathon should better prepare for a lot of hills. But the course is most beautiful, and there were some 10 bands on the 17 miles I did, especially during the last two miles before the finish line, where you need it the most @! there were some 2500 volunteers !!! lots of aid stations, sometimes every mile. Perhaps next year I will go for the real thing.
Santa Cruz Half 4/17/05
Hi,
Santa Cruz, Sunday morning. There were a dozen SJC Fitters or so, and many other runners. I ran with Herzel on an easy pace. It was a nice day and a beautiful course. We even stopped a few times to take pictures during the run. The last spot was right in front of the light house. Only when we turned back to run and finish our last mile, we noticed that we stood right in between the RacePhoto guy and the line he marked on the road ... sorry, man, but we both agree it is the best spot to take this picture. Our time was 1:55:22.
Everything was very well organized - thanks to our Eugene - who was there from early in the morning at the registration desk, when I was still asleep, until very late after the run, at the T-Shirts booth !
After the race I proceeded to give away SJF flyers. It is an interesting experience. In general, I hate all those guys who stand there and try to push their adv into my busy hands. This time I was one of those, hmmm. I was not aggressive, however I took a strategic position at the gate where all people pass on their way home and handed those forms to anyone who was willing to accept them. The parking lot is also a very promising opportunity to get rid of many flyers.
Count on me to run it again next year.
Arnon
23 down, 26.2 to go
Okay, so this is not going to be the most intersesting post in the world, but it will be a record of why I did when and how I felt, hopefully of some use to myself and other future marathoners.
Race day, I mean training day that felt like race day, dawned cool and cloudy. Perfect running conditions. Pegasissie promised to keep the rain away and that she did.
We headed out from Campbell park, deciding to start in the middle of the course and make our out and backs from there. The first 6 miles to LGHS was at a slightly uncomfortable 9:15-9:30 pace, made more so by my mental reservations that I would not be able to sustain this pace for any length of time. Other than the nagging worry about burning out by the half-way point, I concerned myself with following my game plan which included starting hydration early, after about the first 15 minutes, and taking in about 16oz. of just plain water the first hour. This was modified by the weather, since it was so cool. I plan to be around 24oz/hour in San Diego if its warm.
At 00:45 I broke out my first gel, and nursed it over something less than 10 minutes. We hit the turn around point at LGHS, dropped our empty bottles with Stephen (our excellent support team) and started heading back out, Pegassie starting kicking it up and I tried to pace her. I took my first e-cap at about 1:00:00 Miles 6-10 were memorably positive, the sluggishnes I felt running 9:30 pace the hour before was a gone and I was running fast but comfortably around 8:45 pace. Would it last?
I started my second gel somewhere just before the Vasona dam, and Stephen met us at about mile 10 at one of the bridges with refills of our empty water bottles and I picked up my protein bar. This support crew thing was mighty convenient! By the time we hit Campbell park again and mile 12 we had mostly made up the "slow" first miles and we were right around 9min/mile pace. I stopped for a minute or so to fill 2 of my bottles with water from the fountain.
We hit mile 13.1 very close to 1:58:00. "Only 10 more to go" a very encouraging Sissie said.
At around 2:20:00 I had my second e-cap. At this point I was starting to feel run down. I remember I stopped at the bridge around mile 14-15 before heading out to Meridian and had a couple potatoes. The small break felt good but the mental and physical effects were hitting me. My glutes and hamstrings were tightening up and I kept thinking, how much longer can I last? I started to fall further and further behind Sissie. I didn't want to overdo the electrolytes by when you're lagging why not try another e-cap? I also started on the protein bar. It was a miserable 15 minutes. Some combination of fluids, the e-cap and the protein bar and I started to come back alive. My race plan is to be more agressive with the e-cap and take one hourly, which should help with the fluid intake as well. I also think I'll start on the protein bar earlier. It was not bad on my stomach, but hard to chew and dried my mouth out. I'll have more energy to focus on eating it, and more time to digest it. I ate about 3/4 of the bar over the next hour, along with the gatorade and electrolyte drink I had with me (Hammer HEED.)
The final miles are kind of blurry now, I think I took another short break coming back into the support station at mile 19, took myself down to 2 bottles of HEED and whatever was left of my gatorade. I remember Sissie passing me before mile 21. On the way back, during the last 2 miles, I tried to envision the marathon, and what I would need to do if I had 5 miles left and not just the 2. I took a 3rd e-cap, and broke out another gel which I ended up not even finishing by the the time I got to the park.
A fairly shocking 3:30:34 for something around 23.3 miles. Even more positive was I didn't feel the need to down several bottles of water, which I usually do after a long long run, and my legs were in pretty good shape.
I can even walk down stairs without a problem, something that took me 3 days after the marathon last year. Hamstrings and tendons around the back of the knee are tender, but nothing to worry about.
Damn near perfect conditions and a damn near perfect run. Maybe I don't even need to go to San Diego...
all smiling and ready for 23 miles
no, no, don't photgraph me
coats off to Steven for an excellent job
here they come
last bridge! (lying)
fully equipped
Pegasissie lookin' strong
everyone wants to stop, but Coyote insists on doing stomach crunches
it feels so good (to stop)
cool bike support guy
The dangers of too much water/sports drink...
Here's an article. Yowza, first it was dangerous not to drink enough, but now they are saying drinking too much is more dangerous. I give up. Back to the couch I go.ID
Lost and Found
Who's this running the SJ Mercury 10k? :) Someone didn't register :P
Congratulations Iron Dayle - Sub-50 minute 10k!!
Here's the proof!No pictures yet, but we'll post them when they are available!
the perfect day gives the perfect view
if you need to escape out back...
more views
room with a view
back to couch potatoing
From the annals of "We were there once..."
Cute, almost precious
The RSD running tour of SF begins with a run from Russian Hill down into the marina district, with excellent views of the Golden Gate Bridge - our destination for today - along the way.
Its just looks so close (and so high!)
Our RSD running tour of scenic SF continues with this magnificent view of the bridge and bay from a newly planted bayside trail.
The GGB started about mile 3.5 and ended about mile 5, here we are approaching the north end
Vista view of the Bay Bridge and downtown SF from the north side of the GGB
The 6.5 mile half-way point...
...isn't much of a resting spot.
Our running tour of San Francisco wraps up passing by the Palace of Fine Arts, a short leg through the marina and back home
Beautiful day in SF
All the finger crossing must have helped because today was about the most perfect day this year to run across the Golden Gate bridge.
Arnon had to drop out last minute because of a sore throat, he sounded really terrible so we send him lots of healthy thoughts and wishes for a quick recovery.
Dayle, Sissie, Yoko and I met at TJs and headed up around 7am and got to my sister's around 8. We got a little adrenaline pumping as Yoko and Sissie followed the Dayle/Patrick train in and around the 1 way, dead-end, 45 degree angle streets that surround the way to my sister's house in Russian hill. So we took the scenic route, which wasn't too bad, until we managed to lose both Yoko and Sissie in the last quarter mile. I'm sure it warmed Sissie right up :)
The trip from the house to the GGB was a little over 3 miles, and crossing made it 5, so we wandered a little further down the road and down hill so we could turn around at 6 miles and start back on our 2nd half of the run. The sun was warm and the bay was clear and pulchritudinous. And the views from the bridge and surrounding area were worth the trip. Just another perfect day of running that makes me forget sore knees and tired legs.
Breakfast was simple but delicious (if I say so myself.) Vegetable omeletes with toast, juice, coffee and fresh blood oranges provided by Dayle (mmmMMMM.) After a breakfast like that what else could you do to top that except go for a hike on Mt. Tamalpias. Well let me tell you what else you could do, you could sit on the roof in the sun on a comfy couch and look out at the bay and the bridge that you just ran across and talk for a few hours, and then some.
Waiting for demotivation
During our track workout on Wednesday night, Coyote prompted this topic... what happens if we lose our motivation? It could fizzle couldn't it? Other, less time-consuming, less strenuous things fizzle, right? Of course, in my "exhausted-from-two-days-in-a-row-riding-with-the-men-at-lunch" state, I had no brain cells for a serious answer; I was 100% focussed on just how many sprint intervals I could get in before Pegasissie found out about the rides...3. Musing over this later though, I felt like we should blog this. It's part of the runner psyche. It's human nature, too. It's our condition to question and to ponder.
One reason I'm blogging this is, so that later, if we become demotivated and abandon our training, we'll be able to look back and find this seed. Since my current ID state of being is unable to fathom such a leap, I want to write it down, just in case, the trickster has the last laugh.
While we're waiting (for demotivation), here are some pebbles in my stream of consciousness: what are we supposed to set as our long term goals (i.e. post r'n'r)? How many marathons should we do in a year? is it possible to be "marathon-ready" all the time and just run one whenever you feel like it? How much faster can we get? is Boston-qual within reach for all of us, given our committments to the training? Is there a Paula-spirit in Pegassie and a Dean K-spirit in Coyote? I agree with Pegasissie that if one of us gets injured, it'll be tougher. But given our dedication during the past winter, we have some overcome a lot already (eg. now we don't even think about rainy day cancellations :) And what about Coyote's comment that those that winter on the couch are maybe smarter than us... is this the correct balance of activity/passivity to keep you bouncy all summer for the optimal number of summers overall?
For you motivational pleasure...
Same guy as Sissie's article...
>Recipe for Happiness: Run 262 miles
I love the part about running with a cell phone and a credit card and ordering a pizza to a specified rest stop in the middle of the night!
Sat. 21 Miles!
Hi everyone!
I hope we'll have the usual crowd at the starting line on Sat.! As usual, we are meeting at 8am in the parking lot of Los Gatos High School,
Map Los Gatos High SchoolIf you want to do less than 12 miles, you can park your car with the Supply Vehicle at Campbell Park and get bussed to LGHS. From the start you can choose to do 6, 8 or 10 miles all accompanied by the chatter of the RSD groupies (that would be us.)
Meet at Campbell Park by 7:45am for limo service to LGHS provided by Iron Dayle.
Map Campbell ParkWe will have water, gatorade, potatoes, pretzels and
peanut m&ms at the supply point.
Yahoo! Weather forecast for Sat. - Mostly Sunny
, wear your sunscreen!
