So after years of being the laziest person ever, 4 Months of serious training, and one week of awfulness, I've finally done it. I ran my first race, The Salinas Valley Half-Marathon, and loved every minute of it. I have several different times for the race which was actually .13 miles longer than what I thought it was. My official course time was 1:47:48 seconds. So were should we start? Lets start with the week leading up to the race.
Last Saturday I did my last long distance run with the hope of doing a couple short runs throughout the week. Well, Sunday life took over. With work and taking care of my daughter I had no time to run Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday. Then Wednesday I had a SERIOUS stomach sickness. I had to call off work and everything. My wife had it as well when she got home from work that afternoon. We sat around the house taking turns running to the bathrooms. Thursday morning wasn't much better so we decided to go to the doctor to get checked out. He said we had some sort of food poisoning and gave us some antibiotics and stuff. It helped a ton and I went to work Thursday night to close out the week. I came home and ran three miles at a very easy pace. It was a very relaxing run as well. I was trying to calm the nerves and just kept saying to myself "It's almost time". It was a nice run to get the cobwebs out and loosen up before the race. Friday we slept in a bit and got everything ready for the trip and Drove to Soledad with a stop at the outlets in Gilroy. It was a pretty good relaxing day. We went to the Pasta Dinner in Salinas where we met up with Matt and had an excellent dinner.
I woke up early Saturday morning. I was up at 5:40 and ready by 6:00. My wonderful wife dropped me off at the High School were we met with Matt and got on the Bus for a trip to the starting line. We sat around at the Soledad Mission for what seemed like forever. It was cold to me at around 50-55 degrees. There was also a mist falling from the overcast sky wish was a little annoying to be honest. They finally called every one to the starting line which was down the road about a tenth of a mile. Wanting to finish under 2 hours I thought if I fell in with the 1:50-2:00 crowd I would be good. Matt said to fall in with the 1:40-1:50 people so we did that instead. It was a good idea too. They got everyone together and did some speech and sang the National Anthem. We stood around a couple more minutes and then hit the air horn and we were off. It took me a good 6 seconds or so to reach the actual starting line from were we were stacked. The crowded road started to thin with people passing and weaving in and out. Matt and I ran together for about a quarter of a mile then he sped up to get around a guy and looked back to see if I was going to follow. I just gave him a nod and left it at that. I saw him about an hour and forty minutes at the finish line. I wasn't going to hold him back from running his race. The first mile was pretty much flat with a couple of turns and was mainly about loosening up and feeling my body out. My feet were numb for about the first 2.5 miles of the race from the cold. The first turn took us onto a farm road through the middle of two fields It was beat up and had tractor tire tracks all over it. Big chunks of mud also needed to be dodged. This road was about a mile long and led us to Foothill which is were the hills really started. Thanks to my hills training and my knowledge of the course I was confident I could handle the hills on the course. I was using Runkeeper on my iPhone and had all sorts of music blaring. The race from here on out is pretty much a blur of aid stations people and fields. Every Aid Station I ran past had tons of volunteers cheering and passing out GU, Gatorade, and Water. I found out at the first Aid Station that drinking out of a paper cup is nearly impossible running at full speed. I had to slow down to a fast walk for all the other water stops. But I would quickly swig it and get back to moving. I didn't want my legs to think they were getting a break. I had 4 gels durning the race, 2 of my Hammers and 2 of the GUs that were being handed out. There was one major uphill at about 6.5 miles, but it was nothing compared to Rocky Hill in Exeter. I didn't hold back on the downhills and I'm almost positive that's the reason I'm so sore. I hauled ass down the back side of the hills. I was letting gravity do all the work and wasn't worried about holding myself back like I usually do. It was race day and I didn't care if I was a little sore the next day. I was landing so heavy and hard on the downhill that I could feel my kneecaps shaking as my foot hit the ground. I didn't care though, I was on a roll. I passed people. I got passed by people. At one point I noticed some blond girl in a running skirt ahead of me. Her ponytail was bouncing and swinging side to side. It pissed me off. I actually hated her hair. I had to get around her. I laugh about it now but I was actually mad. It was strange. Just past mile 12 my body did something I'd never felt it do before. Every time I took a step and my foot landed my muscles felt like they were firing off, full of electricity. It was a strange feeling and I loved it. I felt it through the end of the race. Coming up the the final turn into the winery I saw Matt standing in at the corner cheering me on, turns out he finished a full 7 minutes ahead of me. He was waving his hat at me and yelling. I don't know what cause I had some music blaring in my ears. I don't remember what was playing, but I know that it made me want to run even more. Crossing the finish like I looked up at the clock to see 1:47:48, I stopped my RunKeeper app at 1:47:40. Online RunKeeper says 1:47:37. Any way you look at it I was 13 minutes under my goal of 2 hours. I must brag on myself and say that that's a Hell of an achievement. The Pace Calculator says that if had had ran just 13.1 miles instead of the 13.23 miles that I actually ran my time would have been 1:46:37. Going through the little bottle neck shoot at the finish line they took my tag off my bib, put a medal around my neck, handed me a bottle of water and told me Congrats. I felt like a champion. It's an awesome feeling to accomplish a goal. I shortly met up with my family and Matt who had actually been standing together at the last corner. We took some pictures (which I need to get from my brother-in-law) and walked around the expo. I got my goodie bag which has a great looking Finisher's shirt in it, and did some free wine tasting. My daughter feel asleep in her stroller so my Wife and brother-in-law went and found a place to relax while Matt and I watched the first little bit of the awards. We were blown away buy the top three 1:06:xx times. We left and gave Matt a ride to his car at the high school. He Followed us over to my wife's cousin's house and took a shower, then he left for his long drive back to Hanford. The family and I relaxed a while then took a drive out to Carmel-by-the-Sea and went for a short 2 mile or so hike. A great way to close out a lovely day.
I just saw the results for the race and I finished 90th over all and 23rd in my age/sex group. That's top 10%. Happy. I'll have some pictures when I get them. Thanks for reading and thank you for your continued support. Also it's still not too late to donate to my charity, you can do so by clicking one of the many links on this page including the headere at the top.
RunKeeper Activity Page
Race Results Page
WWP Charity Donation Page
