The start of A Running Experience
Club’s marathon training program for the Long Beach Marathon happened to fall
on Cinco de Mayo. There were no Mexican decorations though, and the first day
sign ups were more sparse than the last few years, but this is due to the
Orange County Marathon on Seis de Mayo and the following weeks’ Wine Country
Marathon. A lot of the usual participants were tapering for those and didn’t
show up. Or...they kicked off their Cinco de Mayo celebration early and were knocking down Coronas at 7 in the morning. There were so few people that there was no line at the registration
table nor the t-shirt or jacket table (the technical shirts were for first
timers and the packable nylon jackets were for returning members). Well I was
finally able to pick up my jacket 5 months after paying my annual dues and that’s
because I never show up in the Wednesday evening runs. The style of the jacket
was fairly nice with a hand warmer pouch, a front zip pocket, and a hoodie but
it was made of cheap nylon cloth and very thin for a windbreaker. At least it
had a nice club logo. Oh, by the way, Nadine, the person in charge of
registration told me it was good that I was a small or medium because they ran
out of large and extra large. When I tried on the small, it was still big for
me. Oh the sizing woes of a petite sized man in a vanity sizing country. You
can look up what vanity sizing means on your own. The main reason I showed up
on the first day of training was to pick up that jacket. The week before, I was
undecided whether to try running or walk like I did last year. After doing a 33
minute test run on the treadmill last Thursday and upon seeing that a couple of
my running buddies were pacing the 12 minutes per mile group, I decided that I’ll
try running with them, barring any residual pain in my ankles.
Because there were lesser people
last Saturday, the usual long speeches were cut short. The distances for the
day was 3 miles for the half marathoners and 5 miles for the full marathoners.
I figured I may be able to run 5 miles in an hour. Besides I wanted to rejoin
my running buddies whom I haven’t seen since last year. Michael and Rosie paced
that group and I tagged along with them. They had become very experienced
runners since finishing their first marathon 4 years ago and have run numerous
halfs and fulls since then. I was in good hands or in this case, feet. After a
mile and half I ran alongside Kathy whom I met two years ago when she was
running about 9 ½ pace. I knew she had been injured too but wasn’t sure how
long ago. It turns out that this was her first recovery run since running 21
miles at the Big Sur Marathon the week before. I had read in Runner’s World
Magazine beforehand about the option of running “just” 21 miles or the full
marathon. I hadn’t worn my GPS watch so I asked Kathy what our pace was at the
turnaround point and she said about 11:45. Apparently she started loosening up
at that after that because I felt the pace speed up just a little bit. At 4
miles, I told her that if she felt like picking it up and finishing strong to
go for it. I didn’t mind getting left behind because my right ankle started to
protest since mile 3. She stayed with me though and pulled me the rest of the
way to the finish. For me, there was no pick up, no push, no charging up the last
hill, and just barely hung on for dear ankles. The course a just short of 5
miles but that was good enough for me.
After catching up with friends
before, during, and after the run, for this one day, I felt like I became part
of the running community again. Sigh…did I miss running with all those people…
Well, that concludes 5 straight days of blogging - a new record for me. I'm all tapped out of ideas. Till next time folks!
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