San Francisco Giants Half Marathon Race Report!

In my life, I have ran four half marathons. This is quite a spectacular achievement for someone who spent the first thirty-two years of his life with the belief that running one single mile was a deadly and effective torture technique.


The first race I ran was in February 2011. My only official goal was to cross the finish line. I began preparing by running in July/August 2010, but didn’t start my real training until November. At the suggestion of my brother-in-law Brad, I used the same training regimen my sister used for her half—Hal Higdon’s well regarded novice program. Ish. I say that because I didn’t follow it as closely as I could have. Should have. The program mostly consists of shorter daily runs during the week and a long run on the weekend. I did pretty much all of the shorter daily runs, but I skipped a lot of the longer ones. The longest single distance I ran before the race was one eight mile trip.

When I ran that first race through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, I was fine for the first eight miles. The last five, on the other hand, were hell. The pavement was rough, and my Vibram Five-Finger minimalist/barefoot running shoes offered no protection to my tender feet. My body was unprepared for the distance, and I was over-dressed for the unseasonably hot morning. I dealt with cramps and pain and boredom and misery. It was not fun, and when I crossed the finish line (where medical personnel were attempting to revive another runner who collapsed), all I wanted to do was sit down. Two hours, twenty-two minutes, and some change was my final time. “Never again,” I told my friend and fellow runner Chris. “That was the worst thing ever.” I threw up three times in the next two hours, and could hardly walk for the rest of the day.

By the next week, Chris and I were talking about which race we would run next.

In the end, we decided on the Rock’n’Roll San Jose race in October later that year. I was still running a couple of times each week, so when my training program started in June I already had a solid foundation on which to build. I still used the Hal Higdon model, but I modified it to include the Krava Maga training I was learning at the time. Twice a week, I did a 50 minute Krav session, twice a week I would do shorter runs, and once a week I would do a longer run. I ran multiple 8 mile runs, and one 10 mile training run before the race. This training cycle also included the most brutal training runs I could imagine: several runs in 100 degree heat, and a few at 112 degree blistering heat while on business trips to Dallas.

My goal for San Jose was to listen to good music, enjoy all the pretty girls running the race, cross the finish line faster than my previous race, and not to stop to walk the entire race. You can put a checkmark next to all four; I finished at two hours, eight minutes, and some change. I kicked my previous time’s butt by fourteen minutes. When I crossed the finish line, I didn’t feel like collapsing. Within an hour, I felt just fine. That, I figured, is how a race was supposed to work.

My roommate and close friend Mikey G had hopped on the running train, and decided he was going to run the next half with me. A couple of our friends were doing it, so we decided to sign up for the Golden Gate Park half again, the next February. For my training, I did the opposite of my first race—I skipped a lot of the shorter daily runs, but made certain to complete the longer weekend runs. I did eight, nine, eleven, and up to twelve mile training runs prior to the race. Mikey G did all of the training, but an unfortunate illness struck him the week before the race and he was unable to run with us.

My goal was simply to beat my previous best time. Compared to the two races before it, I planned a lot more strategy. My pace for runs less than eight miles was roughly a minute and a half faster than my previous race, but I noticed that my longer runs weren’t as steady. So I decided to run the first eight or nine miles at the faster pace, and then I could slow down the last 4 or 5 to a more relaxed pace. The numbers all worked out to a record time, so I went with it.

It is a largely unknown fact that I hated that race. The first five miles were as miserable as any run I’d ever done, and I couldn’t point to any specific reason why. I told myself if I don’t feel better by mile eight, it’s not worth a final five of misery and I’ll drop out. At mile five, I ran into Chris, my running partner from the last two races who couldn’t run this race but came out to cheer me on. I stopped for a second to talk to him, and told him, “This is horrible, awful, worst thing ever.” He said, “maybe it will get better,” and then I hurried on. Of course, I stumbled, tripped, and almost fell flat on my face as I started back on the course. I found the humor, laughed at myself, and carried on. Chris was right, of course, it got better. The next three miles were a gentle down slope, and by mile eight I felt fine. Well enough, in fact, that I carried my faster pace all the way until mile ten before slowing down. I was ahead of my projected finish time, and with the frustration of the early part of the race, I took the last three miles very easy. Easier than I could have—I wasn’t concerned with getting the best time I could, as long as I beat my previous time.

I crossed the finish line at two hours, two minutes, and some change. The inner dialog with myself, though, was different. “I did not enjoy that race, not one single bit. I’m not sure I ever want to do this again.”

The race was early February, 2012. The beginning of March, I bought a road bike. I had no desire to run at all. The longest running I did was the short half-mile trek down to the gym as a warm up for my weight lifting. I was riding my bike, both commuting to work and casually.

I had made a promise to a friend, though, and when Melissa told me she was going to run in the San Francisco Giants half marathon in September, I had to fulfill my promise. I had said, “When you run your first half, I will run it with you.” So I signed up. I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to run the race, but I knew that I wanted to keep my promise.

I decided to try things differently, though, for my training. Bicycling was my new fitness hobby, and I didn’t want to completely disregard weight lifting through the training cycle. I wanted to see how effectively those two things could be implemented into preparing for endurance running. So I crafted a unique three month program for myself, which I started in June.

For the first month, I would spend two days at the gym weight lifting (including a 1 mile round-trip run to the gym), two days a week sprinting at the local football field, and one day taking a long (20-30 mile) bike ride. The sprinting was very simple—a two hundred yard jog, one forty yard dash, two one-hundred yard dash, and a two hundred yard cool down walk/jog.

The second month would be similar with two days at the gym and the long bicycle ride, but I substituted short runs instead of sprinting. The shorter runs started at two miles, and graduated up to four miles by the end of the month.

The third month dropped one of the days at the gym in favor of a longer run on the weekend. The short daily runs started at four miles, but moved up to 5½ by the end of the training session. I did two eights, a ten, and a twelve mile run for the longer training ones, and by the end of the month I dropped the day at the gym lifting weights.

Additionally, I was riding my bike seven miles a day commuting to work.

I decided to try a different strategy for race day. Unlike the previous race, where I planned to run eight miles at 8:30/mile and 5 at 10:00/mile, I wanted to maintain a consistent(-ish) pace from start to finish. My goal was to beat the two hour barrier (and in doing so, beat my previous best time), which would require a pace of 9:06/mile. I decided to shoot for a flat 9:00/mile.

I wasn’t sure how it was going to go: when I started running in July, the four months off had taken it’s toll and my pace was down. My cardio was fine—bicycling had seen to that—but my legs were still uncertain. When month three of training came along in August, I was seeing improvement, but the results were inconsistent. I would run a record time one day, and feel awful the next time out. Days I felt slow showed good times, and days I felt fast showed average times. The last one and a half miles of my ten and twelve milers sucked, hard. And then race day came.

I’m going to cut through it and get to the point. On race day, I kicked ass. I felt good for almost the entire race (except I had to pee for the first five miles, a problem easily fixed by a porta-potty; and a grumpy stomach at mile seven that was happy after downing half a Clif Energy Gel pack). I had planned for a slow first mile (the bottleneck of the starting line crowd slows you down), and it was slower than expected because I was way back in the crowd. I settled down into a nice comfortable pace after that, even a little faster than planned. I caught up to Melissa at about mile six (she had a couple minute head start out of the gate on me), I hit the few small hills strong, and on mile ten and twelve I cracked a few jokes with the runners around me. The finish line was in the SF Giants baseball stadium, and when I turned the corner into AT&T Park, I felt strong enough to kick it up and sprint across the finish line.

Did I mention that I crossed the finish line at one hour, fifty-sixe minutes, and a few short seconds. And I left time out on that course. If I had any idea I would feel that strong at the end, I would’ve picked up the pace earlier in the race, shave another minute or two off the time, easy.

For the first time in four races, when I crossed the finish line, I felt like I still had something left in the tank. For the first time, the finish line felt strong. Like I said, I kicked ass.

So, what was the difference between this race and the other three? As far as I can figure, these are the prime factors that (may have) contributed:

• A good night’s sleep. Every other race has been preceded by a night of tossing and turning and only a few hours of sleep.

• Optimal hydration. I drank a carton of grapefruit juice the night before, with a 16 oz bottle of home-brew unsweetened ice tea and a thermos of coffee on race morning. I stopped for water at most of the aid stations, but I never felt thirsty.

• Improved endurance training. Previously, the longest endurance workouts of my life were the long training runs and races. Since I started bicycling, I would regularly go on two, three, up to five hour rides. A two hour cardio workout was no longer out of the ordinary.

• Weight loss. My first three races were ran at an even 200 pounds. My weigh-in for this race: 185 pounds. Fifteen pounds lighter= a lot less work.

• Spectacular course. Starting right by AT&T Park in San Francisco, and following the coastline along the bay up to the Golden Gate Bridge and back. Mostly flat with a few easy hills, and covering so many San Francisco landmarks, including the Presidio, Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39, the Embarcadero, views of Alcatraz and the Bay, and finishing inside the Giant’s ballpark. An ideal course for a tourist visiting San Francisco.

• Ideal pre-race delivery system. My ride to the starting line, provided by the excellent Mikey G, ensured an advantage no other runner could claim at the starting line.

• The awesomeness that is Nate.

It’s a race I would consider doing again. Of the three races I’ve participated in (I ran Golden Gate twice), I would put this one at a strong second. The “expo” for this race was weak sauce—and I had to travel out to San Francisco to attend the expo and pick up my race packet the day before the race. They ran out of satchel bags at the expo, so I couldn’t get one (although they had more on race day for gear drop-off so I ended up with one anyway). The expo was awful—race packet pickup, a DJ playing bad dance music, and two or three half-ass booths. Starting line organization was just fine, simple, nothing fancy, and no problems. Estimated pace corrals weren’t very clear, and most runners just ended up wherever they ended up. Didn’t cause any problems, though. The course was fine, clearly marked and easy to follow. There were a few spots where it became very narrow, but thankfully they were a couple of miles down the way and I didn’t experience any bottlenecking. I didn’t feel like the mile-markers were clearly placed. In fact, I wasn’t even sure most of them were there—I only saw markers for miles one, five, seven, and twelve. Melissa later told me that she saw all of them, though, so that might have just been me. There was a race timer visible at the 10k turnaround spot (which we passed twice, since it’s a there-and-back course), but the time made absolutely no sense and was useless to me. The only reason I knew my time and pace was my cell phone running the iMapMyRun app and chirping out distance, time, and pace to me every mile. The finish line—inside of AT&T ballpark—was very nice, and the runners were allowed to lounge around on the field after finishing. Spectators were allowed in the stands to cheer on the runners, but they couldn’t come down on the field to mingle with the runners. Safeway had tables with bagels, fruit, and swag bags. Unfortunately, by the time I got there, they had long ran out of swag bags. I did get a bagel, though, and it was very tasty. Best bagel I’ve had in my life. The swag that I did get (from my race packet pickup) was nifty though. A SF Giants Matt Cain Giants Race bobblehead, the satchel bag (which I almost didn’t get), and a nifty jersey shirt. The shirts were made by a company called Greenlight Apparel, a fact I know only because they are a customer of mine and ship stuff out regularly. It’s a very nice shirt, and they are a wonderful company—highly recommended to anyone looking for shirts for their race or event. I’m still trying to get them to sponsor me.

So, that was my race. It was a wonderful experience. For a local of the Bay Area, the San Jose Rock’n’Roll race would be a better choice, but for a tourist, outsider, or baseball fan the SF Giants tops. They do have a sister race earlier in the year in San Jose for the Giants minor league farm team, too, for a two-fer.

I don’t know when my next race will be, but I will definitely be up for another one when the opportunity arises. I think my next event will be bicycling, though, probably a Century ride. After (or before?) that, maybe triathalons. Who knows. We’ll see what happens.

Sucker Punch

There's a FedEx drive who comes here to work to pickup regularly that has a higher opinion of me than he ought. I've even told him that, but he disagrees with me. This is not a case of me being humble; the driver said to me about a month ago (during the Tour de France), "You'd beat 20 or 30 of the riders in the Tour, I'm sure." Not a chance. He wondered once that I could ride my bike from here to Los Angeles in a day. Now, I'm all for a good century ride, with training i'd be up for a little longer, but it 400 miles to LA. It takes a day to drive there. Try as I might, I would not be biking that in one day.

Yesterday we were talking about running, and my training program preparing for a half marathon. He asks me, "So when you do a long run like, 8 miles or whatever, are you tired when you're finished?" I thought his question was strangely appropriate, since the very night before, at right about 4 1/2 miles into an 8 mile run, I had pondered over that very question.

Of course you're tired. I mean, your heartrate is more than doubled, and your muscles are burning something like 10 times their average expendature. Heck, I'm tired at the one mile mark. But that's not really the point, is it? I saw a run-related internet meme a couple weeks back--you can backtrack to find it on my facebook if you must--that read, "I don't stop when I'm tired. I stop when I'm finished." That's the what the point is really about. Yeah, you're tired, and face it - you're going to be tired until you cross that finish line. You just deal with it, and then when you're finished you enjoy it.

Was that post really about running?

The Casual Tradition

No, i'm not promising to post more often. BUT, I have established a tradition I will continue.

I finished Chapter 6 of the novel today, from the Musicians Story (Rough Draft Chapter Title: Blood and Fire). As I've done before, here, for your viewing pleasure, is a short excerpt from the chapter:

"He could hear his horn, resting right nearby in it's case, whispering to him. He could almost feel the beat, as he watched Sonja stripping his mattress of the sheets, her feet setting the rhythm. From the windows, open wide to let the cooler night air in, he could hear the bass drone of freight trains and cars and the murmur of crowds. The horn was dictating a melody to him, a solo to cut above all of it. Her hips were swaying, completely unaware of the dance she had initiated, her arms conducting themselves. Ramon had never seen such a benign, mundane activity with such beauty. He felt delirious from the fever."

There you go. We're back to the Detective next, I think.

Also, for yoru information, May is the Month of New Music. Awesome. New music from my favorite bands:

• Blunderbus by Jack White (with my cousin Lillie Mae, of course!). Typical Jack White, he doesn't deviate from his formula too much. There are a couple excellent songs (Hip Eponymous Poor Boy, Love Interruption), and the rest is only okay so far. I anticipate it to age well.
•  Little Broken Hearts by Norah Jones (with mega producer Danger Mouse). Excellent. Definitely Norah's best work since her second album (Feels Like Home). Danger Mouse's style is all over it, but he always does such an excellent job of matching up with the artists he's producing. Least "mainstream" of her albums by far, a little quirky, but never loses it's pop sensibilities. Favorite song so far, Merriam.
• Not Your Kind of People by Garbage. First listen was underwhelming, hearkening to their latter work (like albums Bleed Like Me), but has improved with further listens. This is not Version 3.0, but it has it's moments. Shirley Manson's a better songwriter when she's writing pop songs instead of stepping up on a soapbox.
• Neck of the Woods by Silversun Pickups. This band just keeps growing on me every day, a little by little. The first album was awesome. the second as well, much of the same thing. But this one, the third, they reached back into the 80's. They retro'd up their sound, changed with the times, but didn't lose their identity as a band in the process. the first time I listened to this album I didn't get it, and I didn't like it. But then I read some of what they said about it, their process and ideas. And then I listened again, and again, and again, and I love it more and more every time. This is an album, and not a collection of singles. I miss bands that do that. it's getting lost in this modern age of digital downloads.

Sister Liz's Quinoa & Cream Zucchini Soup

Alright Sis! I promised, and here it is! Sorry it took so long:

Ingredients:
1 Medium Onion
1 Large (or 2 Medium) Zucchini
1 Boneless Chicken Breast
Bacon
Chicken Stock
White Wine
Half & Half
Quinoa
Rosemary, Bay Leaf, Salt, Pepper, (Unsalted) Butter, Olive Oil
Plantains, Cooking Oil

Prepare the quinoa, and set in the fridge to cool to about room temperature.

Take half of your zucchini, and dice into small pieces. Dice the onion, and put both the diced zucchini and onion into a sautee pan with some butter. Cook over medium heat until onion becomes translucent. Add approx 3/4 cup white wine and 3/4 cup chicken stock to the pan, and bring to a boil. Add rosemary, bay leaf, salt, and pepper. Continue to simmer until the sauce reduces to about 50% of it's original volume.



Meanwhile, cut the rest of your zucchini into 3/4" discs, and wrap in uncooked bacon. Place into a pan, and put in the oven at about 350 until the bacon is cooked. If possible, the zucchini rounds should be raised so they are not cooking directly in the bacon drippings. Remove from the oven when finished, and set aside.

In a second (large) sautee pan, add a small amount of olive oil. Salt & pepper the chicken breast, and cook in the sautee pan over medium/medium-high heat. It's okay if the chicken sticks to the pan a little bit (we will be deglazing the pan in a little while).

Once the white wine/chicken stock sauce has reduced to 50% volume, remove from heat. (remove and discard any rosemary sprigs or bay leaves) Add to a blender, food processor, or immersion blender, and blend until smooth. The mixture shouldn't be too thick. If necessary, add additional chicken stock and/or white wine to thin the sauce. Set aside.

Once the chicken has finished cooking, remove from heat and set aside to rest. After the chicken has rested for 3ish minutes, you may cut it into slices.

In the pan you cooked the chicken, add the sauce from the blender. using a wooden spoon or spatula, scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen any of those delicious chicken scrapings. Add half & half to the pan, mix with your spoonula, and allow to reduce (stirring regularly) to aboug 66% volume. Or desired consistency.

You have cooked all of the parts! Now it's just presentation!

Form a ball of quinoa, and place in the middle of a wide bowl. place your zucchini/bacon rounds and chicken slices around the quinoa. Garnish (if you feel fancy) with a sprig of rosemary. Pour the cream zucchini into a small bowl or mug, and serve alongside. When you are ready to eat, you pour the cream zucchini soup over the quinoa bowl and enjoy!

Because quinoa reminds me of Peru, I prepared fried plantains to serve alongside. (Easy, plantain bananas cut into slices and fried in a pan of peanut oil. Remove from oil, dry, and salt).






Enjoy! If you have any questions, let me know!



Brad, your Black Bean soup is next!