The MS Runner

The San Antonio Marathon was this past weekend, and although I knew it was going to be a tough one because of the time I missed due to injury, I was hoping that I could still get through it.  It started out by getting to the shuttle bus area at around 5:45.  When Jason and I got there, we both were amazed at how many people were here.  But it was really worse than we thought!  The line wound around to the front of the building, then you came back towards the buses, then you turned and went away from the buses again, and then finally coming back to them.  It was like one of those lines at an amusement park or the security line at the airport.  I’m guessing that at that time there was around 6 or 7 thousand people there trying to get on the bus.  And more kept coming!

We finally got on a bus and headed out.  The ride was maybe 15 minutes long and then they dropped us off.  I’m looking around for the start, but I don’t see anything.  Mostly I see people going to the gas station to go to the bathroom.  There were luckily some other people that were walking along so we followed them.  And we walked, and we walked.  Where the hell is the start??!!  After maybe a half a mile, we see the start, and by this time it’s 7:15.  It was an hour and half from when we got to the shuttle area to the start.  So now I’m looking around for the food because they advertised that there would be bagels and banana’s at the start, and I hadn’t eaten anything that morning.  We get to the area where the tents are set up, and all we see is a table with raisins and apples.  That’s it?  We look around some more.  Nothing.  I’m doomed.  There’s no way I’m going to run a marathon with only raisins in my stomach.  We get in line for the bathrooms, and luckily that didn’t take very long and we make our way to our corral area. Where the port-a-lets are was at corral 30, and we had to make it to corral 7.  We are walking up there when the National Anthem starts and we end up at corral 9.

Once the race starts, I feel better about everything, and I feel good.  Hmmm….. maybe I can do a full marathon.  It’s funny how you think that after only running a half mile.  My plan was to run to the water stations and then walk for a minute.  So Jason and I are starting off together and his knee is doing good.  We do 9:45 the first mile (a little too fast, but not bad) and then we hit the water station near mile 2.  I get water and start walking, and Jason takes off.  I walk for a minute and then start running again.  After awhile I see Jason and I’m catching up to him.  This is not good.  I was doing around a 9:15 pace and I was catching up to him.  I catch him and ask how he’s doing and he says he doing all right, so we run together until the next water station where I get water and walk for a minute.  Jason keeps going so once I start running again , he is out of sight.

One thing that I forgot to mention, it’s 67 degrees at the start and 98% humidity.  Not ideal conditions to run in.  After 3 miles, I’m already wearing out.  Between the heat, humidity, and no food, this was not not pretty.  But I keep going on and the fact that there were so many people, it made it nice to run.  At around 6 miles, we pass by these houses and the people there were handing out Guinness beer.  So of course I had to drink one.  At mile 8 (or 9) we are going running in downtown San Antonio and going right by our hotel.  I had no clue that the race went this way.  Next thing I know Jason is raising his arms in celebration and I look over and there is Diane and Megan!  So seeing Diane gives me some instant energy and I feel good again, but it doesn’t last long.  I think it was less than a mile after that I hit the water station, and Jason goes on ahead.  My knee at this point is hurting a little bit, and I feel real sluggish.  After my minute walk, I start running again, and I see Jason up ahead and he is pulling off to the side.  I catch up to him and ask how he’s doing.  Yes I know, dumb question.  His knee is really hurting and he says he’s not going to make it.  I tell him that I don’t think I will either, but I’m not sure.  I leave him there in the ditch (I hope someone will help him out of there) and I head off.  But it wasn’t long before I got that feeling that I had to go to the bathroom.  This is the “dreaded” bathroom break and I can’t just go behind some tree.  I come up to a water station and there are 6 port-a-lets there.  One is open and I go in there.  No toilet paper.  I go into another one.  No toilet paper.  In fact, all 6 were out of toilet paper.  Not good.  At this point, it hurts my stomach to run.

The next thing I come up to is the break for the half marathon and the full.  If I go right, I do the full.  If I go left, I do the half.  I’m on the right side of the road and thinking that a miracle could happen and that I could still do the full.  I’m sure there’s a port-a-let up here soon, and there are plenty of water stations.  YOU CAN DO IT!  Luckily, I come to my senses and at the last second, I go left.  Thank goodness I listened to my brain and not my heart.  After a little bit, there are some port-a-lets and they have toilet paper!  Wahoo!

I finished the half and thanked myself for not attempting to do the full.  There will be more marathons (I hope) and this one I’ll be able to look back on and say that I did the right thing.  Jason and I will hook up again and we will finish one together.  Now if I could only get Michael to do one too…….

Wow.  It’s amazing to me that when I’m not running, I eat like a pig.  This past week was a “no running zone” week.  I decided not to run and see if my knee would heal up.  I finally headed out today, one week after my last run, and ran 14 miles.  So far so good.  The proof in the pudding will be tomorrow.  If my knee is going to explode again, it will happen tomorrow.  Right now it feels fine.  So I didn’t run all week, and I was starving.  I would eat breakfast and be hungry an hour later.  I would eat lunch and look around to see what else I could stuff in my face.  Luckily at dinner, I would eat and then drink 6 beers and not really be all that hungry.  Maybe I should be drinking beer all day?  I’m hoping my knee is going to be okay because I’m almost at the peak of my training.  Next Saturday I do 22 miles, and then 2 weeks after that, I do 24.  Eight weeks from now is the marathon and if I lose any more days because of my knee, it’s going to really set me back.  Blah, blah, blah.  Woe is me.

On a lighter note, my son Jason got engaged this weekend and it looks like the wedding will be next summer.  Mmmm….maybe I could work that around some marathon in North Carolina?

Another Bolder Boulder has come and gone and every year this race amazes me.  I don’t know the final count, but there is somewhere around 55,000 running this race.  I believe that is the 2nd largest 10K in the country next to the The Peachtree in Atlanta, Georgia.  It is just mind boggling that this race seems to go off without a hitch.  I’m sure that there are issues and problems, but they must be behind the scenes.

My son Jason and his girlfriend Megan came in to run the race, and this was Jason’s second time doing it.  As I mentioned before, he ran it in 2007, and the difference between then and now is awesome.  Jason has really improved (not that he was bad in the first place) and it’s great to see him get better every time I see him.   Megan had never run a 10K and she did great!  I struggled a bit, and I’m guessing that it was because I ran 10 miles 2 days earlier, and another 2 miles the day before.  I never said that I was too smart.

I got my final “long” run in today.  It was an easy 8 miler in Parker, CO and right now, knock on wood, my knee feels good.  Not great by any means, but good.  I hope that nxt weekends weather will be like today’s was.  It was a very comfortable 50 degrees.  It was sunny also, and I would rather run when it’s cloudy out, but the sun didn’t bother me at all.  I’m getting excited but I know that with my training that I missed, it won’t be my best time.  I would think that a 1:50:00 is doable and I would be pleased with that.

One think that I’m not sure about is if I want to shoot for a marathon this fall or not.  I guess we’ll see how the knee goes and if all goes well, then I just might.  I’d love to have my son Jason run one with me before I need a walker, but he’s got so many things going on in his life that it’s very hard to commit to all that training.

Actually was a very good run.  I’m talking about the OBX Half Marathon last Sunday.  If I had to do it again, I would have stayed another day.  The weather was great that morning.  It was 50 degrees and the high was projected to only be 55 during the run.  There were a total of 2,771 half marathoners getting ready to take on this challenge, and my son Jason and I were ready.  One good thing that I liked about the run was that they sent you off in waves, 3 minutes apart.  We were in the second wave, the 8 to 10 minute milers.  So there was no cattle call and a crush of runners at the start.  When our time came, I think everybody thought it was the 100 yard dash!  Oh I forgot to mention, that I forgot to wear my Garmin.  So there I was, running like crazy with the rest of the pack.  I soon realized that this was stupid, and I backed down.  Jason however, kept up the brutal pace.  (I think there was some hottie he was chasing)  After a boring first 3 miles, we ducked down a side street into a beautiful neighborhood.  The ocean was to the right of us, and a golf course to the left of us.  Some magnificent homes also.  But then we go back out onto the main road for the final 6 miles.  At mile 9, we cross the bridge going into Raonoke.  The bridge they say, rises 35 feet, but I think it was more like 135!  When you come up to it, you’re thinking that there’s no way I’m going to run all the way across this.  Most of us however did, although there were a few that didn’t.At mile 11 we are headed into downtown Manteo and the spectators are more in numbers and definitley louder.  I admire those people that stand out there for hours to cheer you on and ring their cow bells.  Just after mile 12 you can see the finish line.  I pick up my pace a bit and I’m surprised at how much energy I have.  Was it because it’s finally over, or was I not running as hard as I could have?  As I cross the line I hook up with Jason and find out that he ran 1 hour, 43 minutes!  His best half marathon time before that was 1 hour 54 minutes.  I think he got better.  I finished in 1 hour, 47 minutes and 11 seconds.  I was very happy with that considering 3 weeks before I ran the Denver Half in 1 hour 59 minutes.  So I shave off 12 minutes in 3 weeks.  Like I said, I’m happy.  I finished 209th out of the 2,771 total runners and in my age group, I finished 20th out of 117.  I can’t believe how fast some of these dudes my age are.  My splits were at 6.9 miles, 7:51 per mile and the final 6.2, 8:34 per mile.  Wow!  What a drop.  I did go out way too fast which caused me to slow it way down the second half.  But I’ll take it.

Now to get ready for the marathon in Arizona in January.   Should be a good one.

Jason and I before the run