Before anything, I want to thank my friends and hosts for the weekend, Jackie and Louis.  I can’t believe how lucky I am to have such incredibly giving people in my life. They took care of me from the moment my plane touched down with such unabashed generosity, sweetness and humor, the weekend was one huge-ass party.  There are not enough Thank You’s in the world to let them know how grateful I am.  I love you two kooky kids!

Jackie, me and Louis at Point Loma

Pre-race dinner: Charlie, Matt, Jackie, Louis, Me, Pete, Barb and Skye the Wonder Husky

The race
When we drove the course the day before, I realized this was going to be harder than I thought but I was cool with it, just unsure of what pace to target.   I decided to go with the 1:35 pace group,  a possibly optimistic but seemingly sensible goal.  Other than that, I had no plan, no splits referenced, just que sera sera would be the theme of the morning.

Pacer Madness

We get into our corrals and I ask the pacers what their plan is and they tell me they’re planning on straight 7:15s which sounded ok but tough, since there’s a steep uphill straight off the bat and I’d prefer to take it slower to start, but figured they knew what they were doing.   Unfortunately, the pacers, while very nice guys, went much faster than 7:15s.  By mile 2, we were running near my 10k pace! This was not sensible, especially for me, who considered the rollers to be a real challenge.  First 4 miles were:

7:10
6:51
6:57
6:50

At mile 4, one of the pacers tells us proudly “we’re 35 seconds ahead of schedule” though looking at these splits after the fact, it was over a minute.  Even 35 seconds would have been too much considering the course.  Meanwhile, this guy behind me (who is not with the group) sees their 1:35 sign and says to no one in particular “You guys are going at 1:30 pace!”  I have him to thank for whooping some sense into me because it was then that I realized it would not end well if I continued, my breath was already labored, so I let the group go and  focused on getting back into a calmer mode.

Honestly, I’m annoyed with myself more than the pacers – I was wearing a Garmin and saw my average lap paces so I should have backed off much earlier.  Anyway, live and learn, it was a good lesson to trust my instincts more.

Cheering Squads!
Mile 4 and 9, I see my friend from the 3:20 thread, Matt, cheering me on.  What a great boost that was.

Mile 7, a woman takes my picture and yells out “Flo! I’m a blog stalker!” which was hilarious and so unexpected, I loved it.  Hope she pipes up here since I have no idea who she is.

Shoe Lace
In the 4 years I’ve been running, my shoelace has never come untied, I always double-knot and it hasn’t failed me, until mile 7 of this race.  Here I was with 6 miles to go and my laces are flopping around.  I decided to ignore it as long as I could and keep running but then, out of nowhere behind me comes one of the pacers, who had dropped back for some reason. He says “Tie your shoe!”  I reply, “Nah, I’m ok, I’ll just ride it out”  He says again, more authoritatively “No, tie your shoe! I’ll get you back”.

I’m glad he did, because it would have been an idiotic move to continue with it untied. I stop, tie my shoe and then it’s the pacer and me for a bit.  He’s indicating that I should get behind him to draft since it’s breezy but I’m such a dork and can’t figure out where I should place myself to draft.  It was fine though, the breeze felt good.  He gets me up another of those stupid hills (rollers-schmollers, these were low but long hills) and I’m breathing too hard, so I tell him to “Go ahead, I don’t care if I get a 1:37, seriously, just go” because I really didn’t care – but in a good way, not a self-defeating way.  He tried to change my mind, but I wasn’t having any so he went on.

The Course
There’s an ocean there.  I think I noticed it a couple times.

The Rest of My Splits
After I separated from the pace group, I spent the rest of the race working on effort level only.  I had my elapsed time on my Garmin screen but refused to look at it until I crossed the finish line, paying attention to Average Lap Pace every so often.

7:24
7:16
7:36
7:28
7:24
7:30
7:33
7:32
7:13
1:11 Garmin says for .18

Final time 1:35:57.  I was very surprised and super happy with the result.  It’s only a minute off my last Half which was a much easier course and one I was very familiar with so I consider this an improvement, even though it was slower.  Plus, I wonder what kind of race I’d had if I hadn’t burned off so much energy those first few miles – might not have made a whit of difference, but then again, it might have.

Photos and Form
Unlike stingy Philly, where they have 1 or 2 photographers and it’s always at the end when you look like shit, Cali races are chock full of photogs.  Unfortunately, due to my god-awful facial expressions and excess waving leg skin which only shows on race photos and disgusts me, there was only one photo I was cool with (the first one above).  However, on a very good note, I am not overstriding and the finish line video looks fine too (as far as form) so I’m pleased about this.

This just in, my friend Barb’s hubby Pete (both of whom were also staying at Chez Louis/Jackie) is a great photographer and took these.  I Love Them!  Of course, there goes my overstriding observation, but at least it’s intermittent.

Medical Drama
Not mine, for once!   I posted this in the California forum of RWOL, but it’s worth reposting here:

Immediately after the race as we were walking back to the car, Jackie and Louis spotted a writhing runner laying on the sidewalk, moaning in great pain.  Without missing a beat, Jackie ran up, took the patient’s leg and started stretching and applying pressure while talking soothingly and distracting her with questions about the race, etc.  Louis got her head elevated and went for the other leg.  Together, they worked on her for about an hour.

Me, being the callous East Coaster, got really bored and secretly irritated because all I wanted to do was get to the FE.  I eventually wandered over to the car to walk Skye so I could get compliments on my beautiful dog but not before surreptitiously taking photos with my crap phone for proof of the gory scene.  Happy ending was the patient survived and joined us at the FE.

The FE
For those not in the know, an FE is a “Forum Encounter” where you meet your internet forum friends in real life.  Jackie, again the angel, arranged brunch for all the Cali forumites.  It was a big one, some hadn’t even raced but came down just for the gathering.  I’d already met a handful of people previously at the Boston Marathon FE which was pretty cool.  I also got to meet fellow blogger Kristin, a blog reader of mine Deb and of course, the infamous Coach A muse/Adam and his better half.

The FE Crew minus a few that had left by the time this was taken. You can click this to make it bigger and to see my Popeye arm veins better (don't know what that's about)

The A Muses: Stacie and Coach Adam

Fellow blogger Kristin. Don't ask me why I changed from my race clothes into other clothes that look exactly like my race clothes. It's what I brought.

And that ends today’s epic from the West Coast.  I will be dreaming of the people I met and the fun I had long after tonight’s predicted 8-12″ of snow has melted.  Running: the adventure never ends.

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