Nike Marathon #5

Nike Marathon weekend started for us on Saturday evening with the Pasta Party at the Moscone Center in SF. 7,700 Team in Training participants as well as family & friends from all across the United States packed into the Moscone Center for the Pasta Party.

Rocky, Olivia, my dad and I headed over about 4pm since Rocky had to meet the team at 4:30 for pictures.

After pictures we stood in line and then we were let into the big huge room that had been set up. We grabbed our food and found our table, ate and then waited for the program to start. As usual they had a slide show playing with pictures of the honorees and past races. The speakers this year were a lady from LLS, Joan Benoit Samuelson, John Bingham "The Penguin" and a TNT honoree who made us all cry but also inspired us. We were also told that $18 million were raised for this event alone...WOW!!

After the pasta party the four of us headed to Daly City to my in-laws house to spend the night and then have them drive us to the start. We chatted a bit, got our gear ready and then hit the sack. I for some reason was really nervous and couldn't sleep. Geesh you'd think it was my first race.

Alarm went off at 4:45am. We all got ready, we ate and then we headed out. We arrived at the start at 6:00am and headed over to Geary & Stockton to meet with the team. Coach Al gave his last speech and told everyone they were ready. Did the usual team cheer and then everyone kind of went on their own to find where they were going to line up.

My dad and Rocky's parents hung out with us for a while and then they headed off. They were going to drive around and to cheer us on and they did a great job of that. THANK YOU!!

7:00am the gun went off and the race started. It was about 15 minutes before we even crossed the start line though.

Anyway, once we crossed the start line we were able to get running pretty easily. It was packed of course but it didn't seem like we had the difficulty we've had in the past with trying to get around people. A little past mile 1 Olivia and I had to go to the bathroom so we decided to stop. Rocky wanted to stretch so he joined us. I hate stopping during the race but I'm glad we did because we ran into Raji :o) she was going to walk half of the race. She is still going through chemo but she looked awesome.

We did our duty and then headed back on the course. Rocky finished stretching and Mr. Speedy eventually caught up to us and passed us. Bye bye Rocky.

Then came the unexpected...A HILL!! A SECOND HILL!!! Two hills that were not there before. Two hills that we did not know about. When did this happen? I guess at some point they decided to change the course because the section of trail that we used to run on by Aquatic Park was closed :o( OY!! Olivia and I ran up them and we even ran up the 3rd HILL which is usually the first hill. Olivia got stuck behind some walkers but we both managed to run up it and then downhill we went.

This was the first cheering station for my dad and Rocky's parents :o) We also saw Phil there with his family.

There is a hill coming out of Chrissy Field that we know is there but the course was re-routed here also and the hill we went up was a bit different. We knew before we even got to this hill that we would just walk and that's exactly what we did :o) and it was pretty much the same story on the rest of the hills that came after this one.

I believe the next time we saw our parents was between mile 8 and 9 which was really nice because I was not expecting to see them again til the finish. We also saw them after coming down the Cliff House Hill before heading into Golden Gate Park :o) Again a nice treat because I was not expecting them there.

I have to admit that this is a kind of boring race report. For the second time this year (first was Pac Grove) I had a good race. This race was slow for me as has always been the case at Nike but for the first time in the history of my Nike Half Marathon races I felt good.

I was telling Olivia while we were running that although we would have a slow time that it felt like it was going by fast and neither one of us was complaining. Had some pain in the knees and some pain in one hip but other than I felt good. I was not dehydrated, I didn't feel like I wanted to quite, the knee pain was tolerable. I was actually pretty surprised with how my body was doing. 11-13 were good. We did walk a little on the flats because I think we were both feeling a little bit more of the pain in the hip (Olivia) and my knees but even the walking we did there was very minimal to the walking I've done in the past. Usually by the time I'm in Golden Gate Park I'm ready to sit on the curb and just wait for somone to come pick me up. Not yesterday, we walked it off for a few minutes and then kept on going. A little before mile 13 we ran into Mama Lisa and she ran with us for a little bit. That was nice. We came around the corner at the Great Hwy and down the stretch to the finish line.

I was very proud of us. Finished in 2:52

urrrgghhh, I just tried to post this blog and it didn't work and I lost everything I wrote after the last sentence above :o( sooooo, to be continued.........