After work I took my coworker out to Mastro's Steakhouse for his birthday. I ordered a big prime rib with the intention of not finishing the whole thing and saving the rest for post race consumption. In hindsight, this was a bad idea. I've always had terrible races when I eat too much protein the night before. Ordering two bottles of wine probably didn't help either. :)
Prime rib
Saturday
The race started at 7am. There was race day packet pickup which started at 5:45am. I got there around 6am. I would've gotten there sooner, but as usual there was early morning freeway construction on the 60 freeway which reduced the freeway down to 1 lane. The parking lot was already pretty full by the time that I got there. I picked up my race packet and hung out with my friends for a little bit before going back to my car to get ready. Since I fueled up on beef last night, I thought it would be appropriate to wear my Team Beef jersey for the race. :)
Seeing how my hip completely fell apart in San Francisco about a week ago, I knew I had to take it easy on this course if I wanted to finish it. My goal was to just finish around 6 hours. It was a pretty small field of runners. After some last minute instructions and tips from Keira (the RD) and Jimmy (my former TNT coach) it was time to run the marathon.
It was pretty easy going as we hopped on the trail. When I came up to the first climb, I just pulled over to the side and walked it. It was kind of sad to see my friends take off up the hill. With my strategy, I was hoping that I would be able to catch up to them once I reached the downhills and the flat sections.
Starting line
Picnic table
Nice place for a marathon
I think I pushed it a bit too hard on the downhills. It was then that I noticed a strange sensation in my left ankle. The ankle just felt weak. My calves had been tight all morning and I always seem to injure something when I run hard with tight calves. But as endurance runners typically do, you ignore the discomfort and motor on. Eventually I would catch up to my friends before the halfway point. It was nice to run with them for a while, but they would drop me again as I was starting to feel discomfort in the same bad right hip trying to keep up with them. I had to run it in pretty conservatively. There were sections where I had to carefully run/walk around groups of hikers and horse riders. The horses were magnificent looking animals!
Yay for downhills
Pony rides
Grinding out the final miles with friends
My favorite running surface
Some of the climbs were pretty gnarly, but I think they felt extra hard because my legs, hip, and ankles weren't 100%. It was nice to finish running mostly downhills with a short final climb to the finish line. At the finish I received a medal and a buckle. The buckle was given to all finishers. The extra medal was for those that signed up early for the lottery. Leading up to the race, there was a bunch of people on social media expressing their displeasure with the idea of giving out buckles for any race under 100 miles. I'm somewhat neutral to this unwritten rule. I think it's up to the race director's discretion on how he or she wants to reward the finishers. While the buckle was very nice to receive and look at, I wouldn't wear it and still prefer to receive something that I could use on a daily basis like a beer mug. I would run a race even if only winners were to get awards and nothing were given to finishers (e.g. Grete's Great Gallop, my race recap). I also prefer races that do not just give out participant shirts, but finisher's shirt only for finishers at the finish line (e.g. Honolulu Marathon, my race recap). Oh well, everybody has an opinion.
After waiting for my friend to finish, I went home to finish up the leftover prime rib. Go beef! :)
Buckle up!
Bonus medal
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