I see I’ve been terrible about keeping up my blogging – bad boy! Well, I decided to drop back and punt, picking things up with the San Antonio Rock and Roll Half-Marathon that we ran on 15 November!
First of all, I really enjoyed San Antonio and wished we’d had more time there. The River Walk area is like something the engineers at Disney would come up with (sorta reminded me of the Pirates of the Caribbean), and the town itself was very appealing to me. We saw the Alamo at night, which I think was a lot more interesting visually than it would have been during the day, although it was closed so we couldn’t check out the inside.
As for the half-marathon, well, that was an experience! First of all, outside of sitting in a stadium, I’ve never been in with that many people in my life: nearly 30,000 participants! We were staying in a Best Western near the freeway, and while we had the misfortune of being close to the railroad tracks in that part of town (honk-HOOOONNNNKKK! through the night), we were in a great spot to get to the shuttle buses to the start line, which we boarded at around 5:45 or so.
The bus dropped us off “near” the start line. I put that in quotes because we had to walk what seemed like half a mile to get to the start line, and then had to keep on walking to get to our “corral,” or designated start group. But that’s okay: everybody was in an upbeat mood, getting psyched for the race.
Then there were the porta-johns. Folks, one piece of advice if you ever want to participate in one of these things: do yourself a huge favor and bring along your own roll of toilet paper and some sanitary wipes in individual packets. I’ll wager that there were at least two hundred porta-johns around the start line area, and every single one of them was out of TP before the race started. And having to do your business without anything to clean your hands off with…well, you get the picture. One final note about porta-johns: make damn sure you lock the door. There were so many people lined up at these things, a new person would come to the head of one of the countless lines and check to see if a john was empty, only to discover that it wasn’t, but the occupant hadn’t locked the door! We saw a couple of hilarious incidents of this that morning – you’ve been warned!
The initial start of the race was a bit anticlimactic. I say “initial,” because with this many people you start in waves – that’s why everyone’s in a corral. It was probably a good forty-five minutes before our corral moved up to the start line, and then we were off! It didn’t take us long to realize that we were probably a lot further back than we technically should have been. You’re assigned to your corral based on your estimated pace time, and we’d put down 12:00, when we actually averaged closer to 11:15. But that’s okay – it was a great psychological boost to be passing a bunch of people! Besides, your real start and end times are marked by a little electronic tag you wear on your shoe, so when you cross the sensors at the start/finish lines, your time is recorded. Cool.
Now, this race is one of the “Rock and Roll Marathons,” which means – among other things – that they have a lot of local bands sprinkled along the course. This was pretty cool! However, we made the mistake of thinking there was going to be music along most of the way, so we left our iPhone headsets at home. That was a mistake: some of the bands were really good, but there were huge music-less gaps we had to run through. So, another note to would-be marathoners: always make sure you’ve got your music with you!
Another thing that was great was some of the signs the local folks put up. There were tons of people out cheering us on, which was great (thanks, San Antonio!). My favorite was this: “Beer all gone. Kenyans drank it…”
Things were going great until around mile 5. Before I say anything about that, let me comment on ChiRunning, the new running technique we learned about just a few weeks before the race: if you enjoy long-distance running, or don’t consider yourself a “runner” but would like to try a half or full marathon, do yourself a gigantic favor and learn the ChiRunning technique. We went from killing ourselves during training to considering 3 and 4 mile runs “short, easy runs” because of this technique. It takes a bit to get the hang of it – and I strongly recommend attending one of the many workshops! – but it’s worth its weight in gold. Check it out at ChiRunning.com.
So, as I said, things were going great. Jan and I were flying along (well, for us – an 11:15 pace may not seem impressive to you!). Then we went on a downhill and my left knee started killing me. That’s the one that was suffering from tendonitis that cropped up during our 12-mile training run, before we learned about ChiRunning. So I waved Jan on ahead and walked on it for a while. After a few minutes, I picked up the pace again, concentrating on my ChiRunning form to see if I could minimize or eliminate the pain. You may not believe this, but – for a good chunk of the rest of the run – I did!
Then I encountered another, totally unexpected problem. In the race registration goody bag there was some stuff called “Chomps” and “Gu,” which are supposed to be energy enhancers (they’re sugar, basically). I’d never used any of that sort of thing before, but it sounded like a good idea, and I ate some of it during the early part of the race. I also snagged some of the energy drink stuff at some of the stations along the course, along with water. Well, the stuff made me sick to the point I thought I was going to hurl. That hit me somewhere around mile 7 or 8, and after that I just drank water.
I’ll be honest: by mile 11, I was pretty much toasted and was doing more walking (albeit as fast as I could manage) than running. By mile 12, I figured, okay, let’s finish this damn thing, and I tried to run the rest. That worked out fine until maybe the last third of a mile: the race ended at the Alamodome, and the sadists who designed the course made sure that there was a nice incline of maybe a a hundred yards or so before the final turn to the finish line (which was maybe another fifty-plus yards). That just killed me! I staggered up the incline, then ran the rest of the way – only to stumble on the finish line sensor pad and nearly do a face plant! That was awesome in the video replay…
Then it struck me: I FINISHED!! I actually completed a half-marathon! Okay, my time wasn’t up there with the Kenyans – I came in at 2:39 – but I could rest easy in the smug knowledge that there were still thousands of people behind me. Jan managed to run the whole way and came in at 2:27, so I wasn’t too far behind her, either.
Once you cross the finish line, they handed us these really cool medals, then I found out why people really run marathons: for all the free food at the end! None of it was fancy cooked food, but My God, I felt like I’d died and gone to heaven: bagels, fruit, energy bars, chips, drinks galore! People just loaded up with food as they staggered around and stuffed their faces. I happily joined them. I even got a free beer from Miller – that was worth the run right there!
I tried to call Jan, but that was another phenomenon: the phone networks were completely saturated until around 11:00 or so from all the people calling to say they’d finished the race and were trying to find their friends and families. So, for would-be runners, make sure you plan ahead where you want to meet!
Anyway, despite some of the tribulations while running the course, it was a fantastic experience. Jan and I were tired, but not totally wasted, and we even decided to just walk (or, in my case, semi-hobble) the 1.5 miles back to our hotel. And yes, we’re planning to do some more of these, and I have a “life goal” of eventually running in the Marine Corps Marathon. But if you’ve never considered anything like this, even if you hate running (we did!), give it some thought: it’s really an incredible experience, and gives you a tremendous boost. If you can run one of these things, you can do just about anything!
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