Sheri - Back from the Brink

I ran the 10K portion of the Santa Cruz Half Marathon and 10K last year, and since hubby has taken up running now, I encouraged him to sign up for the 10K this year instead of being my designated photographer.  So I didn?t even bring our camera. You will have to content yourself with my hideous official race photos.

Hubby and I left town right after work Friday afternoon to try to beat some of the traffic over the hill, so we arrived at our motel by about 5:30.  I let hubby nap while I finished up this month?s Runner?s World. I particularly enjoyed the excerpt from ?Once a Runner? and am looking forward to reading the book.

While we were in San Francisco I tried to avoid obvious tourist restaurants, but this time I decided to embrace my inner tourist and try dinner on the Santa Cruz Wharf at Olito?s. It was nearly as loud as our disastrous dinner in North Beach, but at least the meal cost less and we didn?t have drunken beer drinkers hovering over us.  We walked back to our room and went to bed, like the old fogies we are.

Saturday we planned to have a big carb-filled breakfast instead of the traditional night-before-the-race pasta dinner.  I found Zachary?s on Yelp.com as one of the best bets for breakfast in Santa Cruz, so we walked for about 20 minutes to downtown.  Luckily the wait was not long, and we were soon enjoying our carb-load. Hubby had ?Mike?s Mess? and a Guinness, and I had the sourdough pancake with eggs & chicken apple sausage. We also ordered a side of jalapeno cornbread to try.  Hubby was a bit disappointed due to the large size of mushrooms and the large quantity of potatoes (apparently he was not totally on board with the carb loading plan) in his meal, but I thoroughly enjoyed my meal, and the free-trade coffee was quite good too.

We spent the rest of the morning/early afternoon exploring downtown, really enjoying Logos book/music store.  It specializes in used books and music, with lots of other obscure new books as well.  Hubby picked out a couple of gems, and I got a lovely book of crochet stitches that really inspired me to think about taking it up again.

After walking back to our room, we took a nice long nap(it?s so nice to just relax!)  With the Boardwalk just a couple of blocks away, we headed over to find a snack.  It was very crowded with all the folks from over the hill looking to keep cool at the beach for the day.  I felt no desire at all to fight the crowds to get on any rides, so hubby and I each enjoyed a chocolate dipped ice cream cone while we walked up along the ocean to the lighthouse to check out the first section of the race course and watch the surfers.  This was pretty entertaining, and we also were lucky enough to see a whale.

For dinner we planned to eat light to avoid anything bulky in our systems for race day.  We spotted a Jamba Juice in downtown, so we walked (again!) over there and had their breakfast style smoothies (fruit, yogurt, & soymilk).  We had hoped to hit up the cookie store I noticed earlier for another sweet treat, but it was either closed or we missed it while walking by.  So that ended another exciting night in Santa Cruz.

Our room was very quiet, and I didn?t have the nerves that kept me awake pre-race in San Francisco. I slept like a baby.  Got up at 6am to coffee up and eat a banana and do some bathroom business.  After a bit of a tussle with the room?s coffee maker and a slight panic at the thought of a coffee-free run, I was ultimately successful with all my pre-race routine.  Hubby and I were quite pleased to leave the room just about 15  minutes prior to race start and walk past all the traffic heading in to the parking lots.  I wore my pink Asics racer back top and new compression shorts, and was immediately patting myself on the back, because even before 8 am, it was comfortable shorts weather.  There were lots of people in long sleeves and long pants, don?t they check the weather report?

Hubby and I tsk-tsked as we passed the porta-potty lines, then I took my place mid pack and waved good-bye to him as we started the race(the 10K started 15 minutes after the half). There is a pretty steep but short hill at the beginning, so I used it to keep my pace controlled at the start, hitting 10:20 for the first mile.  Then I let myself get carried along more,doing approximately 9 minute miles for mile 2 and 3 (I can only approximate,because I am Garmin-challenged, and my Nike + sensor died just a few days before the race?horrors!).  A bit past mile 3 is a pretty good hill into UC Santa Cruz, so that slowed me a bit, but then it was onto a rather narrow trail (with horse poop!) that rolled up and down pretty good.  My strategy with hills is to slow going up, then make up the time by flying down.  I know that this is tough on the quads, but for this kind of distance it has not been a problem for me. 

For this middle section of the race, I settled back down to more of my target pace of 9:40 ? 9:50, though I might have been able to go faster on a wider roadway with more space to pass other runners.  As we entered Wilder Ranch State Park at about 45 minutes in, the first of the speedy men were headed back, and I spotted the first woman at about 49 minutes. Since hubby was doing the 10K with a later start, I had asked him to tell me how it felt as the speedy runners pass by, do they ?whoosh??  They always start in the front, and are always turning around and coming towards me, so I have never been passed up by someone seriously faster than me.  These are the silly things I think about anyway.

The course in Wilder Ranch follows a trail along the ocean-side cliffs, for amazing views and about 5 degrees cooler weather, and both were much appreciated.  This was my favorite part of the race, but I lost some time here.  After I exited the park and passed the mile 9 marker, I found my overall pace had slowed below 10 minute miles. I felt good, so I picked up the pace to try to make up some time in the last three miles.  I think the down hills were more in my favor for the return, because my overall pace fell below 10 minutes:

Half Marathon time: 2:08:30

Overall pace:                9:49

Overall finish:                1185 of 2608

40 something women: 134 of 362

Hubby was looking at the 10K race clock, so he wasn?t expecting me at the finish line when I arrived.  So he didn?t get to see that I was expecting that sandy finish this year and powered through, even though two guys blew by me. 

The food was only OK, especially since I don?t care for bagels, which were the only carb source available besides fruit.   We picked up our t-shirts, disappointed that they were not technical shirts like last year.  We had arranged for a late checkout in order to shower and change before our now traditional post-half marathon trip to Cheesecake Factory.

I had been looking forward to this lunch for a couple of months; it helped keep me motivated through some tough training days.  I encouraged our boys to drive over to meet us (they had never been) so we made it a nice family Sunday outing.  Since portions are so large, I ate half my meal to save room for half my piece of Adam?s Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple cheesecake, and savored every bite while making up for my 1300 calories burned that morning.  This is not the only reason, or even the most important reason I run, but it is definitely in the top 10.

I was not nearly as sore after this race as I was for my first half marathon last year.  I did experience some DOMS in the couple of days following, especially in the quads(no surprise there).  I also think that my cross training (especially the stationary bike) helped to strengthen my quads and core, which really contributed to my ability to stay strong on all the hills.  All in all, I?m quite pleased with how I did.  I think that the warmer weather and crowded trails slowed me a bit, and with better race conditions I might have gone even faster than my goal pace.  I would hope that the race organizers don?t let the field get any larger than this year, as the course seemed pretty near capacity on the trail sections and water stations.  I will definitely run this one next year, since it?s so close and so scenic.