Glad the 2013 race season is finally over!

Judging by the tardiness of this blog post, you can tell how enthusiastic I was to write about my last couple of races in 2013. After coming off the high of the Chicago Marathon (which I recapped eons ago in my last blog post), I completely fizzled and had ZERO desire to train for the California International Marathon (CIM). Put a fork in me, I was DONE! I'm not sure if I had such a letdown because the Chicago Marathon was a such a cool experience or if it was simply because I was just plain tired from all the racing during the year. Either way, the last thing I wanted to do was run another marathon!

Anyways, I had 8 weeks in between marathons. It took me a whole week before I did any sort of running again and it involved some light jogging and lots of cowbell ringing as I cheered my wife, family, and friends on at the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco. After that, it took almost another week before I ran again. This pattern continued for the next couple of weeks. Not only was a I barely running, but the distances I was running were well short of what I needed.

I don't know if it was the fear of injury or not wanting to flat out embarrass myself, but I finally got in some decent long runs 2-3 weeks before CIM. One of the runs was the inaugural Berkeley (CA) Half Marathon. It was a pretty nice race, run mostly alongside the SF bay and ending up at the Golden Gate Fields race track. It was a pretty big turnout and some parts of the race course were congested, but it wasn't bad for an inaugural race! I not only got to run with friends, but I was also able to see some along the way cheering on the runners!

My friend Sang and I at the start of the Berkeley Half Marathon. This was Sang's first half marathon!

Picture taken by my friend Greg during the Berkeley Half Marathon.

This brings us to CIM. The experience could be described in one word: FREEZING! Northern California was having unseasonably cold weather at the time and on race morning, it was only in the upper-20's! Figuring out what to wear was an issue since I didn't want to overheat if the weather warmed up a bit. I wore a long sleeve tech shirt with another sleeveless tech shirt over it, along with a Halo beanie, gloves, shorts, and compression socks, but it wasn't nearly enough. Even with the sun out, it didn't get much warmer and stayed frigid throughout the race! In fact, with the wind whipping near the finish, it seemed just as cold as the start! I saw runners finishing the race with their pre-race garbage bags still on! 

Moving past the weather, the race itself was pretty nice. The race is point-to-point from Folsom down to the state capitol in Sacramento. CIM markets this as a fast, net-downhill race, but there are a good number of rolling hills along the way. Nothing killer, but not exactly flat either. As you make your way through the various Sacramento 'burbs, you get decent crowd support and a good amount of aid stations and porta potties. Oh, the freezing weather turned the first couple of aid stations into major hazards as water that spilled on the ground quickly froze and caused runner after runner to wipe out! That wasn't a pretty sight.

Going into this race, I had no expectations whatsoever since I knew I didn't adequately train. For a while though, I ran a lot better than I expected and in the back of my mind, I had this crazy thought that maybe I could even pull off a PR. I was running at a ~8:15 min/mile pace during the first half and was still feeling good after that until mile 19. That's when I started cramping up in my right calf. I had to stop every so often from that point on to stretch out my calf and walk a bit. A friendly spectator even tried massaging the knot out to no avail. That was a kind of weird, but I definitely appreciated it.

Speaking of friendly, Sacramento has some great and generous folks! Around mile 24, the patrons outside of a neighborhood bar were offering beer to runners passing by. Since I was struggling with my cramp at that point, I thought why not? Beer is nutritious, isn't it? There was a raucous cheer when I headed their way and an even louder one when I chugged down the pint of beer. The only part that was a shame was that I wish I could have savored what seemed to be a great tasting stout for a bit longer instead of shotgunning it down frat-boy style. Regardless, it helped me forget about my cramp for the next couple of minutes and actually gave me a bit of pep. Afterwards, it took a bit of investigative work to figure out which bar this was, but I'm almost positive it was the Bonn Lair. So thanks to the fine patrons of the Bonn Lair for providing one my best race experiences ever! Hooray for Sacramento! Hooray for beer!  (10 extra points to those who get my reference)

After that point, my left quad decided to join in on the action and it started cramping up at mile 25. That, in combination with the after effects of the beer I inhaled, forced me to hobble/stagger the rest of the way to the finish.

I finished with a time of 3:53:18. Not bad considering the conditions and my lack of preparation, but disappointing when I was running well for 3/4 of the race. All in all, I was glad it was finally over and my off season could commence!

My friend Jason and I trying our best not freeze at the start of CIM.

Family photo at the CA state capitol after finishing CIM. Notice all the winter attire!