Santa Rosa Marathon - August 25, 2013 - A Boston Qualifier

For most part of my running from 2010-12; I did not have the sense of what I could do in running. I struggled with injuries, get disheartened when I did not see much improvements after two years, and all my runs would be just workouts. There was little fun, apart from fleeting feeling of accomplishment about finishing/surviving Half Marathons or Full Marathon.. When I met Jim, my running guide in tail end of 2012; one of the things, he told me that all your runs should not be workouts. I could not understand what he meant by that, and did not ask to clarify. Running IS like doing a workout !! Probably the hardest thing, I ever did physically and mentally. Well, after a good workout, you were supposed to feel tired and muscle should be aching, and later recover to get stronger. That was what I thought.

When he told me about easy aerobic running and through many discussions, I realized that most of the runs should be easy and fun; and two workouts, at most, per week were more than enough for Master runners. Whenever in doubt, go easy, and it still helped me with overall endurance and speed. Well, this theory was further confirmed by most of the books I read on running, later. I had great year after embracing this paradigm, with 80% - 90% of mileage as easy run. I got injured couple of times, but kept running easy and slow, let go of the workout runs during recovery. In the process, not only I improved my endurance but the race pace for every distance from 1 mile to Marathon; and more importantly - I started enjoying my runs.

I broke 20 minutes in 5 K and soon after 1:30 minutes in Half Marathon; and now I had Boston Qualifying

time in Santa Rosa Marathon, finishing it in 3:23:27. All these three achievements were not even my dreams at start of the year; let alone the goals. After witnessing initial improvements, with in two months of changing my training, I just focused on process.   I never gave importance to a single event/race; as long as I was following this training and improving over a period of time, that was all that mattered. Jim mentioned that it takes around 10 years to reach your peak; initial gains might be big. Well, that was correct, and 'big' was relative term.

I brought my 5 K from 22:30 to 21:25 to 20:45 and finally to 19:27 in last 10 months; Half Marathon from 1:47:01 to 1:35:00 in Feb 2013, and then to 1:29:10 in August 2013. Before running these PRs, I did not have the confidence that I could even achieve these. It was Jim (and sometime Ken) who had to tell me that I could do that, and then I went ahead and did those, with that belief. Part of it was I raced poorly before, went too fast early (I still do that lot of time) and I raced less. Besides, mentally it was still difficult to believe that all the slow/easy running had been helping me.

 At start of year, I just had one goal, to run a Marathon under 4 hours. My last best, which was in 2012, was 4:11:13. Running Half Marathon under 90 minutes, opened up my eyes to dream about running Marathon under 3:25, a Boston Qualifying time for me.  I had traumatic experiences from last two marathons, where I crashed and cramped, and had to walk a lot in later part of the race.

Well, that did not change here either. Though I mentioned earlier that I did not give importance to one event, and tried to run my best in races, whatever best race I could do on that day; clearly that was not true for the Marathon. I still remember, vividly, nightmares from my first Marathon. And variation of those were back now, after I decided that I would run Santa Rosa Marathon 4 weeks ago.

In one nightmare, I was driving to Marathon, and wearing my office dress; changed quickly, and did a bag check. I was rushing to starting line, as race was starting soon in 5 minutes. When I looked down at my legs, I was still wearing office pants and I had one dress shoe and one running shoe on. I panicked and ran back to get my checked bag; but it was already moved to a different location; I ran to other location; and tried to talk urgently to people. However, they were discussing something about the race, i.e., that timing chip equipment was not working so they were going by gun time for this race. I had been sweating already, without taking a single step in the race. Finally, somebody heard me, they could not locate my checked bag. I was thinking to run in my underwear, trying to remember, if I have a cleaned one, but shoe conundrum had to be resolved; I was not thinking of running barefoot. I heard the gun, another 5 minutes went by, I was sweating much more and trying to remain calm. I was doing mental calculations, as how long could I wait before I give up Boston Qualifying dream in this race, may be another 10 minutes. 15 minutes passes and I woke up; drenched in sweat.

Registration to Santa Rosa Marathon did not prove easy either. This was the only local California Boston Qualifier after June and before December. I was not ready in June. Though my weekly mileage was up, I did not have over 16 miler in my long run. I decided to do 19 miler, it went very well, without much water. And then I called Santa Rosa Marathon to find out what Gatorade were they providing on water station during the race. Following weekend, I did another 19 miler, sipping on that Gatorade, making sure it worked for me. However, after that, when I went to register, it was already sold out. SOLD out for more than 6 weeks in advance !! Who are all these crazy people ? I tried to find other Marathons around this time frame, I could not. The reason I wanted to run, as I was injury free and running well for last 2 and half months. Generally, a good training period of 3 months, followed with 2-3 weeks of racing (small races) hard or running just one Half or full Marathon, end the running season; as your body needs some breather. With injury scare always at horizon, it was hard to fit in a Marathon in schedule.

Anyway, I sent them email that if something opens up, I was really interested in the Marathon; and forgot about it. After two weeks their reply came, that they opened up for registration as lot of other runners approached them with similar requests. Now there was no holding back; I was relatively confident that I would be able to run under 4 hours for Marathon. With that in mind, I register for Half Marathon on August 3, just three weeks before the Marathon, to see where it would land me on time charts for full marathon. That Half Marathon proved to be another dramatic event for me, and while running on sore calf, I promised that if I could just do sub -7  for whole race, I would not worry about the Marathon. I did achieve that goal; and with nothing more to lose, I tried to recover soon from that all-out effort. This was practically a three week taper; only thing which was missing from my training was one long continuous run 2 or 3 week before Marathon. My last 19 miler was 6 weeks ago from Marathon date. Well, not ideal training, but nothing much could be done now.

My sub-90 minutes Half Marathon was putting my ideal Marathon time at 3:10. So I thought, 3:20 would be good goal to achieve to account for weakened calf, lack of long run and hard HM three weeks ago. While checking on pacer information, there were 3, 3:15 and 3:25 pacers. Further checking race course and reading about it, it did not appear to be fast as it had been advertised. It has lots of ups and downs; as with life. Nothing much could be done here, just take this information and process it to adjust your pace.

I called to book hotel in Santa Rosa, and all the hotels in 10 mile radius were sold out. This might be when frequency of nightmares increased. I thought I would just have to drive on the day of the race. Race started at 6 AM and Santa Rosa was 2 hours away, meaning I had to wake up at 2 AM, eat something, and start driving little before 3 AM. Promila and Prem liked Santa Rosa, we had been there multiple times, to check on Charles Schulz Museum, Whole Foods. Promila liked the place, and was disappointed when she came to know that there was no hotel available. She tried, but of no help.

A day before the race, on Saturday, when I had to pick up the bib, Promila called in to find out if there were last minutes cancellations, and she got denied again; and just 5 minutes before we were leaving, she called again, and this time she got the reservation. As luck would have it, hotel was 0.5 mile away from the race start, and part of the race went through a trail which passed through the hotel. This put my mind at somewhat ease, I could sleep in for two hours more; and all the anxiety (which consciously I was not admitting) to reach at starting line melted away. Bib pick up was at beautiful DeLoach Winery. We took the tour of winery, all the runners got wine bottle. Though it was beautiful set up, I was looking at the road on which we came from, it was rolling hills. I knew this was where part of the race would be happening. I told myself, just go slow (how much slow ? relative ?) tomorrow. We took tour of winery, and where they kept barrels for wine tasting; everything looked picture perfect.

At dinner, I ate as much as I could but all healthy stuff  at Whole Foods and you would be surprised to know how much a thin runner could eat  - one Julliard vegetarian Sandwich (this was the name of park where the race started), followed by Taco salad which was topped with Spanish rice, fajita vegetables, black beans, guacamole and salsa. After finishing that, I cleaned up pizza crust and crumbs left by Prem.  We checked into hotel. We walked to start of the race, and I was further bummed to see the trail was all concrete on which we walked. I knew there was around 14 miles of that trail on the race course, and was hoping that not all of it would be concrete, as it was going to be much harder on legs. I saw two under passes with in half a mile, another sign to go as slow as possible in beginning, to save legs from all ups and downs.

Set up the alarm to wake up at 5 AM, however, kept waking up to check on it, multiple times; finally decided to wake up at 4:30 AM. Drank whatever was available in room, coconut water, water; tried to clear bowel; not much success. Finally left the room 20 minutes before the race; my throat felt extremely dry; could be the nerves; came back to room and drank another glass of water.

Jogged to the start of line in dark, and saw lot of sleeping bags on the trail. Note to self - It seemed that some of the runners, just came in night, parked and slept around the trail - good strategy. I found 3:15 pacer group; was surprised to see over 300 runners standing ahead of him. I thought that crowd would thin out after a mile or so. Ate a packet of GU Chomps; which I had tried earlier in one long run. Pacer was instructing everybody that apart from first mile, he would try to keep even splits; people can take water breaks in between and catch up with him.

My sub-90 minute Half Marathon was indicating 3:10 as my ideal Marathon. From past marathon scars, ups and downs on the current course; barely any long consistent run in last 5 week of training, weak left calf; I wanted to go super conservative. My Boston Qualifying times were 3:25; and I was thinking of doing 3:20 to account for last mile cramping etc. Not much of a wiggle room. Ken and Jim knew my problems with pacing and going too fast in beginning. So they drilled down into me; stay very slow for first 3-5 miles. To me, it translated into stay slower than 7:15 pace (which is 3:10 for whole Marathon) and I would be OK. You hear what you want to hear.

I stayed behind the 3:15 pace group; there were around 40 people in that group. And the crowd did not thin out at all for 4 miles. This was when I ran into Neil, a veteran from West Valley club. He ran an excellent HM on August 3 with me, and I was not surprised to see he was running ahead of me. I asked him what was he planning to do today; he told me that he wanted to keep under 4 hours. :-)

I could feel the moisture in the air, though pace felt like a jog to me, I had started sweating. My strategy for hydrating and calories intake was to ingest Gatorade at every aid station. I tried to do it first while running, and could not drink it while running. After first couple of aid stations, I would just stop, drink and move. Since pace seemed slow to me, I was easily able to catch up with the pace group. Day was breaking out, and sky was turning crimson red over DeLoach vineyard. I was enjoying the run and scenery. Race path went through the winery and then INSIDE through the wine cellar where I came yesterday to pick up the wine !!! One could literally pick up grapes as snack on the run or drink wine from the barrels. I completed half distance exactly at 1:37:31. At the time, I thought, I could run at this pace forever.

Ups and downs had been taking toll on my legs, but it was hard to judge if I would go all the way at that pace. Passed 18 miles, and told myself, now this was just like my 8 miles easy daily run. I felt no energy depletion, all the sugar in Gatorade was working for me. Well, that was not be the case, just before I cross the mile 19, I felt my first cramp; while going down on one of the rolling hills.

I had to walk a bit to break it, but still had a long way to go. There is some truth to the saying, 2nd Half of Marathon starts at 20 miles. After that, both my calves and hamstrings would cramp, I knew I was hydrated well; may be TOO WELL. I felt some nausea from all the Gatorade I drank, I switched to water; could not run even quarter of a mile before stopping. Walked on my heels, since I run on balls of my feet; to give my running muscles rest. My running form deteriorated, and uneven surface of trail and ups and downs; were not helping me keeping a rhythm. It was now a matter of survival. Surprisingly, there were lot of runners around me, who were doing the same dance. 3:25 goal was in danger; so just did some quick calculations, and told myself, if I could 10 min a mile for last 3 miles, I would be fine. However, there was no control on cramps/muscle spasms.

Carefully looked ahead, and tried to run all straight portion, and walk the underpasses and water stations; this strategy helped keeping mind calm. Ate banana and a gel, weather was still not hot; finally saw the finish line in sight, and ran the whole way, as fast as I could to barely make it under 3:24. Though I crashed in this race at mile 19, I liked the feeling of comfort till then and enjoyed the race. My neck, stomach, and legs were cramping. Joined Promila and Prem at finish line, tried to walk around; and drink/eat as much as I could, watermelon, oranges, coconut water; followed by Pancakes. Race coordinators had done tremendous job. Pancakes with real butter calmed me down, followed by beer and french fries. Prem asked me, if red thing on my white shirt was blood; it took me some time to acknowledge that my nipples might have bled.

Surprised to see email from Ken who knew my chip time before I did, and congratulated me. Replied back to him and Jim; who was waiting for results of this race. Both of them knew that this was a big long term goal for me, and had been guiding me and sharing their experiences. It was another matter, how much of it I was following. Their words were great help in having the self belief that it was doable. As expected, Jim scolded and mocked me for going too fast in beginning and not sticking to 7:40 pace as discussed; while admitting that he had done the same in half of his Marathons; and understood how difficult to implement the pace strategy; and good thing was that I was still able to finish under 3:25.

My mile splits were  8:04, 7:32, 7:24, 7:06, 7:09, 7:18, 7:20, 7:22, 7:21, 7:12, 7:16, 7:20, 7:25, 7:19, 7:13, 7:15, 7:21, 7:16, 7:25 (19 th mile), 7:50, 7:55, 8:38, 8:59, 8:51, 9:05, 9:21, 8:18 (last .39). My average pace for whole Marathon 7:46. 

After driving back home, I took shower to get ready for a Birthday Party. I sprayed deodorant over my shirt to kill any residual sweat smell, and it hurt like hell as I forgot all about my bleeding nipples. I could finally say that it took lot of sweat, some blood and few tears to accomplish Boston Qualifying time.