1 mile skied, 2750 meters swam, 48 miles biked and 263.8 miles run in 2013 races
Race: America's Finest City Half Marathon
Place: San Diego, CA
Miles from home: 1087 miles
Weather: 60-70s; overcast, humid
A last minute addition to my schedule, the AFC Half was a race I ran back in 2009. Hard to believe it had been four years since I had been there but time really does fly by the older you get. Even though I was signed up to run the race I have much bigger fish to fry in the next few weeks (specifically my Dane to Davenport) so I couldn't let this make me deviate from my schedule to much.. Originally I had planned on doing something close to 18 miles on Saturday and then 15 on Sunday. So when I changed my schedule to include this race I had to figure out something else. Fortunately, my host for the week and her friends told me about their running group who were doing anything from 15-24 on Saturday morning. Perfect!
The group was very welcoming with some going for sub-3 hour marathons later this fall, some training for longer events and everyone being quite fast. I haven't run with a group in Portland yet and given my travel schedule when I lived in Salt Lake City I didn't run with my club there as much as I liked but I still remembered the camaraderie of running with people who know your story. They might not even know what you do for a living or exactly what other aspects other friends know but they have traded sweat on hard miles in bad conditions and someone knows much more about you that way than most others.
The only problem with getting a long run in on Saturday was that I needed to be at the expo shortly after 10 a.m. I was graciously invited to do a book signing out of the Moving Shoes running store booth, which I shared with running great Meb Keflezighi. Meb is a partial owner in the store and was signing his own book. We spoke very briefly and he seems as genuine and humble as he does in front of the cameras and in interviews. As I have stated before, often the faster you get, the more you realize how lucky you are to run that fast regardless of hard work and persistence.
So, while I would have liked to get a few more miles in, the 15 I was able to get was perfect. I figured a nice good paced 15 plus a hard run 13.1 the next day would make up for the small loss of total planned miles.
Of course, even though I ran those 15 miles and got next to no sleep over the days leading up to the race doesn’t mean I still wouldn’t throw logic aside and not want to run as fast as I could. Fortunately, in the race on Sunday it took me only a few miles to realize that I wasn’t going to be running that fast.
