Race Report: California International Marathon - December 7, 2008

Today I ran my last marathon of the season. All I can say is...

PR BABY!!

Yep, again. After a string of lack luster performances, I have PR'd the last three races I have done. A 1/2 marathon, a 10k, and now a marathon. Hell yeah!

Time: 5:00:23

Yeah, yeah. So close to my goal of sub-5.

I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in miles 23-25. No regrets though. I did my best and got a 20 minute PR over Napa.




The day before

I met up with Julianne and her hubby at the Expo. Super cool. She is just as bubbly and friendly as her blog. She was going for a sub-4 marathon and she rocked it! We took pictures, but mine didn't come out very good. I will steal hers when she posts it :o)

I went up by myself to this one, but I have an old friend who is in law school in Sacramento and we met up for a pre race dinner.

Cool to see an old buddy!

The Pre-race

It started with a sleepless night and the horror of waking up to realize that my dirt cheap hotel room did not include a coffee maker.

Are you fucking kidding me?! No coffee maker?!

I am certain that approximately 33% of my total blood volume at any given time of day is made up of coffee. How the hell am I supposed to function without coffee? I ended up reheating the 1/2 a cup of leftovers from yesterday's thermos of coffee.

Yummy.

Whatever. At least it it kept me from a B & E charge for knocking over a Starbuck's at 3:30 am.

I hopped on the early bus to the start and then proceeded to wander around the start by myself for and hour and half freezing my ass off and feeling somewhat like a big loser. I did capture a picture of the Vaseline Angels. One guy went up to the Angels took some vaseline and proceeded to lube up the family jewels.

Right. There.

He didn't even step three feet way. God, I wish I had caught a picture of that Angel's face. It was like, " I did NOT sign up for this shit!"

Come on that shit is funny!

The Vaseline Angels of the California International Marathon.
I know at least one set of balls that was grateful they were there

The Race

The start was foggy and cold. The middle was foggy and cold. And the end was, you guessed it, foggy and cold.

There are tiny horses somewhere in that fog. No, the horses weren't actually tiny,
it is just a shitty picture.

Half way mark and a balloon arch. Pretty cool!

The runners were really friendly and talkative. There was a large group of us that ran at steady paces and we were together for many miles. This was both good and bad.

Here is an example of the bad:

In our unofficial pace group, there was one gal that was doing her first marathon with her husband. Now, some of you may think that sounds like a sweet and romantic picture. I adore my hubby, but it sounds like a little slice of hell to me and this guy validated my position by running about 10-15 feet in front of his wife and continually barking "Come on babe, keep the pace!"

What was mildly irritating at Mile 4, had me trying to figure out what I had on me that I could use to kill the mother fucker by Mile 12. (FYI: I decided I would use my car key to open his carotid artery. Yeah, I had a lot of time to think about this. Sorry for the scary window into the fragmented psyche that is RBR)

Yeah, so I decided I needed to get away from them, so I picked up the pace a little. Maybe I should thank Mr. Control Freak for the PR.

I was feeling pretty good at the half, but the asphalt was getting to me. I was ecstatic to see that I was at 2:29 at the half.

There were so many locals that came out to cheer and support the race. This race had the best crowd of any I have been at so far. There were several homespun aid stations with local businesses handing out oranges and water.


It took everything in my will power to not pick up this sweatshirt. I kept thinking about running into its owner like at the Bizz Johnson Marathon, except this time it wouldn't be about being cold it would have been because I wanted it and that seemed wrong and loser-ish.

Nothing says Christmas like a pit bull in a Santa hat!

Here is about Mile 22 where Mr. Control Freak and his betrothed passed me. Yep, there was lots of internal swearing. I didn't have it left in me to catch them. Should have killed the bastard when I had a chance.

I would love to tell you that marathon number 5 was effortless. It wasn't. The big lesson I learned is that while trail running makes any type of hill in a road marathon seem like a joke (lots of whining on the course over the very small rollers), it does NOT prepare you for the pounding of a road marathon. I am definitely comfortable with the distance, but my feet, knees, and hips were complaining by 11 miles in and killing me by 21 miles.

The course is really fast and better than I expected. I expected pancake flat and it is not. It is really rolling. Very easy ups and long gentle downs. It is a really a fast course. If you are looking to PR or qualify for Boston I recommend this course.

This smile belies the mile and a half walk back to my car AFTER the marathon. I was told it was 4 blocks. That lying son of a bitch better hope I don't see him again. Certainly not if I have my car keys.