San Diego Rock’n’Roll Marathon

San Diego Rock'n'Roll Marathon - starting line

San Diego Rock'n'Roll Marathon - starting line

Immediate post race notes:

1). I really did not think it was going to be this hot. I reckoned the marine layer would be the same as in LA. I wore the wrong shirt, left my hat behind, and didn’t have on any sunblock. Dumb, dumber, dumberer.

2). How is it I can do a 20 mile run no problem, but on mile 10 or so of a marathon, slathered in Body Glide, my groin is dripping blood from chafing? And why did I pass up the vaseline folks the first time I say them? I figured it was like LA – they’d be there every few miles. But once I finally got to the second vaseline crew, the vaseline girl looked at the inside of my thighs with genuine concern.

3). My mental game was not really there. In LA I hurt more and dealt with it. Today, not so much.

4). The last 6 miles along a narrow bike path might work fine for the Kenyans, but not so much when you’ve got a bunch of first timers gassing out and walking. They walked in the middle. They walked 3 abreast with their friends, no consideration of runners behind them. I crashed in to a few, especially when it funneled at the end. And it was impossible to police, so the path got crowded with folks like the straight-out-of-a-John-Waters-movie dual-bra lady weaving around on her bike. It was an obstacle course.

5). I need to lose 20 lbs. I’m 6’1″, 180 lbs. I used to weigh 160. I’ve got a little middle aged spread and I’m thinking I could run a lot faster if I didn’t have to carry that 20 lbs around.

6). I thought the folks wearing their pace on their backs were pace leaders. Turns out they were just wishful thinkers. I knew I was off pace, but I was still paying attention to them, which makes me a wishful thinker, too.

7). I’m in a new age group now. When I ran LA I had one month left to go in the 45-49 crowd. Now I’m one month into the 50-54 group. That means I’m probably faster for my age group than I was a couple of months ago, even though my time was only a minute faster. Woo hoo!

8). There were bands at almost every mile. There were two musical themes: mid 90s OC “ska” band covers (I heard Sublime and No Doubt covers) and, oddly, John Fogerty (also covered twice). There was a Tex Mex band along the way. They were cool.

9). I’m kinda bummed that I only took a minute off my LA time, instead of the 30 minutes I’d planned for.

10). Given the conditions, especially the heat, the fact that I took any time at all off LA is still a pretty friggin’ big accomplishment. It wasn’t as fun as the first, but that was due to my headspace, and it was still a lot of fun. I’m gonna make note of all my mistakes. Looking forward even more to the next one.

11). In our griping, I/we miss commending, expressing our gratitude to/for, and seriously thanking the many volunteers who spent a lot more time out there on that course than I did handing out millions of cups of cytomax and water, sticks of vaseline, orange slices…I, for one, completely depend on these volunteers to run a race. I’d be truly fucked were it not for them. And then there are all the cheerleaders, mostly real honest-to-God highschool cheerleaders & pep squads with little outfits and pompoms and the whole shebang. It’s difficult not to be buoyed up a bit (or a lot) by that…So thank you all for your hard work.

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