Crunchy ‘Nanas

Once upon a time, there was a half-marathon in Monterey. It feels like ages ago, but it’s only been four weeks. However, that means I am four weeks deficient on the promised race report. Time to get cracking!

In a word, the race was awesome. But, I think you might be looking for more words, so I’ll continue from where I left off.

We drove down to Monterey Saturday afternoon to collect our numbers and chips and to get ourselves settled. After dropping the gear off in the motel, we headed to the aquarium to see the young white shark and the otters. The jellyfish, however, stole the show for me. Their fluidity and diversity in color and form mesmerize me. They have such grace.

Lights out, as anticipated, was around 9 am, after the girls had their fill of TV time. (They don’t have one.) I fell right to sleep. As I do when I am really, really scared the 3 alarms I have set will not go off, I woke up several times during the night. The last time was 4:54, five minutes before the alarms were due to go off, so out I tumbled, bright-eyed and ready to go. I had slept better than I thought because I didn’t even realize it had been raining all night.

The rain didn’t last past dawn and we had a beautiful day at the coast. I started the race with CaliSeaStar because it’s important to me to start with my friends. Neither of us really warmed up before-hand (bad, I know), so we took the first bit pretty chill.

The race course wound its way out and then back through a bit of Monterey before sending us into the tunnel and out onto Cannery Row. If you’ve never been cheered on by the bark of a sea lion, let me tell you, you’re missing out. It’s great!

We headed down Cannery Row and then out along the coast toward Pacific Grove. Of the two half marathons I did this year, the coastal views on this one come in tops. For sure. Sorry Bournemouth, you’ve got nothing on Monterey. The sky was clear, the ocean was vividly blue, and the atmosphere was energizing.

Can I just say thank you to all the lovely folks with cow bells and warm spirits cheering us on? You make all the difference. It would be a lonely road without people like this:

(I only wish I had taken a better picture. Can you tell I never actually stop when I take these shots from the course?)

It also totally jazzed me to hear the taiko drummers at the turn around point. That was awesome!

At about mile 11, I could totally feel the non-training kicking in. I was so ready to be done. But, thanks to our #1 support crew, I had apples to see me through the last couple miles. I could have had more if I’d stopped– bananas, mangoes, gummy bears, but I get pretty focused when I run and just want to keep pushing on. Or maybe my mind turns to mush. I didn’t even remember the gummy bears.

I heard the sirens just as I came back onto Cannery Row, and saw a man collapsed just after Mile 12. I get a little emotional during long races anyway, especially towards the end, because hey, it’s something to be proud of, right? But, this struck right in. My thoughts were with him, and I hope that he is now all right.

The race ended along the rec trail just before Fisherman’s Wharf. I finished in 2:05.09, which was faster than I thought I would do considering my training issues in the month leading up. My heel did not hurt the entire run. It was a success!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, 11th December 2007 at  21:19 and is filed under Race reports. You can follow responses to this entry using the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.