It’s taken me over two weeks to get to writing this, because this beautiful race was the first morning of the INTA (International Trademark Association) annual conference in San Diego, which kept me very busy meeting some of the 10,000 attendees for five days, and then visiting my college roommate before returning to NY just in time for my anniversary, and then catching up with WORK.
Culled from the INTA participants were 99 of us who ran the HM and around 35 more who ran the 5k.
We stayed in hotels near the starting line, and INTA’s local impresario and lifetime runner Larry Binderow (who had bragged about running this race countless times), with tremendous logistics by Jackie Stelling and Chris Bennett (whose name will pop up again) organized a big pasta dinner for us. And Larry rented a bus to take us the morning of the race from the Courtyard by Marriot to the race —- and then back again after the race!
Loose self-seeding put me behind the 1:55 hour pacer, but I was hoping to break 1:50. (My 25k winter race pace would result in 1:48, but my Sleepy Hollow Half Marathon was 1:55…). Weather is perfect: 59 Degrees and cloudy (so I wore my hat backwards, despite knowing it’s not a great look on me…)
Though it would be nice to run with the INTA folks, I knew that I had to settle into my own pace and initially dropped my friends — except for Santosh Singh, who passed me around Mile 2, flying past in in his yellow visor never to be seen again… (finishing in 1:44). I keep checking in: is my effort a 4 or 5 out of 10? Everything is pretty flat and beautiful until the long descent before The Hill starting at Mile 6.
I’m panting, and slow down on The Hill to 12 min/mile before getting my groove, and about halfway up I’m joined by Matt Allen (UK) from INTA (whom I didn’t know, but who is wearing the same shirt, which served its purpose of team recognition). Matt and I get each other up and over the series of crests (“the hill just wouldn’t stop!”) without slowing and we average a stunning 8:59 min/mile. Starting the flatter/downhill section, I take a gel, and realize that young Matt is no longer panting and I say “I’ll let you go”, because I’m running MY race, and he goes off into the sunrise, as it were.
The downhills keep on coming, and it is thrilling and I realize I’m having fun but still worried: will pounding downhill lead to calf cramps I had at my last HM in March? Will the aching quads give out in some way? So I go as fast as comfortable rather than pushing as fast as possible… And yes, it’s beautiful, until we get to the Second Hill, another mile or so of up up up, and now I’m painfully going as fast as I can, and I manage to pass Chris Bennett. And then another downhill stretch towards the park by the shore and the Finish LIne is finally here!
And I didn’t even see that Chris passed me.
Bottom line: 1:49:56, just over two minutes faster than Coach Steve predicted (which is my litmus test of success, because he’s awfully good with numbers) and I’m honored to lose to Chris by only 8 seconds. 7/74 AG, 539/4,458 OA. And stunning results by other INTA runners, especially Viviana Erejomovich of Argentina (1:44, 1st in AG), Jerry Walder (UK, 1:34), Eduardo Miravete (Mexico, 1:28, 1st in AG) and Paul Ward-Hutton (Australia, 1:27, 3rd for AG). A beautiful, brutal experience – but for all the complaints about those uphills, the downhills were glorious.
And now… onto the Western Massachusetts 70.3 (that is, a Half Ironman) — on June 8!