I pondered all week if I was going to even run in the PV Half Marathon. Laura, Todd B., Bob Beachler, and I had planned last year to run it “easy,” which included walking up all the hills. As they passed me walking up the steep hill at mile 2, I figured they were going for a course record, but when I passed them, rested a few miles later, and finished 40 minutes ahead of them, I knew the key to the marathon.
Oh, but back to deciding to run the half. I figured if I woke up early enough, I would drive down and register. I arrived about an hour early, and as I made the walk from my car to the registration, I came upon Margaret Everitt and Todd Byers. I knew Todd had to throw in one or more marathons between now and his birthday, and Margaret was going to tackle another half. “Whatcha gonna race, Emmett?” asked Todd. “Well, I thought about the full, but I haven’t trained for it. Still, it’s only 5 bucks more…” “Come on,” said Todd, “it’s just a marathon…” I had been dreading planning my next marathon anyway… lucky number 13.
I weighed my options and went for the Marathon table. Geez. Am I stupid or what?
Actually, it was a very nice day, a little muggy, and I had to walk a lot. In retrospect, I should have “planned” to run the marathon by: greasing myself up a little better. Chafing takes a while to heal, trust me. As it was, I ran about 30 minutes slower than last year, but 4:11 is plenty fast for no training.
The best part of the whole day was seeing the whole AREC crew. Most of the half marathoners (Rich Satow, Elizabeth Campagna, Bob Beachler and Margaret Everitt) had stuck around to watch us finish. I took advantage of a massage to await the finish of the other AREC marathoners (Jasper Mueller, Todd B., and new guy Kevin Desmond). We picked up an additional marathoner to our crew, Katrin Troeger, a German gal, who seemed to be following Todd’s frenetic marathon pace (of 15-20 per year).
The whole group was full of Personal Bests or Top Ten age group finishes – Elizabeth and Margaret PR’ed in the Half; Rich ran his first half marathon; Elizabeth (4th, F20-24), Steve Singer (2nd, M35-39) in the half; Katrin (6th, F30-34), and me (9th, M30-34) in the full. Tim Hickok had also put in a 4th place division finish in the 5K, but wisely did not stick around to wait.
Since there was still a sizeable crew hanging around, we couldn’t end it there, so we headed over to a dive bar near Point Fermin Park, wrenched some bolted tables from the floor and took over the place! 12 AREC runners at one race! It’s almost like Jimmy Stewart!