Still running

In case you are wondering—yes, I'm still running! I took the week off after the Honolulu Marathon, but after that went back to my schedule of running for about 30 minutes twice during the week, and then doing one longer run on Sunday. Last Sunday I ran about seven miles, and today about nine. I have to estimate how far I'm running by the time it takes—no more nicely measured and laid out courses. But I'm still enjoying running in Golden Gate Park.

My goal now is to run in the SF Chronicle Marathon in July. I'm hoping to cut at least a half an hour off my previous time, so I'm training at a 3:2 run/walk ratio (three minutes running, two minutes walking), instead of the 2:2 I trained at for Honolulu. So far so good!

And, in case you're wondering, the AIDS Marathon will continue accepting donations in support of runners until March 15, 2002, so it's not too late to kick in a few bucks and help people living with AIDS in the Bay Area.

The Day After

The big advantage, I found, to paying $10 in advance to have your Finisher Certificate laminated is that you don't have to stand in a long, long line to pick it up the day after the race. You get to go up to a table behind the main tent and get it without waiting. Here's mine, along with my Finisher medal and shell lei. You can see that my official time is 6:57:02. I finished 15589th out of 19217 total finishers, and, thanks to the mixup that got me entered as a male, I find that I'm 9429th out of 10632 males in the race. :)

I feel really good today, especially considering how totally exhausted I was at the end of the race. Besides the six months of training, I attribute it to sponging down my legs with ice water at all the water stops. It made my legs feel much better during the race, and I think it helped keep down the swelling and soreness after the race, too.

Now I can spend my last two days in Hawaii purely as a tourist. Today, I visited the Waikiki Aquarium, and tomorrow I'll go to Pearl Harbor. Then Wednesday it's back home, with great memories, strong legs, and the good feeling of knowing I've helped raise a lot of money for a good cause. Thanks to all my wonderful supporters!

Marathon Day!

The race begins with fireworks just before 5 am.

The first hour and a half of the race is run in the dark, through downtown Waikiki.

We run along the side of Diamond Head. After a few morning showers, the day becomes warm and bright with high puffy clouds.

I pose at the end of the race with my Finisher's T-Shirt, shell lei and Finisher's Medal. I won't get my official time until tomorrow, but according to my stopwatch, I finished in about 6 hours, 57 minutes. I'm thrilled to have finished in just under seven hours! I'm tired and sore and sunburned, but very happy. I had a great time!

Waikiki

This is the view from the lanai of my hotel room at the Sheraton Waikiki in Honolulu. I arrived here Wednesday afternoon after a looooong day of travel. Getting up at 5 am for an 8:40 am flight is just, well, awfully early in the morning. However, I keep reminding myself that on Sunday, the Marathon will be starting at 5 am, and I'll be getting up at something like 2 or 3 in the morning to get there on time. And then, running/walking for 26 miles. Someone remind me why I'm doing this? Just kidding. I remember why: All the parts of San Francisco I've seen that I'd never seen before. New friends. A resting heart rate of 62 beats per minute. And over $3.6 million raised (so far! still not too late to donate!) in the Bay Area for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

Crossing the finish line

Here's a photo of me crossing the "finish line" of our 26-mile training run. That's me in the blue shirt, third from the left. Twenty-six miles and I'm still smiling!

We were scheduled to run eight miles last weekend, but it was Thanksgiving and I was out of town, so I just took the week off. Came back feeling strong and ready to go again! This weekend we have another eight-mile run, and then next week—Hawaii!

Twenty-six miles!

I ran twenty-six miles today! Well, technically, I ran and walked twenty-six miles. Our run/walk ratio for these longest training runs has been one minute running/two minutes walking. But anyway. I traveled on my feet for twenty-six miles! It took about eight hours altogether—supposedly we will be able to do the actual marathon in about an hour less, but either way, at least I know I can do it! It was a good run, taking in many of the sights of previous runs—the Cliff House and Sutro Heights Park, Great Highway, Lake Merced, and numerous loops within Golden Gate Park. I actually felt better for the last eight miles or so than I did at the end of the twenty-three mile run.

Now we have two more short runs of eight miles each (I continue to be amazed that I have reached the point where I consider eight miles a short run). And then, Hawaii!

Twenty-three miles

Twenty-three miles! Today's long run went down Sunset to Lake Merced, around the lake to Fort Funston, down to the beach for a few short steps then back up the Great Highway to Golden Gate Park. We then took a meandering route through the park and back to the Windmill, where the group ahead of us stood to cheer us on to the finish line. It took six and three-quarter hours to complete the run—we started at around 8:30 am and finished at 3:45 pm. Whew! That was a long day. My legs were very tired and sore by the time I was done, but otherwise I felt good. And hungry! Fortunately, our intrepid water volunteers also provided us with jelly beans and pretzels along the last few miles of our run to keep us fueled to the end.

Last week's ten-mile run, which I forgot to write about, was one of our most scenic yet. We ran up the Great Highway to Point Lobos, along Camino Del Mar through the woods, along Baker Beach, through Sea Cliff and the Presidio to the Golden Gate Bridge and back. It was a beautiful trip, but not an easy one, with lots of hills and and running on sand.

And it was also the day of the Goo Disaster. I'd had one goo packet left over after the previous run and just left it in my pack all week. Unbeknownst to me, the packet sprung a leak somewhere along the way, which I didn't notice until I was on the bus on the way to the run. Sticky sugar goop all over everything. And, to make matters worse, I thought I'd thrown away the leaky packet, but around mile five I discovered that I'd thrown away the wrong one, and the leaky packet was still in my pack, oozing goo all over my tee-shirt and my jacket. Finally got rid of the leaky packet, washed out my pack, and went on my way, but by that time, of course, I was already a sticky gooey mess. So it was the day I ran to the Golden Gate Bridge, covered in sugar.

New shoes

I have new shoes! Yay! After four and a half months of training, our coach suggested that it's time to think about new shoes, since the old ones are probably wearing out by now, and we'll want a new pair broken in in time for the marathon in December. This time, I made sure I had plenty of room for my big fat toes, and my feet were very happy all through the run.

Today's run was a lot of fun. For one thing, San Francisco has been having one of its occasional late summer/early fall heat waves, and the weather was clear and beautiful and hot—probably around 90 degrees. Now, some people would say that was too hot to run comfortably, but I like heat and enjoyed running with the sun beating down.

The other really nice thing was our route—we got to run through Fort Funston today, the site of several old World War I batteries on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Today, it's a recreation area, full of trails where people walk their dogs and go hang gliding, with great views both of the ocean to the west and Lake Merced and the city skyline to the east. Yet another of the city's attractions that I've never been to before! I thoroughly enjoyed discovering it.

After the run, I did something our coaches have been recommending that I haven't yet tried— walked out to the ocean and soaked my feet and legs in the cold surf. It felt great, especially on a hot day like today, and it really does help your legs recover faster from a long run!

Twenty miles

Woo hoo! Twenty miles! I've got to admit, I was worried about this one. My hip is still not one hundred percent, and after having to miss the eighteen-mile run, I wasn't sure how well I'd be able to manage. But I did it, and it wasn't really all that bad, considering! My legs got very, very tired and sore by the time it was over, and my hip did ache some along the way, but otherwise I felt good and didn't even collapse when I got home.

I'm definitely thinking it's time for some new shoes. My hi-tech re-engineered shoes have covered a lot of miles, and I think my feet are starting to feel the wear. Besides, I'll want to have a new pair broken in by the time of the marathon. Which is only two months away now!

Nine miles

Well, I'm back on track—I did the nine mile run on Sunday. My hip was pretty sore by the time I was done, but I put ice on it when I got home and, while it hasn't stopped hurting entirely, it's at least no worse than it was. So I'm crossing my fingers, doing the stretches my coach showed me, and planning to do the twenty mile run this weekend. I will probably drop back and run with the next slower group, just to make sure I don't push myself.

My hip may have been hurting, but I looked good! I finally went to the Sports Basement and bought myself a couple of cool running outfits to wear. That's 'cool' as in CoolMax, a special material designed to keep you dry and cool while you exercise. I also bought a runner's watch, for timing my walk/run intervals and splits, and stocked up on goo for the long runs. So I'm ready to go! Hawaii, here I come!

No eighteen mile run :(

For the first time, I was unable to make one of the long runs. After the last run of eight miles, my left hip was really sore. It was feeling a little better by Wednesday, so I thought I'd try a short half-hour run, and ended up making it really, really sore. I stayed off it all the rest of the week, hoping to be well enough for the long run on Sunday, but it still felt too painful to try to run for eighteen miles. I considered walking the whole course, or just running part way, but I knew if I showed up at all, I was going to end up running. Very reluctantly, I decided to stay home and let it rest.

I've done my midweek runs this week, and while I still have some aches in my hip, I think I'll be fine to do this week's run, especially since it's a shorter recovery run of nine miles. This has been a setback, but I'm determined not to let it prevent me from completing my training and running in the Honolulu Marathon.

Eight miles

Before our run this week, we all joined hands in a big circle while our coach said a few words about this week's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, offering condolences to anyone who'd lost family or friends. He told us that as marathoners running to help people with AIDS, we are Strong, Caring, and Healing people, which is what the country needs now. Then, after a moment of silence, we set out for our eight-mile run. It's been a difficult and unhappy week, so I was glad to have a shorter run.

Our route was up the Great Highway past the Cliff House, along a trail by the golf course to the Palace of the Legion of Honor and back, through Sutro Heights Park, then down the Great Highway along the ocean side. It was supposed to be a recovery run, but between some serious hills and running through sand, it was tough for a short run! But it was a good run, and I'm glad to be another week further along toward my goal.

Sixteen miles

Sweet sixteen! This week's run went really well. In fact, I felt better after this run than I have after any of the other long runs so far. Was it the quart of Gatorade I drank the day before the run? The reasonably good night's sleep I got that night? Is my body finally adjusting to running long distances? Or was it just chance—a really good day? Whatever, I'm feeling very recharged and enthused about my training, especially after such a rough long run last time.

Seven miles

Today, we ran seven miles. It was one of our recovery runs, and it seemed to zip by in a quick hour and forty-five minutes. We ran through Golden Gate Park in the fog, and the worst problem I had was that my glasses kept fogging up.

Last week was a milestone—fourteen miles, over half a marathon! We ran down the Great Highway a mile or so and back, then up Martin Luther King Drive to Sunset, all the way down Sunset to Lake Merced, around Lake Merced and back. Whew! While I felt pretty good during the run, I went home afterwards and collapsed, stiff and exhausted and sick to my stomach, and didn't stir from my bed until early evening. This week I heard a lot of other people say that 14 was really hard for them, so I feel a bit better about having such a difficult day. Misery loves company! Next week, 16 miles—we'll see how that goes!

My fundraising is also just about at the halfway mark. Time to start sending reminders to everyone who meant to donate, but just hasn't quite gotten around to it yet.... But I'm really thrilled that so many people have been willing to help so far.

Six miles

This week was one of our recovery runs—a mere six miles! We ran a different route this time, up the Great Highway past the Cliff House (whew—quite a steep hill compared to the smaller inclines we're used to), up the trails past the ruins of the Sutro Baths, through Sutro Heights Park, and then on down the Great Highway to finish. We had some great ocean views through the trees along the trails, but it was a bit confusing to try to find the right direction, especially since our pace group leader didn't show and no one in our group attended the pre-run meeting to learn the route. But all in all, it was a good run.

I've been slacking off a bit on my midweek runs. I've been walking to a consulting job downtown, which takes about 50 minutes, and telling myself that's enough. But lately the long runs have been getting harder, and I decided I need to do some actual running during the week. So this morning, it was back to the Panhandle for 45 minutes of running and walking. I was surprised by how good it felt. Anything less than an hour seems quick and easy these days. I'm hoping it will make the upcoming 14 mile run go by a little easier.

Twelve miles

I was out of town this weekend and couldn't make it to the group run on Sunday. So I did my weekly long run on my own today. We were supposed to do twelve miles. I studied my map and decided that if I ran from my place to the Panhandle, all the way through Golden Gate Park to the ocean and back, it would be somewhere around eleven or twelve miles. Close enough.

I headed out at around 10:30 this morning, thinking it was a much more civilized hour to be running than the usual 8 am. Somehow, although we've done as much as ten miles through the park on our various runs, the thought of running all the way from one end of the park to the other and back seemed like quite an undertaking. But I made it to the ocean by 11:50 am, ten minutes ahead of schedule. No, I don't think I was running extra fast today—I think it wasn't really quite as far as I'd thought. In fact, by the time I got back to the east end of the Panhandle, it was only 1:10, so I decided to backtrack a few blocks to get in another twenty minutes.

For once, I got home feeling fine and didn't need an afternoon nap. Looks like the sleepiness is only because I generally do my long Sunday runs on four to five hours of sleep, not because the running wears me out!

Five miles

This week was a recovery week, meaning we ran only five miles. Only five miles! From now on, we will increase our mileage every other week, and in between will do shorter recovery runs. Our route took us through Golden Gate Park by the bison paddock, past the duck pond, around Stowe Lake, and along some horse trails. Very scenic.

The marathon we will be running is the Honolulu Marathon, on December 9. Visit their website for a virtual tour of the race course! Over 25,000 people from all over the world ran in the 2000 Honolulu Marathon. The current men's course record of 2:11:43 is held by Ibrahim Hussein of Kenya, and the women's record of 2:28:33 is held by Lyubov Morgunova of Russia. No, I don't plan on setting any new records. I'll probably be just about hitting mile eight when the winner crosses the finish line....

Ten miles

Double digits! This week we ran ten miles. Whew. It was kind of a rough one for me this time. I had a bit of a stomach ache (possibly from eating too much sugar goop too soon) and a pain in my right hip by the time I was done. But I made it through, and recuperated just fine by the next day. Some runs are going to be harder than others. At least my right foot has stopped giving me trouble! Getting rid of the hard thingie on my shoe seems to have done the trick!

Last week I forgot to update! It was nine miles and it went very well. As I was passing the seven mile marker, it occurred to me that I used to think that it would be fun to run the Bay to Breakers, San Francisco's annual race/costume party/rite of spring, but that seven miles was just too far! And here I'd just passed seven miles and had two more miles to go. I could run a Bay to Breakers! It would probably be the world's slowest time, but hey! I could run it. Already thinking of plans for next year....

Eight miles

My expensive and high-tech running shoes with their swirls of leather, mesh, and plastic, glowy things and fiddly bits, fit my left foot perfectly. But the right shoe presses on the bone at the base of my little toe, making it very sore after a long run. I've tried loosening the laces on that shoe until the shoe practically falls off, and still it rubs that slightly protruding bone. And the longer our weekend runs have gotten, the worse the pain in my poor foot. After our latest run of eight(!) miles, I decided something must be done.

On the sides of my shoes are sewn four small vaguely arrowhead-shaped pieces of hard plastic stuff. What they're there for, I don't know, but one of them just happens to be right over the poor bone that's always getting smooshed. It has occurred to me that removing this hard thingie might relieve the pressure on the bone, but I've been reluctant to do it because, well, who knows what would happen? These are not mere shoes, they're exotic engineering marvels. My shoe might explode or fall suddenly to pieces or something. After all, that piece of plastic might have some vast unknown purpose, besides rubbing on my toe bone.

Still, whatever its purpose, if it's going to make my foot hurt, well, it has to go. So this morning I braved the unknown and cut the plastic thingie off my shoe. I haven't gone running in it yet, but I did try it on afterwards and it felt much better. And it didn't explode. So I'm hopeful that the shoe problem is solved.

Seven miles

Today is the San Francisco Chronicle Marathon. For once, I thought of the marathon not as something to be avoided because it ties up traffic and who are all these crazy people running 26 miles anyway, but as something I'm going to do myself one day.

It was also the reason I did my group run on Saturday this week instead of Sunday as usual. Since the Chronicle Marathon also runs in Golden Gate Park, and many of our coaches were running in it, we were encouraged to do our group run at another time or place. The Saturday group was quite lively, especially with its ranks swollen by the extra Sunday runners. Our route was through the park, up Martin Luther King Drive, around Stowe Lake, and back. We ran either seven, seven-and-a-half, or eight miles, depending on whom you believe. (An observer told us that a volunteer accidentally sent us around the lake twice, adding either half a mile or a mile to our scheduled seven-mile run.) Whatever our actual mileage, we had a great time on our run, cheering and encouraging everyone we passed, whether they were part of the AIDS Marathon Training or not. Some of them cheered back. Others were merely perplexed.

This week we were encouraged to bring some sort of food to eat along the way, since our runs are getting long enough that maintaining blood sugar and energy levels begins to be a problem. I ate a pack of GU, which is basically a jelly-like hit of pure sugar, with a bit of caffeine added for good measure. I was not anticipating enjoying the stuff, but I found it strangely satisfying under the circumstances.

Six miles

Today, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep. I got up at quarter to six, knowing there was no point in lying in bed awake any longer. I wasted as much time as I could getting ready, but I ended up leaving early and catching the Point Lobos bus instead of the Ocean Beach bus (which terminates about eight blocks closer to our gathering place in Golden Gate Park), and arriving at 48th Avenue and Point Lobos at 7:30 am—a full half hour early for the morning run.

Since I had some extra time, I decided to wander through the little park at the end of the bus line. Whoa! What from the back side looked like a pleasant little plot of grass and trees and trails, from the ocean side turned out to be a stunningly gorgeous cliff-top overlook of the ocean. I stood in the bright morning fresh air looking out on the breaking waves, thinking how lucky I was to stumble onto such a beautiful scene.

That delightful little spot, I discovered on my way out, is Sutro Heights Park. I'm very happy to have found it.

The run itself went really well today. We ran six miles—four and a half miles along the Great Highway, and then another mile and a half within the park along Martin Luther King Drive. Six miles! Another mile closer to the goal.

Five miles

It was inevitable that there would be days when I'd stay up too late and do too much the night before, and 6:00 am Sunday morning would come way too early. This was one of them. I managed to get up and to the park on time anyway, and despite the cold weather and the sleepiness got in a good run. Five miles down the Great Highway and back -- it's amazing to me that in just a few weeks I've already gotten to the point where five miles doesn't seem that far to run.

We run in pace groups named after famous marathoners. Ours is Christine Clark. When we all admitted that we'd never heard of her, we were given the "assignment" to make up all the silly and outrageous stories we could think of for who she might be (I will only pass along one: it was suggested that Christine Clark was Rush Limbaugh's drag name), and then go home and find out who she really is. So I've been surfing the net and discovered that Christine Clark is in fact a 38-year-old pathologist and mother of two from Anchorage, Alaska, who won the 2000 U.S. Olympic Trial with a personal record of 2:33:31, and came in 19th in the marathon at the Sydney Olympics. She's also won the 1995 Seattle Marathon and the 1995, '98, and '99 Anchorage Mayor's Midnight Sun Marathon. I am suitably impressed.

Four miles

After running last Sunday in Golden Gate Park, I decided that it was much more fun to run outside than on a treadmill at the gym, so for my midweek runs this week I went to the Panhandle off of Golden Gate Park. Ah, much better! I found that I could do two complete circuits of the Panhandle in about 40 minutes (and after sitting down with a ruler and a map of the City, I figured out that it was about three miles), so that's where I'll be doing my short runs from now on.

Today's group run was four miles, and it was our first with our pace group. We ran along the Great Highway, along the ocean, from Golden Gate Park to Taraval and back. I'm finding that I tend to really hit my stride after about two miles, and from then on I'm just a running fool. Who would have thought? I've barely ever run two miles before, so how was I to know it would get easier if I just kept going?

This is turning out to be a lot more fun than I thought it would be!

Three miles

I have running shoes. I have running socks. I have a fanny pack with water bottle, and I have little packets of sweet goop to eat while running. I may not be a runner, but I have the stuff!

The training program we are following was developed by marathoner Jeff Galloway, whose purpose is for us all to finish our marathon "upright, with smiles on our faces, and wanting to do it again." That sounds like a good goal to me! The training is accomplished by means of slow, easy runs, with lots of walk breaks, gradually increasing in length each week until the full 26.2 miles is reached. We are supposed to run/walk for thirty minutes twice a week during the week, then have a longer group run on the weekend.

This morning, we met at the west end of Golden Gate Park for our first group run. Today's run was a timed three-mile run for the purpose of dividing us up into pace groups which will run together throughout the training program. I'd done my midweek runs at the gym on the treadmill, managing two miles in thirty minutes, so I figured if I finished the three miles in forty-five minutes, I'd be doing well. To my own surprise, I finished in forty minutes! Was it being outdoors in the fresh air on a beautiful Sunday morning that did it? I don't know, but it was a lot of fun, and I'm really looking forward to running with my new pace group next Sunday, when we'll do four miles.

So I'm on my way! And my fundraising is off to a good start, too—I'd like to give a hearty thanks to those of you who've sponsored me so far. I'm beginning to feel that I might actually be able to do this!

I'm running a marathon!

I have never run a marathon before in my life. In fact, I don't run at all. I walk. I work out. Okay, sometimes I use the treadmill at the gym. And I have been known to occasionally run for the bus. (Broke my foot running for the bus one time, but we won't talk about that.) Yet here I am about to begin a six-month marathon training program, with the goal of running in the 29th annual Honolulu Marathon on Sunday, December 9, 2001. I'm doing it for a number of reasons: to get in shape, to challenge myself, to shake up my life—and to raise money for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

Frankly, I'm more worried about raising the money than I am about completing the training! I'm not an outgoing person, and the thought of hitting up my friends and family for money kind of gives me the hives. But hey, that's part of the challenge. I am committed to raise at least $3000 in donations by September 5 in order to participate in the training program and marathon. And, while we're on the subject, you can make a fully tax-deductible donation to sponsor me online using this secure Donation Form and specifying Runner Number 0575. Your donations go directly to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation to support AIDS services and prevention programs in the San Francisco Bay Area, and will also be used to fund a new initiative to support vaccine preparedness and HIV treatment access in the developing world.

Living in San Francisco, I have seen the ravages of AIDS first-hand for too many years. And the epidemic is far from over. New treatments have prolonged lives and restored health for many HIV+ people, but the drugs don't work for everyone, and they're not a cure. New infections are on the rise and government funding for AIDS prevention and treatment programs is still inadequate. I hope you will consider giving whatever you can to help the SF AIDS Foundation to continue to provide its vital services. Give early, give often!

Tomorrow I'm off to buy running shoes! If you're interested in my progress as I log over 500 miles in training over the next six months, I'll be adding weekly reports to this journal.

Thanks for reading!