Napa Valley Marathon - Run

My brother and I started out together, and ran the first mile or two together. About the end of the first mile, I started to warm up, and I got tired of hearing the poncho rattling in the wind so I ditched it. I completed the first mile in 9 minutes, 45 seconds, and everything felt really good. The pace felt sustainable, and my breathing was perfect. About the second mile my brother pulled in front of me (as I expected him to) and within 10 minutes he was out of sight. Good, I thought to myself, now I can just run my race, and if he blows up at the end fine, I’ll outsprint him to the finish. If not, at least I do not have to worry about him coming up behind me.

Miles 2 through 13 were perfect. I held my 10 minute pace plus or minus 15 seconds per mile, took a gel about every 40 minutes or so, snuck in a fig Newton or a gummy bear every once in a while, with sips of accelerade in between. The rest stations had Gatorade and water, and I tried to alternate between the two or mix them if I had both available. At the half way point, I remember looking at my watch and my time was 2 hours, 6 minutes. I remember thinking, wow, I’m four minutes ahead of my goal time. This is going to be easy!!!

About mile 13.1, I hit an uphill section. I struggled a little bit going up this, and walked just a bit at the crest to keep my heart rate in check. By mile 14 I had lost a minute of my “banked time”. Every mile after that, it seems that I lost about 30 seconds or so (my mile times increased to about 10 minutes, 30 seconds).

Mile 18 was a short but fairly steep uphill. About this point is when I realized that this was not going to be quite as easy as I had earlier thought. This is when I met up with a nice Irish gentleman, from San Francisco. We ran together for a couple of miles, and it was nice having a little conversation to distract ourselves from the wind, rain, and all the small little leg and ankle issues that were starting to become more significant.

At mile 20, I picked up my bag that I had stashed. I wolfed down the banana, and starting working on the Red Bull. About mile 20.5, the course begin a long, fairly steep downhill. This is when things started to get difficult, and I remember trying to take small, careful steps to keep from hurting myself going downhill.

I went through an aid station somewhere around mile 21. Lots of little kids handing out drinks, which I politely declined. One of the kids, about 12 years old said “he doesn’t need this stuff, he has a Red Bull, and Red Bull Gives You Wings!!!”. Who says marketing doesn’t work on kids????

About mile 22 the course flattened out, but the damage was already done. My legs felt like lead, and pretty much everything hurt – from the bottoms of my feet, to my ankles, to my knees, to my quads and hips. I remember thinking to myself “going slower will not make this route any shorter” and trying to encourage my feet to turnover faster (to no avail).

I was now trying to run in between the mile markers, and then walk for a minute or so at each marker to try to recover a little bit. God, it seems that those miles took a long time to click off.

At mile 24, I knew that nothing short of being run over by a bus was going to keep me from finishing, which was a great mental boost. I remember thinking, this is only two miles, you can do that in less than 16 minutes. That “boost” lasted for about 5 minutes, when I found myself walking again. About that point, I remember thinking, Hmmm, I have this cotton-mouth thing going on. Is that a sign of dehydration, or a sign of too much water (hyponatremia). I couldn’t remember which malady it was a symptom for, but it gave me something different to think about for a mile or two.

Mile 25, I remember thinking, OK, only 1.2 miles left, let’s run the entire distance. Again, that lasted about 5 minutes, when my legs and my mind gave in to the walking demons. Finally, I could start to hear the announcer and the crowds at the finish line, and I told myself that you will not walk until you get to the finish line. I sucked it up, concentrated on just putting one foot in front of the other, and tried to block out the other issues. My left ankle was now on fire with every step, and every joint from my hips down was screaming at me to stop. I reached the 26-mile point, and finally knew that I could run the rest of the way. While I did not even pretend to sprint the finish, I did try to regain a little bit of composure, and try to look like I was not in as much pain as I was. Just before the chute, I saw my wife and son, which was a great uplift, and then into the chute. A nice lady took my arm, and walked with me for 20 or 30 feet, asking me lots of questions. I guess she was a “catcher” to make sure that the runners were OK before releasing them. I seemed to have confused her a little when she asked me where I was from – I told her Chico, because no one knows where Durham is. Of course, my race number said Durham. After a quizzical look, I guess she figured that I was geographically challenged, but capable of not falling down so she led me over the medal girls. They put the medal around my neck, wrapped me up in a space blanket, and headed me down the chute, to the waiting family, bathrooms, showers and food.

I met up with my wife and son, she was in tears, and I was pretty close to it. I really couldn’t talk – I was very choked up with emotions at what I (and the other 1400 runners) had just accomplished. Seeing all the race supporters, yelling support for total strangers, seeing runners using every ounce of reserve strength they owned to cross that finish line, was absolutely incredible.

Now, I am looking forward to resting for a few days, and then gradually starting some easy workouts – as I build up for the summer racing season. My next adventure will likely be some variation of the Chico Wildflower (Bike Ride), and then the Lake Oroville Triathlon coming up on May 13th.










I ran about the best race I could have expected to run, given my level of training. My fueling, drinking, and race day execution were flawless. Only huge issue was not enough hill training, and I simply did not have enough time (especially with my ankle injury) to get that in. I missed a 24 mile run and a 14 mile hill run because of the injury.

The school campus where we were at was a surreal sight – literally hundreds of beat-up, wet and exhausted runners with silver space blankets wandering around in an almost zombie-like state, with that unmistakable “I have just run a marathon and can not move my legs” shuffle. I did my own shuffle over to the cafeteria, and picked up some soup and a roll. I met up with my Irish friend, and congratulated each other on finishing. I found an empty picnic table and I attempted to sit down so I could stretch – and found that I could not sit down. I finally had to have my son move next to me, so that I could hold on to his shoulder, and let myself down with my arms, rather than my quads (which were done for the day). After some stretching, a second cup of soup and a shower we headed back to the car. That 100 yard walk to the car seem like an eternity, but eventually I got there – and wrestled myself in using my upper body.

The trip home was pretty uneventful. Our first stop was a Jamba Juice, where we had smoothies and sourdough pretzels (yummy). Then we stopped again in Williams, for a Subway Sandwich. We made it home by about 3:00 or so, I took a short nap, then my wife made us a wonderful steak dinner. By 8:00 or so it was lights out, and I slept better than I have slept in a long, long time.



I needed additional long runs and especially long hill runs - everything thing else was good.


This is the largest race I have participated in (approximatly 2,000 runners). The organizers did a great job, on everything from the Expo to the finish line, they thought of everything. The CHP did a fantastic job of traffic control, and everything (as far as I could see) went off without a hitch (in spite of the nasty weather).