Going into this race undertrained was a choice I made. I knew I had not trained enough, I was "hoping" that my base from last year would carry me over somewhat. So, tactically I was unsure. So, I started off the first half of the race holding an average of about 8:45-miles and felt good "holding-form" until about 15.5-mile mark. I started to noticeably strain by mile 17 trying to hold form even 9:00-9:30 miles; and I was starting to cramp in my left-quad, and starting to have some GI issues (too heavy a dinner the night before?, cold & rain?, unlucky?), but managed to continue anyway. Anyway, I was forced to reduce my pace to between 10:30-11:00 by mile 21/22, and was taking repeated walk breaks every mile after.

But, the last two miles are lined with lots of spectators and cheering fans, so it was just the necessary boost I needed to finish.

Great course, beautiful scenery. Rain and lots of it during the race--which didn't bother me as much as I thought. Ideal course to qualify for Boston (for those of you so inclined).

Train through the Winter, and make it at least a "B" race if I wanted to give it an optimum effort (and enhance quicker recovery prospects).

Walked around the finishing "quad" area, picked-up my runner's bag containing my DRY sweats, etc. (great feature of any race). Tried some stretching. Then walked around some more to watch some finishers and look for my wife.


Lack of run training.


Well, I did this Marathon at the behest of some good friends who convinced my wife and I we'd have a great time of it in Napa for the weekend. So, I signed-up and figured I'd "incorporate it" as a training run...kind of a "C"-race I suppose. Turns out, neither Tom nor Sue (our friends) ended up running--Tom had a 3-week bout with bronchitis in the month before the race, and Sue couldn't train due to work overload. So, I ran it with my cousin, Alfred, a Team-in-Training disciple, who just happened to be running his first Marathon.

So coming out of my Winter (Nov/Dec) Break and looking at my logs (which I'm GLAD I didn't check before the race), I only ran a total of 101 miles in January and 47 miles in February (though, I must add swim & bike to the total equation). Not enough running no matter how you add it up.

Nevertheless, its a beautiful run course (Napa's Silverado Trail), pretty well supported, and well organized. The finish chute is kind of contrived into a narrow area making spectating problematic (per the wife), and despite a NO PED's Policy there were a noticeable number of folks sporting headphones during the race (which is tantamount to cheating and pisses me off to no end). I was one instance where race officials were assisting a lady runner (with her headphones on)!