Surf City Half Marathon
Naomi and I at the finsh line!
On Sunday morning I dragged myself out of bed to run 13.1 miles along the coast in Huntington Beach. I was a tad cranky and had a poncho handy just in case it rained. Before any race I deal with the whole “What the hell am I thinking doing this?” conundrum until my running mentor Naomi appears and makes it seem like a walk in the park.
We got down to the start at 7:30am-ish and were thrilled to see that it was a beautiful day. The race was spectacular with snow-capped mountains in the background and the crashing surf alongside us most of the way.
It was mostly enjoyable. The last mile was pure agony. Every step hurt felt like I was walking on sandpaper and the muscles in my legs protested all movement. I guess we swelled up in the heat.
But hey, we did it. 3hours, 8 minutes. One potty break. I even got a tan!
Running the Las Vegas Rock N Roll Half Marathon
If 30,000 people are doing it then it can’t be wrong. Right? After almost freezing solid waiting for the monorail at 5am, my friend Naomi and I were cheered when we saw the hordes of people lined up on the Strip outside Mandalay Bay. The crowds proved that getting up before the crack of dawn to run 13.1 miles in 30 degree temperatures was a reasonable idea.
5am in the hotel room.
We couldn’t feel our fingers while we waited in our corral. #26/30. We watched the elite runners jet past us on the other side of the strip. While we crept up to the start line we got close to the people around us in an attempt not to turn into blocks of ice. The fireworks did little to grab our attention as the sun had already risen.
The start line made it all worth it. There was a bridge over the top with a rock n roll band playing Johnnie Be Good. On each side was a showgirl and a white tiger. And we were off.
For about 20 yards. We’d waited so long to get going that we already had to go to the bathroom. We spent ten minutes waiting in line at a port-a-potty and watched the last runners go by. Then the cars that pulled up the rear. And then even the street sweepers.
Start line with white tiger.
That was a lot of ground to make up. We passed the first mile mark at the Welcome to Las Vegas sign more than an hour after the race had officially started. Since it wound up and back down the strip we saw people heading to the finish line when we were at a mile and a half. Just a tad demoralizing. That’s when I coined my new running phrase: I don’t race. I finish. Shirts and bumper stickers available soon.
By then we’d hit a groove and continued down the Strip, through the major hotels, appreciating each and every Elvis we saw, thank you very much. Once we got past the Stratosphere things changed drastically. When they said we’d wind back in downtown Vegas they meant ghetto downtown Vegas. The halfway mark was a guy sitting on top of a newspaper stand with three cups of beer giving us props. The bands had thinned out so a couple guys stood on the balcony of their ratty 3-story apartment building and blasted electronic music on a boom box.
Mile 1 mark.
When we made the turn to come back a guy was sitting in his yard on a lawn chair (bars on the windows, port-a-potty on the corner) telling us that mile 8 was just around the corner. I told Naomi it would be funny if he was lying. When we turned the corner we saw a sign for the Channel 8 news. Poor guy hadn’t been lying. He was just plain wrong.
At mile 9 we started to feel the effects of the race and the cold. Naomi was stiff as she was in shorts and I was in pain every time we walked. We came up with a system where we ran a block then walked a block. When the 12 mile mark came I announced that we had already done it since we’d walked over a mile to the start line. Still, we pressed on, wondering if Mandalay was actually getting farther away in the distance.
Lots of people to pass.
Finally we hit the 13 mile mark and there were my parents ready to take a picture. They hadn’t gotten alerts on their phones when we passed the 15k and 20k marks (for some reason the system wasn’t working there) so they’d been a little nervous.
We completed the race in 3 hours, 24 minutes with 3 bathroom stops and passed almost 2000 people. Our reward was a medal, a mile walk to the taxi stand and then a 45 minute wait. No problem! We weren’t sore at all. Maybe because we’d been icing our joints all morning?
Waiting in that line with my family (yes, Naomi is definitely now family) I remembered the end of my last race and my staunch conviction that I would never do this again. Yet the masochistic addiction continues. I’m thinking Surf City in February. Naomi’s in!
With our medals!
Huntington Beach man is gearing up to run across America “barefoot”
Paul Both at the 2009 Surf City Marathon.
43-year old Paul Both is a simple man who loves running. He loves it so much he’d do it for four and a half months straight if the opportunity presented itself.
On February 9, 2010 it will.
Both will average 20-30 miles per day as he makes the Run for Liberty from Surf City to Liberty Island. His friend, colleague and cameraman Chris Swenson will join him to document the trek on video while also talking to people along the way about liberty and the Constitution.
Why would they want to talk about something so boring? Because for Both it’s a serious matter.
Rachel
