Rachel Moss

We actually had a lot of fun on Sunday at the Rock and Roll Marathon… the relay is the way to go!!  Being there did make me want to run the whole marathon, until I got finished at mile 13.5 with what I had committed to do!  A full marathon takes so much focus and training, but the feeling of accomplishment is worth the few days (or more!) of recovery. At least we got a medal for the relay! We’re already signed up to do the Disneyland Half Marathon on September 6, 2009 and by “we” I mean David and me! Yes, he’s really going to do it. I am so proud of him!

He was a champ on Sunday. This was his first race in which to participate, although he’s been my support system on all of my runs. Now he knows what all the excitement is about.  We went to a birthday party for a friend on Saturday and in preparation for the run the next day, drank only lots of water and had some macaroni and cheese when we got home. It was delish!! We were a little worried because it was overcast and drizzling on Saturday. Overcast can be good on a running day, but raining is not so much fun. 

We woke up at 4 a.m. since we had to be out of the house by 5 and I have a whole ritual I have to go through in preparation for race day. First up, it’s half a juiced lemon in water followed by a banana. Then I start eating a Clif bar and gauge how I’m feeling as to whether or not I’ll eat the whole thing. I have a little bit of coffee as I’m getting ready. Before I put on running clothes, it’s a necessity to put on Glide everywhere. Glide is a product that helps prevent chafing, which is very important! When you’re running for a distance, any seam on your clothes or socks can rub against your skin and it becomes very painful during and after the run. I put as much Glide as I could everywhere to prevent it but I still had some chafing under one arm.

So David and I headed down to the trolley stop so that we could get to an area where we could both walk to our relay spots. It was perfectly overcast but a little chilly, so I was glad to have my old sweatshirt that I planned to leave at the start line. I was starting the race at the start line in Balboa Park, then David would be waiting at the first relay zone and we would continue on Leg 2 of the course together. When we picked up our running bibs and timing chips at the expo on Saturday, they also gave us the batons we would be using to pass off to the next runner during the relay, which were actually drumsticks. The nice lady there said that the starting runner should be responsible for bringing their baton/drumstick. I thought about that as I was preparing my gear that night for the run the next day. I put the drumstick in a prominent spot so I wouldn’t forget it. Lo and behold, we get to the trolley stop and were there a full five minutes before I realized I had forgotten the drumstick!!! I couldn’t believe it. I texted our teammates running Legs 3 & 4 and told them to bring their drumstick in case I couldn’t find another one. Then David and I hopped on the trolley and headed downtown.

I had about a mile walk from the trolley stop downtown up to the start line, and that was a perfect warm up. I had just enough time to find a new drumstick (wheeeeee!) and use the porta-potty (ewwwwww!) before they sounded the gun and started the race. Perfect timing!

I really wanted to run my leg as fast as I could. I knew that I could slow down if I wanted to during Leg 2, but around mile 4 or so I really started feeling myself slow down. I was not as mentally prepared as I should have been. It was nice that the weather was cool and overcast, but it felt humid to me and that seemed to be affecting me more than anything. It was a nice run though, because we started out in Balboa Park and ended up running through downtown around Petco Park, so that was cool.

I made it to the relay transition zone and started looking for David. By this time I was a little loopy from trying to finish my leg strong and I couldn’t find him in the crowd at the transition zone. However, he was all the way down at the end waving at me, laughing and trying to get my attention. I was going to get some water and my medal and catch up with him until I saw the line to pick up the medals. I would never make it back to him if I waited, so I took off my chip and sprinted to catch up with him. We kept a slower pace because we knew we had an uphill trek up Highway 163. I had cautioned David that this would be a really tough part of the run. But we must have been so distracted running together, we were nearing the top of the hill and I asked how he was doing since we were almost done with the hill… he looks over and says, “That’s it? That’s the hill?!” He was doing much better than expected and we were already halfway finished with his leg!  Go David!!

I, however, was struggling. I was on mile 10 and was grateful to start heading downhill. At the bottom of the hill I was getting slower and slower and David was still feeling really good, so when we saw the Mile 12 marker, he asked if he could go oh ahead of me to hand off the baton/drumstick to our teammate Howard. I was shocked and said, “You go, honey!!”  Truthfully, he and I are very competitive and he was determined to outrun some of the people he had been waiting with at the transition zone. I, of course, was proud of my honey!

He ran ahead and that gave me all the permission I needed to slow down and walk when I need to. I still kept running and finished up a little behind David. I was so glad to be finished and get our medals and clean up so we could go meet up with our relay mates at the finish line. We got there, got our free beers (!) and actually saw Angela and Howard run across the finish line together. We did awesome as a relay team, our final time was 4 hours and 21 minutes. Go team!!

The relay was a fun adventure and I would definitely do it again next year if they include it with the marathon. Good times!!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 at 8:43 pm and is filed under Fitness, Friends & Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.