Alameda Runners – Get After It!

I ran the Brazen Racing Wildcat Half Marathon from El Sobrante on Saturday, which was my second half marathon.  It seems Ted was thinking about talking me out of signing up, but I went ahead and registered before he told me how nasty this course would be.

We briefly covered this event, but this post expands the topic a bit further.

I went ahead and registered for the event before I bothered to closely evaluate the course profile.  Before I jump into my race experience, let me first say that this route was definitely hard!  It seemed like we were either going up or down a hill, through mud, or on single-track the entire 13.1-mile course.

The gun sounded at 8:30, and it only took a couple hundred yards into the race before everyone had to tackle the first climb of the day.  I briefly looked at the map before we started, but I didn’t realize my lungs were going to explode within the first mile.

Up, up, and up some more!  The uphill portions were steep enough they forced most people to walk, and the downhills were fast and dangerous.  We passed a few people going up the hills, only to see them fly down the hill at speeds that looked somewhat hazardous.

The rest of the blog post is available after the jump.

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That’s right… last night I registered for the 28th Annual California International Marathon, which takes place  on Dec. 5.  The 26.2-mile marathon course runs from Folsom to Sacramento.

It seems fitting my first major marathon will take place almost one year after I started running seriously since middle school cross country.

Ted and I have been running together during events, but this will likely be one of the few times we don’t end up reaching the finish at the same time.  CIM is one of Ted’s major goals for the season, and I’m not sure what kind of shape I’ll be in come December.

Course map:

I’m running the Santa Rosa Marathon in late August, and then will also run a half marathon in Folsom.

The Folsom half will be the event where Ted  takes off to really test his form — and I have the pleasure of seeing if his prediction of my first time being able to beat him comes true.  He beat me by about two minutes during the 5K yesterday, so I obviously have some work to do.  (It’s just a fun competition to see if the added motivation propels my running to a new level come this fall.)

Disclaimer:  I’m going to post a number of CIM-related entries this summer, especially as my excitement during training increases.