Avenue of the Giants

The second leg of our vacation was in the Pacific Northwest. Christine and I were in Ferndale, CA in way northern California for a 1/2 marathon called Avenue of the Giants. This race takes place in the Humboldt Redwoods State park and is very scenic. The route takes you through the Redwood forest with most of it being under the canopy of the trees. It was gorgeous.







































It's been a long time since I participated in a 1/2-marathon now that my principal sport is cycling. the last one I did was the 2008 San Francisco 1/2-marathon and it did not go well. I didn't really train for it and had seriously underestimated how far my form had fallen since I stopped walking on a regular basis. I had decided to not make the same mistake twice and had made plans to attempt some real training for this one. I made plans to walk on Monday nights with my Walk Team friends, walk during my lunch hour and do some long mileage on Sunday. The best laid plans.... Works been crazy, I was prepping for a vacation, I've been riding lots of weekend miles, etc. I managed to get in 3 Monday night sessions, 2 weekend walks and 0 lunch time walks. I also got some new shoes 3 weeks before the event and was really pushing the limit of getting them "broken in". Not so good. I did manage to get in a 10-miler a couple of weeks before the event so I knew the 13.1 miles was within striking distance.

Sunday morning and it is showtime. I start out with Christine and a couple of Walk Team friends, Ellen and Debbie. Ellen was actually one of my Walk Team coaches when I trained for the Dublin full marathon in '07. Well, she's faster than the rest of us and takes off leaving us behind. Debbie usually walks a slower pace which leaves Christine and I. We gobble up some very scenic miles and then I have to take a nature break. Christine presses on and I say I'll catch up. Get back on the road and Christine is a small dot up ahead. I speed up to but I never did catch her. I had started to get some troubling symptoms; too much foot movement within the shoes, a burning feeling in my toes, hips starting to ache. I'm not physically tired but my body isn't used to the pounding any more.

I hit the 1/2-way point and we make a U-Turn to come back to the start.

There were a lot of Team in Training people with at least the San Francisco chapter using this race as a formal event so this represented the end of the season for them. It was great to see all the cheerleading going on from their teammates and coaches and it frankly felt a little weird not being a part of it. I wasn't wearing any of my TnT gear so they had no way of knowing that I am "one of them".

Walk the last 5 miles essentially alone. All the runners were long since done and the few walkers left on the course were few and far between. It was actually very peaceful and I tried to pay special attention to the surroundings. Feet are hurting and hip flexors are really aching.

I finally finish up with a very slow time, not really tired, just physically beat up.

Here is a post race photo















Coach Ellen, Debbie, Christine, Me with our Medals

I've never been particularly fast since I do the race-walking thing but at my peak, I could knock out the 1/2's right around 3 hours. This time, not so much. 3hrs and 46 minutes! Terrible time but not completely unexpected considering my lack of preparation. On the positive side, I did actually complete the race while most people in the world sat on the butt watching sports instead of doing them.