On April 19, 2009, I ran my first half marathon, the Santa Cruz Half Marathon and 10K. I had chosen that race as I loved the city, and as it was the birthdate of my late dad who loved running, and only later did I find out that it also happened to be the official marathon race the running group I would later join was running as well. That day was hot and humid, and I definitely felt a real accomplishment as I did it. I wanted to run it again this year to commemorate it on April 11th, unfortunately I registered too late and could only get into the 10K. So I came up with another way to commemorate my first long race: I’d run a 5K, a 10K and then a half marathon, all within a series of 8 days.
Both long and short races have their merits for me. A short race can be a great start to the day, and the spirit is often one of happy everyone can join in and do this kind of feels. The longer races being more challenging have been aid stations (water, gels, bananas, etc.) and often have better finishing awards usually a medal, occasionally a necklace. Still each of the races I did in these eight days was a lot of fun for me.
I ran the Spartan 5K walk Run (April 10) the Santa Cruz 10K (April 11) and the Mermaid Half Marathon (April 17).
As a 3.1 race, my first race was the shortest race I’d ever entered. As it was at San Jose State University, where I obtained my degree in Photojournalism, and my good friend Jess was going to be walking it (as part of training for the Wharf to Wharf race), it was a good warm up event for me. As the online instructions said to be at least an hour early I was..and was the first runner to register.
It was expected to rain that day, though all we had were sprinkles. As the announcer tried to warm us up by telling us we were lucky as it wasn’t raining as predicted several people myself included helped her with the obvious punchline of “Not yet!”. The race was two and a half loops around campus. Despite starting off too fast, a hot dog start, I finished the race at a good pace for myself.
The next day, it was up and at em for my 10K in Santa Cruz. Unlike last year, it was very cold and it was raining before the race start. It made for a gloomy sprinkly 10K race. The local tides splashed many as we ran by.
I was enjoying the run and the scenery very much, when all too sudden I saw this:
As I headed back, the rain started coming down a bit more forcefully, so I was grateful as I saw the Santa Cruz Boardwalk in the distance and a bit later the finish line. It started pouring soon very after, so thanks to a happy accident of fate I wasn’t drenched that day, as I would have been had I been in the half marathon.
I then had less than a week off of races before my largest in the series, came up.
To my delight I found Ada, shown with me below, who had emailed my running group about the Mermaid Run a discount coupon. We ran together the first seven miles or so, then as she has a faster pace than me, I suggested she take of and maybe I’d catch her..and that was the last I saw of her until the finish line as I was finishing and she and her husband say we coming in (as they were enjoying their chocolate chip pancakes), and cheered for me.
The course was amazingly beautiful. I enjoyed the wildlife and landscape during my run.
Since the announcer was announcing everything by the time I got to the finish, she even announced that I was taking a photo before I ran across the finish line.
As promised the necklace was beautiful and unique.
by Danielle Stolman
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