Running and a Little Rock n Roll

It's a big race weekend for me... I'm doing half marathon (13.1 miles) number three for the year on Sunday.  But that didn't stop me from running in the Rock n Roll Mini Marathon (5 miles) last Sunday.  One of our friends was going to do it but her favorite baseball team (A's) made it to the playoffs, and she couldn't miss the 9am starting game.  She was giving away her race packet and I decided to run the race for her ;)  Thanks again Nicole!

Normally I wouldn't run a race like this a week before my already scheduled half marathon, but I ran my last "long run" of 11 miles on Friday, the Rock n Roll was on Sunday giving me recovery time, and the rest of the week I'd only scheduled "easy" runs of 3 and 4 miles.  So I said heck with it, I'll do it. Of course it helped that Dave said okay and that he'd take Drew to Sunday School.  So off I went.

I had to stop and pick up the race packet at my friend's place and then hit up downtown San Jose - which was a madhouse.  My GPS didn't catch up fast enough and I took the wrong exit - which dumped me off with the other folks rushing to exit and find parking at HP Pavillion.

But I finally got out and booked it to the starting line where a friend from High School was waiting for me.

At this point we were about 30 minutes from the start.  But uh, oh - the big container of water I drank on the drive down caught up to me.  And the bathroom lines were ridiculous.  I was texting Angela who was waiting for me in the corral about the potty progress... turns out I missed the starting gun (with only 4 people in front of me for the porta potties).

I heard them say go.. and I watched as Corral 9 moved their way to the starting line.

 

That picture is from the Rock n Roll Photogs.. no way was I getting that shot from the porta potty line.  Finally I made my way to the corrals and just pushed my way forward.  This shot below is my version of crossing the starting line....

 

I ended up catching up to my friend around mile 3... I did the Mini Marathon (5 miles) and she was doing the half marathon.  We ran together then for about 1.5 when I had my split to go to the finish and she had another 9+ miles to go.

Outside of San Pedro Square, I rounded the corner and then found the finish line!

Yeah I know it's blurry, but I'm not exactly worried about focus when I'm trying to dash to the finish line.

And then I hit the end.  Final time: 50:26... that's about an average of 10:05/mile!  I was quite impressed with myself.  I gotta say the neighborhood hills I train on apparently paid off with this flat course, that and trying to dash to find Angela in the crowd of 14,000 other runners (they said the largest turnout for this San Jose RnR).

That would be me and the Nestle Quick Bunny - not Angela.  I did stay to watch her hit the finish.  It's quite interesting to watch people as they hit the 13 mile marker and go that last 10th of a mile.  I know the excitement and pain they feel... I'll be feeling that this Sunday.

Of course you can't forget the bling!

I was really eyeballing this race since last fall - I've always been curious about the Rock n Roll Marathon Series - the reviews are either that they're totally awesome or a total bust.  I was going to sign up for the half but then realized when the Primos Run For Education was - the one I'm now doing this weekend and which raises money for Drew's school and District.  I figured Primos would be the better race to run.

So I got to do the RnR without having to do the full 13.1 miles - and was able to enjoy the experience - which is really bands at every mile.  I will say the energy and the bands were very much like the Tinker Bell half I did earlier this year at Disneyland/California Adventure, but it didn't have the Disney Magic.  I'd prefer to spend the extra money to do Disney races rather than another Rock n Roll.  But this was an experience I couldn't beat!