Sunday, November 20, 2005

King Oscar Presidio 11/20/05

The race description said some hills, a slight understatement if you ask me......Boy I was glad to have humped some hills is preparation for this one!!!
The upside however being:

Boing Boing Boing Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!!
My new Montrails and I had a blast bouncing down the trail after climbing the hills, all three of them!!
The weather was GORGEOUS in San Francisco. Cool not cold. Sunny not hot.

Blue sky for miles. Just perfect, if you didn't think about global warming.

The start was a gradual climb from the parking lot to the trail head where all 600 of us bottled necked (twice) and on the last hill, even with pacing myself and NOT charging up the hills, with head down and arms pumping, I had to walk the last 3rd of the 3rd hill. Fortunately what goes up must come down and I happily bounced down the otherside. My groin is a bit stiff as I write this.
When I say pacing myself.....It's very low tech.....I just felt like I was running pretty decent, my breathing was right. The hills had a lot to do with not shooting out too fast that's for sure!

Trail running might just be my thing! The buzz among the crowd was this was a "long" 5k as was the 10k. The hills made it feel long to me.
For a nano second the jitters crept up, but once we took off, I settled into my groove and just had fun, totally confident I would finish and not stressed about a thing!
At the end ...The final kick, I dug in. I saw Miranda and Tom near the finish waving me on...it was the best feeling. I was winded but not whooped and no dry heaves this time. I actually carried on a conversation with a couple that came in behind me.
My unofficial time was 34:50:09. I rehearsed setting my stopwatch like 10 x's this morning in hopes of remembering to do it at the start-up. Need to check back on the results as they are not up yet.
A woman was the overall winner of the 5k, I think her time was around 25:00 mins.

Swag Up The Wazoo!!!

Along with a very cool technical shirt, a gel bottle, toe socks and gym towel. The goodies were a plenty. Following the announcement of the winners, the director of the event started calling out random things like who's been in ironman?, who's run Dipsea?, who's run a 100 miles?, who wears Montrail trail shoes?..I looked down at my feet and jumped up yelling "me!!". I got a $75.00 dollar gift certificate from Feet Fleet. I couldn't believe it!
I may not of broken any records running today, but I'm sure I was fastest at collecting on my prize, we headed over to Feet Fleet (had to wait 10 mins for it to open!) in s.f right after the race and I got 4 pairs of socks, a cool long sleeve asics shirt and a handheld waterbottle with a holder.

So, this was a better race for me all around. I was secretly hoping to be under 35:00, but I didn't want to jinx myself by saying so outloud.
My main objective was to not freak and to find my place amongst my fellow footers running, bouncing, laughing and feeling pure happy!

The proceeds go towards maintaining the Presidio trails and King Oscar is a Sardine company that sponsored the race.
Afterwards we headed to Fishenman's Wharf and ate at the Rainforest Cafe.....very fun day indeed!

2 comments:

Mia Goddess said...

Oh my good god, this was AWESOME! Your time, amazing. Trail runs are good for tacking on extra time, and although I've never personally done an official trail race, I totally agree with you that there is something very magical about getting out there and going all out in the "woods". And you are the luckiest person EVER! I am so impressed with your haul, but even more impressed with the lightning speed with which you cashed in. That's hilarious! And here's something we have in common ~ running goal times that we keep secret...from our own journals??? Are we hiding it from ourselves? For my return to the event run, I actually wrote that I had no time in mind for the 5k, whatsoever. But I knew, if it took me more than 34 minutes, I was going to (secretly) cry. Silly!

Congrats again, you make me want to get out there and RUN!

christine said...

Thanks for the kudos Mia.
I'm really happy about this race because I was able to enjoy it and hold the dread at bay. I'm also happy to hear my story makes you wanna run!