Finding Momentum

My friend Lily and I have been talk­ing of run­ning a half-marathon since Decem­ber. We signed up for the Santa Cruz Half-Marathon a cou­ple of months ago along with a cou­ple of friends.

Train­ing was pretty flex­i­ble: we mostly ran on our own and start­ing in March got together on the week­ends to run a longer-distance course. We did quite a few dif­fer­ent routes in Berke­ley: Rock­ridge BART, Indian Rock, the (full) Fire Trail, the Berke­ley Marina, and so on. I must say it was a lot of fun.

We had a cou­ple of friends drop out of the race because of sched­ule con­flicts (sorry Ziwei, Jared) but in the end it was myself, Lily and Josiah that could make it on race day. We were accom­pa­nied by our friends Han­nah and Jen who to hung out with us and cheered us on.

Fri­day night after Large Group we drove back to my house in Saratoga and stayed the night, then at the crack of dawn at 5AM, we drove into Santa Cruz. After get­ting our race num­bers and tim­ing chips, we headed to the start­ing line.

Josiah took off from the start and zoomed off to a 2nd place fin­ish in his age group (and gar­ner­ing a 9-minute PR in the process). Lily fin­ished with a 5th place fin­ish in her age group. I am run­ning with beasts.

Wow, what an amaz­ing run. The half-marathon starts on the Santa Cruz beach board­walk and takes you by the ocean, cliffs, surf, sun­shine and all. It was a warm day, so the 7AM was already pretty balmy. Per­fect con­di­tions, I tell you.

And I had a blast; I felt really good through nearly the entire run. Towards the end I could feel the strain on my knees, but that’ll solve itself in a week or so. Which already has me think­ing of another race: any­body want to run a full marathon?

We all hung out at the beach & board­walk after­wards, with noth­ing to do but rest and shoot the breeze. The sand & surf were amaz­ing. What a feel­ing. I can’t get over it.

Pho­tos! Thanks Jen!

Who me? The Prince of Darkness?

Lily and Josiah warm up.

Josiah, myself, Lily, Jen and Han­nah at the fin­ish line.

Hang­ing out at the Board­walk afterwards.