kram runs the city

kram runs the city

October 22, 2008, 9:14 am
Filed under: Uncategorized

Sunday, October 19, 2008.

6:15am: I wake up to the sound of my phone alarm clock, that I usually hit the snooze button about 20 times during the work week, but today I get up without hesitation. I start putting on my running gear: No show black socks, grey nike shorts, green nike dry fit shirt that show off my man chesticles, 2006 Fifa limited edition g shock, pearl izumi’s syncropace 2’s that I bought off the salesrack at roadrunner, and my black amphipod fanny pack.

6:40am: After a fresh cup of Texas coffee, I headed out to hail a taxi. The weather was quite nippley, and was debating to run upstairs to grab a long sleeve, but 20 minutes to game time, figured I’ll be ok without it.

6:55am: Taxi drops me off at Union Square and I start to line up with the 20,000 other runners (98% women, no sausage fest) participating in the “Run Like a Girl” Nike Women’s Half/Full Marathon. At the moment of my arrival, I felt many eyes on me. Maybe cuz of my boyish good looks, but I think mainly it was due to the lack of a racer’s bib and racing chip. Yup, I had officially crashed the party. Did not pay for registration, did not raise money, wasn’t running for anyone/cause in particular, today I felt like running for sh.ts and giggles.

7:30am: After all the fast corrals start, the last wave of runners finally cross the start line to begin their race. No chip=me having to rely on my g shock stop watch to be my unofficial way to keep a record of my run. At that point, I played my first song on my running playlist, Take Control – Bobby Brown. I’ve always like this song from Ghostbusters 2. “If you want to get something done, you gotta do it yourself…..YA YA YA KNOW IT!”

8:21am: Chrissy Fields and Fort Mason: Mile 6 thru 7, my first hill. Ouch, shame on me for not expecting hills on this course. It’s san francisco! Luckily I was going with the flow of traffic, very crowded, very little movement. Although it took alot of energy out of me, I was still feeling good.

8:38am: El Camino Del Mar and 26th st. Mile 8: I must say, this was one of the more enjoyable parts of the race. Running through a quiet neighborhood with nice houses tends to take your mind off the pain and enjoy the scenery of it all. Race volunteers (mind you all preteen asian kids) started giving out random stuff. They gave out oranges, which I took and shoved in my mouth and smiled as if I had orange peel for teeth. I did feel guilty taking all these free cups of gatorade, water, jeff luna bars, socks, chocolates, which none of it I paid for, Dah Well!

9:10am:  JFK and Bernice Rodgers Mile 11:  I‘m already thinking to myself “2 more miles and we’ll call it a day.”  Mile 11 officially splits the two races:  “Stay right for the half marathon, left for the full.”  As I started to veer right, a song played on my ipod.  A song that inspired me.  A song that should be every man’s theme song:  “Gonna fly now” by Bill Conti ala Rocky Fame. I kid you not, this song really did play on my ipod!  I really was going to attempt to double the amount of the most miles i’ve ever ran.  I was truly Gonna fly now. 

Didn’t give a sh.t am:  Great Highway and Ortega Mile 17:  I stopped running.  My calves were on fire.  It felt like I just did 1,000 reps on the calf raise machine.  2,000 songs on my ipod, not one could motivate me to move another foot.  I was all about done with the race.  I decided to walk for a minute to figure out my way out of this.  After a minute passed, walking became too painful.  For some odd reason, the only thing that could relieve the pain was to keep running.  So I did.

My new strategy  was to walk at every mile marker for a minute, stop at every water/gatorade area, and run to the next mile and repeat the process.

Lake Merced Miles 19-23:  Historically, I never had good runs at Lake Merced, so needless to say, I was not looking forward to this part.  There were  no crowds cheering you on, it seemed very desolate.  The organizers of the race decided to name mile 22 the “Ghiradelli Chocolate Mile”.  Yes, they were giving out chocolate, but I didn’t even have the energy to even chew.  

 

Great Highway and Sloat Mile 24:  Unlike Lake Merced, I’ve always had success running this route, Sloat to Lincoln.  When I finally reached Mile 24, it felt like I was meeting up with Run Club SF for our normal Saturday run.  I breezed thru this mile relatively quickly.  Surprisingly, there was one person in the crowd that who legitimately rooted for me.  Tim Schiz Zhor!  I heard a “Yeah, Mark Benitez!” and it was him.  I forgot that his gf was running too.  Not sure what her time was.

 

Great Highway and Pacheco Mile 25:  Running on fumes.  I had nothing left in the tank.  It took the help of a complete stranger to see it thru.  There was this one guy that I basically paced for 15 miles.  I saw him walking at mile 25 and figured “What the hey?”   I told him “Come on man, let’s go!”  We basically had a 10 minute conversation to mile 26.  It took my mind off of the pain.  I think he was lesser prepared than I was as his previous max miles ran was 10 as opposed to my 13.  He told me had raised $8,000 dollars for the race vs. my $0.00 contribution.  I think he was too tired to give me the stone face.

Mile 26.1 Great Highway and Almost Lincoln:  About 20 yards to the finish line, security stopped me and asked me where my bib was.  I told them that I didn’t have one, so they demonstratively told me that I had to step to the crowd and not finish the race.  I thought I was  Olajuwon in 1995 Western Conference Finals vs. the Spurs, cuz i pump faked the sh.t out of this guy.  I sprinted to the finish line like there was no tomorrow.  He chased me down and kicked me out of the finish area.

 

Mile 26.2  Finish Line:  4 hours and 19 minutes later, I did it.  I ran my first marathon.  Never, ever, did I ever think I would run a marathon.  Ok, maybe once.  When Diddy ran the city back in 2003.
P.Diddy, Will Ferrell !?, George W. had better times than I did, but at least i beat Oprah, AC Slater, and Freddie Prince Jr.

I highly recommend that everyone run a marathon once in your life. This is truly a great platform to showcase to the world and to prove to oneself that the human body can be pushed to its limits. The human spirit was definitely on display for everyone so see.

Congrats to everyone that participated (even the ones that weren’t official), and I can honestly say that I’m glad to have “Run Like a Girl”.

Kram

edit:Goals before I turn 28:

Get married.
Run a full marathon.
Bench 300 lbs (very super unlikely)

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