Silicon Valley Marathon (Half)
This past Sunday, I ran the Silicon Valley Half Marathon. I've been training for it for about 3 months now. The training has consisted of two 5-mile runs during the weekdays and increasingly longer runs on the weekend. Mixed in there has been some interval training (alternating my pace between normal and fast for set periods of time) and some uphill running at Rancho San Antonio, a small nature preserve here in the Bay area.
The longest run I ever did during my training was about 9.5 miles, and while it was grueling, I felt like I had enough in the tank to go further. So I confess that when I woke up Sunday morning, I thought the half marathon would be a piece of cake. It actually ended up being pretty tough. My lungs held up just fine, but my legs and ankles were feeling pretty heavy for the last 3-4 miles.
The course started out in downtown San Jose, and wove through the streets of south San Jose and Willow Glen before connecting to the Los Gatos Creek Trail. The trail led us to Los Gatos High School, where the half marathon ended. My time was 2 hours and 5 minutes, which was a little slower than I had hoped I would be, but respectable nonetheless.
When I crossed the finish line, my legs felt pretty terrible, but it felt good to have finished the race. As a reward to myself, I went home and watched about 9 hours of football...which isn't much of a reward considering that I do that pretty much every Sunday. But it felt good anyway.
Some friends woke up at the ungodly hour of 7:30am to cheer me on at mile 5. That's me in the gray shirt with my arm in the air. Thanks for the pictures, guys!
As for the weekend diet, on Saturday, I skipped my usual Cheerio breakfast to have dim sum with a friend at Golden Wok in Mountain View. Not a bad place, but nothing special either. To prepare for the race on Sunday, I went to an Italian restaurant for a big plate of spaghetti and meatballs on Saturday night. On race day, I started off the morning with a banana (to prevent cramping), had some leftover Korean job-che for lunch after the race, and for dinner I had Tokoshima-style ramen at a restaurant in San Jose. Don't ask me how Tokoshima-style is different than other styles of Japanese ramen. It was pretty tasty, but I've had better.
The running and the dieting must be working, because as of Monday morning, I've lost about 4 pounds from when I started this blog. Woohoo!
Coming up next...thoughts on the upcoming Colts-Patriots matchup on Sunday night. Expect a long ass post, as this kind of thing gets me a little worked up.
The longest run I ever did during my training was about 9.5 miles, and while it was grueling, I felt like I had enough in the tank to go further. So I confess that when I woke up Sunday morning, I thought the half marathon would be a piece of cake. It actually ended up being pretty tough. My lungs held up just fine, but my legs and ankles were feeling pretty heavy for the last 3-4 miles.
The course started out in downtown San Jose, and wove through the streets of south San Jose and Willow Glen before connecting to the Los Gatos Creek Trail. The trail led us to Los Gatos High School, where the half marathon ended. My time was 2 hours and 5 minutes, which was a little slower than I had hoped I would be, but respectable nonetheless.
When I crossed the finish line, my legs felt pretty terrible, but it felt good to have finished the race. As a reward to myself, I went home and watched about 9 hours of football...which isn't much of a reward considering that I do that pretty much every Sunday. But it felt good anyway.
Some friends woke up at the ungodly hour of 7:30am to cheer me on at mile 5. That's me in the gray shirt with my arm in the air. Thanks for the pictures, guys!
As for the weekend diet, on Saturday, I skipped my usual Cheerio breakfast to have dim sum with a friend at Golden Wok in Mountain View. Not a bad place, but nothing special either. To prepare for the race on Sunday, I went to an Italian restaurant for a big plate of spaghetti and meatballs on Saturday night. On race day, I started off the morning with a banana (to prevent cramping), had some leftover Korean job-che for lunch after the race, and for dinner I had Tokoshima-style ramen at a restaurant in San Jose. Don't ask me how Tokoshima-style is different than other styles of Japanese ramen. It was pretty tasty, but I've had better.
The running and the dieting must be working, because as of Monday morning, I've lost about 4 pounds from when I started this blog. Woohoo!
Coming up next...thoughts on the upcoming Colts-Patriots matchup on Sunday night. Expect a long ass post, as this kind of thing gets me a little worked up.
