Napa Marathon, March 1, 2020

Napa Marathon, Napa, CA

March 1, 2020

4:52:21 1157/2258 Overall   11/28 in 65-69

Jodi 4:51:31  1150/2258  Overall  37/86 in 50-54

            Running marathons is never easy; you train the best you can, but you never know how race day will go. But no matter whether you reach your time goal, just completing a marathon is a huge accomplishment. For our crew from Fresno, Rhonda completed her very first one; nothing like that first one! Kim completed her 3rd, but first in 8 years. David and Jodi trained super hard hoping to BQ. They ended up missing that lofty goal, but still finished ahead of most runners in their age group.

            Here are Jodi’s thoughts on how her race went: In theory, today was going to be my day to Boston Qualify at Napa Marathon. I have had amazing training, I BQd here 5 years ago and the weather today was perfect with a rare tailwind. But marathons are hard, and anything can happen on race day. I blame menopause but who knows. I just couldn’t keep the pace and my chronic hip problem decided to flare up during the race. So I chatted with people, prayed for people, encouraged people, enjoyed the scenery, ran with my friend Emi Arada, then waited for John to catch up so we could run/walk the last 7 miles together. Disappointed is an understatement and I’m pretty sure I’m switching to shorter distances now. Special thanks to my training crew: Oliver, Joanna V, Al, David, Lisa and so many others!

            Before the race I created an Inspiration/Prayer band. At the advice of Mark Dorman, I dedicated each mile to someone special, or even a group of people such as the Fleet Feet coaches, my strong 50-somethings, DAR team, and Wascally team. This technique really helped me to focus on something other than myself when I was feeling terrible. Mile 8 was dedicated to Bill Hastrup because he passed me at Mile 8 of Napa 2 years ago on a so-called “training run for Boston”. Later that year he was diagnosed with brain cancer and passed a few months later. He was such a special training partner for me and I miss him dearly. Mile 13 was dedicated to my cousin Clint who walked 2 half marathons in Indy. Mile 22 was dedicated to Oliver, who stuck with me for all 22 miles of my longest training run. At Mile 16 of Napa, when I saw Chris, I decided to stop and stretch my hip and possibly wait for John but then I saw Emi and decided to run a couple of miles with him since he appeared to be unhappy. We were able to distract each other for a couple of miles until I started a slow walk, again hoping John would catch up. This is where I met some other runners who distracted me until mile 19.5, where I decided to stop again and wait for John. As predicted, he was upset when he saw me but we were at least able to enjoy the last 7 miles together, encouraging each other and others along the way.

            For me (John), running the Napa Marathon was coming full circle. It was my first marathon in 1981 (2:58) and now I was wondering if it would be my last one. After having 2 heart procedures in the last 3 months, and now the proud owner of a stent in the LAD and the taker of 5 heart pills a day, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel. I planned to run/walk and had run enough miles in training that I knew I could finish. The questions were: how long would it take me and how hard would it be? I started out running 4 minutes and walking one. For the first few miles, the legs would feel heavy after a minute or so of running, and I was very frustrated that I couldn’t sustain running longer. But after getting about 8 miles into the race, I told myself to stop with all of the negative thinking and get a better attitude. Although there were real physical issues, I realized that part of my problem was the negative thinking. So, I ran a lot of of 4-6 minute segments that felt pretty normal and at a decent pace, and the miles started to click by quicker.

            At mile 16 I saw Chris (Kim’s boyfriend) who told me that Jodi was not too far ahead. I thought, “Uh, oh; what happened?” As I was going up the hill at mile 19, there was Jodi. I found out that her hip injury had flared up again and that it was not going to be a BQ race. She decided to wait for me (overall a 15 minute time of walking, slow running and waiting) so we could run in together. Since I had been run/walking, I was actually feeling better than she was, but we were able to enjoy going together those last 7 miles. (It is a lot easier to run the last miles of a marathon if you have the option of walking and have not been pushing the pace because you have a race time goal.) So, we talked to each other and other runners and enjoyed the scenery. We passed Emi Arrada who was wearing the same “smiley runner shirt” that I was.

            Jodi and I rounded the last turn to the finish and got cheered in by Chris and got to hold hands finishing together. There’s a lot to be said for being able to do that even if we weren’t able to run a well as we’d have liked to!

            After the race, Jodi and I drove to St. Helena for our traditional Taylor’s hamburger and milk shake. We also drove through Calistoga to note some changes and visit the old Volkman family home. That evening we enjoyed dinner at the Rutherford Grill with Kim and Chris and Rhonda and Rob. The next morning we found a fun breakfast spot and had lemon pancakes and cinnamon toast.

This was Marathon #167; 29 states on 2nd go-round; All 10 Canadian provinces.

Marathon photos: VIEW PHOTOS “View Photos” link will take you to Shutterfly where you can sign-up for free account to view the slideshow. Hold Ctrl and Click “Enter” to go to website.