Run DMZ

In the end, I ended up running about half of the 12k Bay 2 Breakers course. Of the roughly 4 miles we ran, I’d trained for to do just .25 of them. My race entry predated my farewell to  running . And despite landing in a fast corral, I was told there are plenty who choose it to avoid all the naked people and start walking after a very short spurt. In my mind, we’d show up a little before the race start, run at a good clip for a quarter mile and then walk it off.    That didn’t happen.   A long wait while hurling tortillas Parking can be hard to come by in downtown San Francisco. And public transportation can be cumbersome if traveling from another part of the Bay Area, though a ferry will get you within easy reach of starting corrals.  We opted to take a shuttle from a Mill Valley Park ‘n Ride to the start. (“We” being me, my daughter and son-in-law, who are B2B regulars.) Similar shuttles operated from Emeryville in East Bay and Millbrae to the south. This...

If I seem a little taller, it’s because I’m back on my high horse.   We’re not even through the second week of 2022 and already so much has gone wrong. Everywhere kids are home from school or daycare or afterschool programs because they’ve come in close contact with someone with Covid, or they themselves are the viral vector. Employers want to see your negative Covid test … without providing such tests. I spent a half day trying to find a store selling rapid tests since online kit orders now take weeks. PCR test results for those who have a full gas tank or half day to spend in line with  sick people  now take longer because labs are overwhelmed .   So instead of putting up with this level of disruption, I’m pulling out. I’m waiting until the current Covid surge and testing mania abates and laying low in the meantime. I preoccupy myself with figuring out how to get my training back on track. I’ve done four runs in the past 12 days; that isn’t going to get me where I...

Yesterday I signed up to do next year’s   Bay to Breakers , the craziest 12k you’ll find in what remains my favorite city: San Francisco. I wanted to take advantage of the 48-hour low pricing (under $40); generous refund policy; and expiring airline credits. I’ve wanted to return to this event for more than eight years … and now I will if all goes as planned.   I’ll be running or, more likely, walking with my daughter and son-in-law, both B2B regulars. We’re already coming up with costume concepts and deciding which breweries to hit in our version of carbo loading. I’ve also been assured that seeking a position within Corral A doesn’t mean we need to maintain a 6-minute-per-mile pace, or that we get passed and cussed at the entire time.    Bay to Breakers is weird and wild, but the year we did it was weirder and less wild than others due to a bombing at the Boston Marathon just weeks before. That led to lower attendance, probably as much due to a stronger police pres...

  The other week I was doing some deep cleaning and came across this race photo. It resurrected lovely memories from one of my most unpleasant finishes. It also reminds me of how much has changed over the years--to both me and marathons.   Note the slant of the sun . This shot was taken in the last miles of the course, with the sun already inching toward the western horizon. The Richmond Marathon used to start at 12:30 p.m. on an October Sunday to allow locals time to go to church before downtown streets closed. This made weather a wildcard. It could be the cool fall day long-distance runners dream of, or it could swampy. I got both, with heat at the start but a cool breeze at the end.    Now almost every marathon starts early morning to accommodate bigger crowds .   Note the bib number . This race had less than 500 marathoners the first time I ran it. You could sign up race day, especially if you ended up not running that much more popular marathon two hours no...

  This week we were supposed to soak up Polynesian culture, take in Pearl Harbor and a pineapple factory, hike Diamond Head, snorkel in Hunaume Bay and just pretend all of the problems plaguing us in the Lower 48 did not exist.   I also was to run 8.15 miles through the streets of Honolulu with 25,000 others. I figured I could do the early morning race and make it back before our party of eight had finished breakfast. The entire trip and my purported athleticism represented magical thinking on my part, given the streets remain relatively barren and I can barely walk 4 miles at a time, let alone run fast for twice as far.   Well before I called to cancel our resort reservations and those incredibly cheap Southwest flights, the Great Aloha Run had added a virtual option. (See? What did I tell you .) So, in January, coming off a serious illness, I began to plan a seaside route and download a Hawaiian music playlist for this weekend. Then I realized I would be walking for at...

  The other day I recalled a conversation decades ago with a fellow member of a corporate running team known as The Deadliners.  One of the stars of the team was running late for a highly competitive 10k in downtown Norfolk. We feared she’d be a no-show and, as a result, we wouldn’t make it onto the podium that day.    When June finally did turn up, she confessed she wasn’t enthusiastic about running the race, which carried a steep fee for the times.    “Remind me again why I just paid $45 to do something I could also do for free?”   I couldn't deliver an adequate answer. She had a very good point. But one of our colleagues, Dan, was ready with a response.   “Duh, June. We do it for the T-shirt and maybe a medal.”   And so, some 25 years later, here we are, now running virtual races for a T-shirt and maybe a medal (back then given to those who placed; now, to those who participate). If not a T-shirt, then we seek some other swag to justi...

I was tempted to do a recap of the year just finished and a roundup of goals for this one. And, of course, I was going to post this around January 1. Then I thought: Why? Why not wait until, say, January 28?  Maybe by then I will be a little more confident in achieving what I set out to do. Maybe I’ll have already abandoned or adjusted practices that proved too flimsy to follow, too stubborn to shake. Then my list will be more reasonable, less reckless. You see, January 1, while providing an unspoiled calendar upon which to dream and plot and pretend to be in charge, is really just a date. Granted it’s a date many of us go through hungover (from too much drinking) or hungry (from starting a new diet) or hurting (from overdoing the new exercise program), but that discomfort soon fades as new habits gain hold or old ones return.   Still, I think runners in particular are encoded to prepare well in advance to do something big, like finally run a dream r...

I may have mentioned the second half of 2019 was all about novelty races for me. My schedule and training limited my distances, but there are plenty of offbeat 5ks and 10ks here in my hometown of San Diego that I hadn't tried.  One of the big ones was the annual Santa Run in downtown Pacific Beach this past weekend. Just blocks from the Crystal Pier and boardwalk, this is truly a race for anyone and everyone. I walked it with my nephew and a friend and always had plenty of company because this race is big, as in 4000+ participants, all dressed in similar Santa Claus costumes. Getting there: Locals know it can be hard to find parking in PB, especially on weekends. Throw in road closures for the race and subsequent holiday parade and, well, welcome to San Diego. We assumed I'd be circling for on-street parking at least a half mile away on some side street. Then I turned the corner and found a spot one block from the start and finish on Garnet and Cass! Now, if y...

Every year I attend a cybersecurity conference that this year was held at a resort at the Walt Disney World in Orlando and included a 5k fun run. When I hear “fun run,” I think more of the all-comers races of old, where you show up at a certain time and place and everyone runs a course. Very loose and freewheeling and free. When I went to register and discovered this fun run was $30 and included a technical T-shirt, branded water bottle and plastic bag, course marshals, official start and finish line, professional timing and post-race medals and certificates, I was impressed. They even had awards for the top three male and female finishers.  It was exceptionally hot in Orlando (though nothing like the heat and fires back home in California right now). The inaugural race drew about 70 participants and began at 6 a.m. (which felt like 3 a.m. to me) with 77 degrees and 100% humidity. It was still pitch black, but it’s Disney, so there were employees sprucing up the ground...

About a year ago I set up a Pinterest board for all of the road races I wanted to try this year, if only for the novelty. The first one I pinned was the Surfing Madonna Low Tide Run in Encinitas. Billed as the Guinness World Record Holder for Largest Low Tide Beach Run, I knew it would be a crowd pleaser and I was right. What I didn't anticipate (and neither did other newcomers) was that low tide yesterday fell at 1:30 p.m., so the 10k/12k began at 1:30 and our race, the 5k, at 1:45. Most people run mornings, mid-day or evenings, so the unusual time fit the unusual course. But it made for some odd meal planning and also for hot conditions. Getting There: The race begins and ends at Moonlight Beach, which is one of the bigger public beaches in the area. If you're going to drive to the race, get there early. Parking in nearby lots and streets is typically packed on Saturdays anyway, and yesterday was perfect beach weather (low 80s) so plenty of non-runners were there too....

Here’s the thing about running through the decades: The injuries pile up. In the early years, it’s from being too ambitious and overtraining. In the latter years, it’s from being too ambitious and tripping. And with either age group, freak accidents seem to happen only after officially signing up for a race. I’d no sooner accepted the online waiver and punched in my credit card data when I was felled by a wayward bougainvillea stalk. These beautiful plants (ours is the size and shape of a tree, but I think they are technically a shrub) need to be periodically trimmed, and sometimes the landscapers you hire don’t pick up every stalk. And these stalks have “prickers” – big ones, too. And one such thorn stuck in my foot after I stepped on it because I wasn’t paying close attention to my surroundings. I didn’t think anything of it, other than “ouch.” I was wearing thin summer flats and the plant pierced the pleather and lodged into the outside of my left foot. I pulled it ...

Post-race party in the park I bought those bright red running shorts exactly 20 years ago at a City Sports in Boston’s Downtown Crossing. They were on sale and fit—the only pair among the discount racks that day to meet my running-purchase criteria. I wore them often in the summers and early falls and then put them away come winter to get a little more life out of them. That strategy worked well until this morning, when I grabbed them to wear for the annual Scripps Ranch 4 th of July race and saw the elastic waistband was shot.  This should have been my cue to toss them, but we were in a hurry and I wanted to get one more race out of them, if only for sentimental sakes. This is my favorite summer fun run, where many former running friends and neighbors toe the line for the 10k or equally popular 2-mile fun run. And far as I remember, I’d always worn those red shorts to this race. I had lost my running shorts during the New York City Marathon , creating endl...

How can you not like a race in which you begin on level ground, knock off a hill or two and finish with vendors from 450 booths cheering you on as you move toward a finish that includes a giant medal and equally large, fresh strawberries? Sunday was actually my second time doing this annual Memorial Day weekend running event in North County. A couple of years ago I did the 10k race with a friend and finished strong. I forgot my time or place among my age group, but the race results for that year were down last time I checked. This time I was introducing my nephew, whom I’m now raising, to San Diego running. He’d shown an affinity for it during his school’s recent jogathon. He just turned 11, is quite small for his age and intellectually disabled. No way would I foist a 10k on him, so we signed up for the 5k, which actually is the bigger draw most years. The 10k runners go first, at 6:45 a.m. which means by the time we pulled into Vista Village around 6:30, parking wa...

Bay 2 Breakers 2013 from Run DMZ on Vimeo . Of all the races I did during my five-year blogging hiatus, none left as big of an impression as Bay to Breakers . This storied run from the bay to ocean through San Francisco is distinct, and not just because of the high nudity quotient or people passing the time throwing tortillas at the start . It’s more than 100 years old (ancient by West Coast standards) and in the Guinness Book of World Records for holding 110,000 participants in 1986. It remains one of the largest fields in the world, ranging from 40,000 to 100,000 on average. Bay to Breakers, to me, embodies San Francisco. There are crazy-ass costumes and plenty of people wearing nothing but their birthday suits. There are spectators drunk at 8 a.m. on a Sunday, hosting raves on the toughest part of the course, and cheering on the teams of salmon “swimming” against the endless current of runners and walkers going the other way. On a good year, there are upwards of 100...