This Sunday, six of the Blue Planet runners met up for the San Francisco marathon event, and held their second reunion since the 2007 Blue Planet Run. This is now becoming an annual tradition! The city by the bay boasts a magnificent marathon, and therefore was a perfect occasion to rendezvous and do some running. Since my recent tibia tendon strain had not completely healed, I was not sure whether or not I could take on the task at hand, and thus promised myself to be careful and take it slow and easy on marathon day. “Listen to your body,” I remembered the pros say.
The race was well organized and the 21,000 half- and full marathon runners were let out in waves, with the first ones leaving at 5:35 in the morning. Half an hour later it was our turn and six minutes after six, we crossed the starting line. For the next four hours it would be one foot in front of the other, and that’s how it was for the first eight miles or so. Chaim and Adam, both half marathoners, started out at the same time, but soon disappeared ahead of me in the masses of runners. On the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge, blanketed in a thick layer of fog, my dreaded injury started to nag me a bit, but by slowing down my pace, was remedied for a while. After the bridge, the course entertained several steep inclines, and by mile marker twelve the pain became so unbearable that it was clear to me that there was no way I could run another 14 miles, and thus decided to call it quits at the half marathon finish line.
With my half marathon medal in hand, and the thought that this was the first time I ever forfeited the race, I could no longer help myself and started running back to the 12.5 mile marker, where the half marathon split off from the marathon course. There I jumped back on the course and picked up where left off with 1.8 miles added to the total distance. Shortly thereafter I passed the half marathon marker for the second time, but now on the marathon side of the course. At the following aid station, the medic explained that my condition was Achilles tendinitis and that it will be very painful to run on, but that it would not rupture. With that knowledge and the hope that he was right, a compression rap and two Tylenols, I was back on the road. In the mean while the fog had lifted and the sunshine was warming up the landscape of the Golden Gate gardens. The slightly hilly terrain was flanked by large trees, a magnificent waterfall, and a brilliantly colored flowering garden. Ah, it is good to be a life, and on the run … it least for the moment!
An hour later, the electronic mat at the finish line clicked off my timing chip and this enduring San Francisco marathon had finally come to an end. I picked up my marathon finisher medal and while this certainly is not my best run, it is one I will remember for a while. After all it was a twenty-eight miler, and how often do we get to take home two medals?
only you!! congrats!
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