Running Commentary

Here's a pre-race Melissa O., LMJS member and Oakland Running Festival pacer coordinator extraordinaire. Loved her outfit! So I ran the Oakland Marathon. From where I sit now, two days out, I'm glad I did. From where I sat yesterday? Not so glad. I'll get this out of the way early here: I ran my worst marathon time ever. I had to run-walk a lot of the way. I'm not proud of my time. But I am proud that I pushed through and finished. My cold did not substantially abate, but I toed the starting line because I'd said I would--and at least my cold hadn't gotten much worse. The starting line. In many ways the race was a magical experience. It started with the weather clearing up for the first time in two weeks. It continued when I met my new friend M at the start and was able to run with her a lot of the way. Seeing Oakland (and seeing Oakland and seeing Oakland and seeing Oakland) on foot was a treat. My friend M, looking strong as she chugs up the first big hill. Th...

Here's a photo I took last week of the sky in San Francisco. I'm posting it today partly to illustrate the kind of lovely skies we've been seeing this month because of all the storms--a more normal cloudy Bay Area sky is slate gray and unbroken. I'm also posting it because it's all I have right now. No images from last-minute runs, because there have been no last-minute runs, unless you want to count 1.5 miles last Tuesday on the elliptical machine. (I'm counting it. I'll take what I can get.) There have been no runs because I've been trying to rest. I have a cold. The time I haven't been resting has been taken up with praying. Praying it's not really a cold, praying it will go away, praying for a message from the universe saying, "Yes! You should run! You'll run a PR!" The universe has been discouragingly silent. It has been hard to read recent emails from members of the LMJS marathon training group who are having to drop out of t...

Sometimes when I've done a number of runs without blogging in between them, I'm left with a phone-camera full of photos and nowhere to put them. I'm currently wrestling with my Flickr account to let me in, but I don't think anyone really goes there anyway, so I don't care that much whether I post there. Anyway. I have done five good runs since the last time I wrote here. One was the marathon training group's final long run before the race, a 20-miler that covered a lot of the marathon course. The two after that took place in Phoenix, when I was there for Spring Training (go A's)--a couple of 4-milers. After that came a 12-miler down by the Berkeley marina, a run in which I did some run-walking and had a surprisingly great time. The final run was this last Saturday. It was an 8-miler with the marathon training group, a careening, sloppy rain-fest that, oddly enough, was enjoyed by all (including me). Here are some brilliant runners, members of the Oakland ...