Oakland Running Festival Marathon Report

What a great event for Oakland! The marathon course featured many of Oakland's best landmarks and diverse neighborhoods, including Temescal, Rockridge, Montclair, Fruitvale, and West Oakland. Even though the whole course wasn't lined with fans, the ones who turned up were great -- including the infamous Raiders fans who dressed up in gorilla suits and gave me high fives near the end of the race. It definitely helped running in my hometown, having friends and neighbors cheering me on at various points in the race.

I ended up finishing in 4:08, a decent time considering my lack of training this winter. Hopefully, I'll be able to recover soon and start running again later this week -- I have to start training for my next marathon on May 2!

Update: Read Scott Dunlap's excellent recap here.

The Golden Hills and Nike Women's Marathon

On October 10, I completed the Golden Hills Marathon, a point-to-point trail run through the East Bay Hills. The next weekend, my girlfriend Jessica ran her first 26.2 miler at the the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco.

The Golden Hills Marathon is a small event that features just under 110 participants. Although a handful of elite runners participate in the marathon, most of the participants are just average runners like me. It is run in conjunction with the Dick Collins' Firetrail 50, a competitive 50-mile ultramarathon.

The main appeal for the GHM and DCFT is the beautiful setting along the hills of Berkeley, Oakland, and Castro Valley. Much of the course traces the East Bay's Skyline Trail, which offers fantastic views of Mt. Diablo to the west and the San Francisco Bay to the east. My favorite portion of the race came about halfway through the course, along the French Trail in Redwood Regional Park, which immersed us in an old-growth redwood forest just a few miles away from downtown Oakland.

Before the race, I worried about the conditioning needed to complete a trail marathon that included 4800 ft. of climb. I had only run one marathon before, and it was a relatively flat course. My fears, though, ended up being unfounded. Even though I walked up all of the hilly portions of the course, my finishing time was only 1 hour slower than my previous marathon time.

The Nike Women's Marathon is a completely different event. San Francisco swells with runners and spectators from around the country, even though a lottery culls the event to just under 20,000 participants. Still, the race is so large it takes 20 minutes just to get all the runners across the starting line at Union Square.

The course makes it way through some of the most scenic places in the city, including North Beach, Crissy Field, Golden Gate Park, and the Great Highway.

Many spectators pay an extra few bucks to sign up for text messages that help locate their loved ones throughout the course. I wasn't aware of the service, so I picked a spot near the finish line and waited for Jessica the old fashioned way. Even though I was waiting for an hour to spot her, the DJ made the waiting seem more like a party than a spectating event.

Overall, we were both very happy with our respective races. Jess was thrilled to be running in the largest women's marathon in the world, and I was thrilled to participate in a small, well-organized marathon in a beautiful setting.

The Ave Marathon

I ran my first marathon yesterday, along the majestic redwood trees of Humboldt State Park.

It was an ideal location to run my first 26.2 miler -- the 2,000 year-old groves of redwood trees shade the flat course and, I've heard, provide an extra oxygen boost to oxygen-deprived runners as well.

For the first half, I felt great. I paced myself early, staying in a thick pack of casual runners that took time to enjoy the scenery around us.

A quarter into the race, I realized I needed to pick up the pace if I wanted to finish in four hours. I left the comfort of the group and forged ahead.

As the course dragged on, though, my spirits flagged -- by mile 16 my legs were hurting and the few runners around me were bonking. A troubling sign occurred at mile 18, when a dehydrated runner was being loaded into an ambulance, muttering nonsensically.

With five miles left, and my spirits at a low, a deer sprang out of the woods and leapt across the course. Certainly a better omen than yesterday, when Jess and I spotted a pair of turkey vultures near the finish line. I couldn't hold back a loud exclamatory "Wow!" that refocused my effort. I decided to speed up and was amazed when my legs actually responded.

After the last hill, I charged down the last 1000 yards to the finish line, completing the course in 4:01. Not a record-breaker by any calculation, but good enough for me.

The Marathon Monks of Mt. Hiei

In 2003, a Buddhist monk named Genshin Fujinami completed the Kaihōgyō, a grueling series of physical and spiritual tests that requires 27,705 miles of walking over seven years:

For 100 consecutive days in each of his first three years as a pilgrim, Fujinami rose at midnight, prayed, ran and walked 18 miles (stopping 250 times to pray), did chores back at the monastery, ate, and hit the sack. In years four and five, he upped his total to 200 consecutive days. Year six saw him complete a 37-mile course every day for 100 consecutive days, then endure the doiri—seven days without food, water, or sleep while sitting upright and chanting 100,000 mantras. In year seven, he trekked 52 miles a day for 100 straight days, usually from 1 a.m. to 5 p.m., then 18 miles a day for 100 consecutive days.

(Source: Outside Magazine)

Fujinami subsisted on a vegetarian diet of vegetables, tofu and miso soup throughout his training.

He is only the 47th person to complete the "marathon meditation" since antiquity. For more info, watch the excerpted Google and YouTube video of the Marathon Monks.

Cliff Young

In 1983, the Westfield Ultramarathon in southeast Australia featured an unlikely contestant named Cliff Young. Mr. Young did not resemble his fellow competitors. First, he was 61 years old. Second, he showed up for the race in overalls and workboots. As a result, many feared for his health and safety -- after all, the event did cover a grueling distance, 543.7 miles, the distance from Melbourne to Sydney.

When the race started, Mr. Young shuffled at a leisurely pace while the other competitors ran out to an early lead. However, Mr. Young did not stop running at night. He continued his shuffle for the whole race without stopping for sleep, and he ended up not only winning the race but setting a new course record.

Today, many ultramarathon runner emulate Mr. Young's running style; it's been dubbed the "Young-shuffle."

You can read more about the legend of Cliff Young here.