My wife Tawnya and I were always active. I had run in track and cross country in high school, and she had always been an avid hiker. When our son Garret was born, we never stopped hiking. We often carried him on 10+ mile hikes such as the one below, a day hike to North Dome from Tioga Road.
In mid 2011, Tawnya started running half marathons with Brazen Racing. Initially I made fun of her for paying to run, since I had always just "run free" or as we now call it "running feral".
But then one day I decided to tag along with her and her friend Lynn (on the right) on one of those trail half marathons. I was instantly hooked. I started running half marathons with her about once a month. I never trained between them and was always sore for a week afterwards.
I was constantly plagued by knee issues including patellar tendonitis and iliotibial band syndrome. I often ran with neoprene knee wrap thingies. But I still loved it.
... then ...
On December 23, 2011 our lives suddenly changed. After a year of foster parenting classes, forms, inspections, etc, we had been matched with a sibling group of 4, shown below. Their ages were 1,2,4,5. Add in our son Garret (left) and we had a full set of fingers - 1 2 3 4 5. Until we found a good babysitter, running together was off the table.
Then one day in April of 2012 Tawnya told me she needed to recover from some minor injury and could not run the Grizzly Peak 30k. So I ran in her place. Aside from running a couple of 15-milers in the mid 1990's, I had never run more than a half marathon. Grizzly peak was an eye opener. I had yet to learn about nutrition and hydration during a long run since back in college I had always run without any.
At the Grizzly Peak run, I came in 16th out of 25. I went out hard like a half marathon. Around mile 14 or so, I hit a wall. I didn't carry any water that day and ate only a slice each of banana and orange. I bonked hard. I got the chills and had to sit down for a while on the uphill. I ended up sitting down or lying down 4 or 5 more times, at one time practically falling into the chaparral beside the trail for a rest. But every time I got back up and kept going. I finished with a pace of 13:42/mile, and I never wanted to run again.
That didn't last long. Tawnya had decided to run the Big Sur marathon. I realized that would put her longest run more than 7 miles over the top of mine. Being the competitive type that I am, I was unhappy with that. So I signed up for the San Francisco marathon on July 29 and started training big time. I picked the "Hal Higdon Advanced I" training plan and stuck to it religiously.
Long before the marathon arrived, I ran a few marathons. It started with the inaugural Surfer's Path Half marathon in Santa Cruz. Halfway through the half marathon, I decided to run the whole 26.2, and I did. It took exactly 4 hours and my legs were done. But I knew I would be running more.
Not long afterwards, Tawnya and I showed up for the Skyline-to-the-Sea marathon. A few minutes before the race started, I upgraded to the 50k. Tawnya did the same. Here we are at the finish (you can tell by my salt lines).
It turned out to be a great day. We ran together for the first 10-15 miles until we hit the spot where you do a loop in the exposed heat (the loop turns it from a marathon to 50k). I ran the loop twice, barely beating the cutoff the second time (actually I didn't beat it but I convinced them to let me go anyway). They had already pulled the flags but I found my way using the GPS data from my first lap.
I caught Tawnya a few miles later and we both finished between 8 and 9 hours. I had just gone from 19 miles to 36 miles for my longest lifetime run! Tawnya's jumped from 20 to 31. After that race we both started looking for 100-milers to run! Tawnya signed up for the first ever Bryce 100 in Utah in late May 2013. I had to run one before her!
I settled on the Chimera 100 in November 2012. It's getting closer!
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