On the heels of Paris came our next race…San Jose!
I had planned on doing the Remix Challenge, but that short work-week returning from Paris was pretty rough on me. I felt like I had been coming down from a cold, especially with all the exhaustion from the race and traveling.
Somewhere in between flying in to San Francisco, getting In N Out, and going to bed, I somehow negotiated passing on the 5K and sleeping in. As you can see, we got in at around 1am. I was already fairly haggard.
Our alarms went off at 5:30am for a 7:30am start. We turned over at each other and negotiated. “It’s only a 5K.” “Only two extra medals.” “Can we live without two extra medals?” “It’ll throw off the rest of the weekend…” “I think I’d prefer to perform better on the half marathon anyways.” “What about all the things we want to do later today?” Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I woke up later in the day, much more refreshed. After getting brunch, we headed to the expo like usual to grab our gear.
There was a heat advisory in San Jose, which was funny seeing as though there was a winter advisory in Denver waiting for us when we got home. In the flurry of unpacking and packing and feeling sick overall I forgot my running hat/visor, so after our visit to the Computer History Museum, we went out looking for one. It turns out that running hats were quite a specialty item – can’t get them at Ross/Marshalls/TJMaxx (at least they were sold out), or Target either. Luckily we found a running shop nearby, and dropped a whole lotta money there. It was sad, because they were closing up shop (like, for good, not for the day or anything), but we got out with tons of compression gear, shoes, etc. All I got was a visor and a water bottle!
After a long day of computering, we headed to a nearby Chinese restaurant for our pre-race dinner. Super delicious! I was soaking up as much food as I could, especially since I was coming back from Paris (all cheese and bread), and since I was going back home to Denver (nothing). I had seafood udon and hot and sour soup. Amazing.
The next morning, we headed out to downtown San Jose for the race. I’d heard mixed reviews about this course. Some people loved it, and some people hated it. I guess this was my time to find out what all the hubbub was about.
The course starts off downtown and winds through a few residential areas, and then comes back into downtown. It is fairly flat. I wouldn’t call it scenic. The streets are well maintained, so you won’t trip over anything. It seems like a lot of the streets are on a grade though, because I noticed that my calves/ankles were really sore in places depending on where I was running on the road. At first I thought it was just me but that turned out to be a consensus within the group. There were some fun locals that came out to cheer the runners on —
Once the race was over, we headed out to a hot pot place nearby the finish for a victory meal. Single serve hot pot was new to me, but mostly welcoming because I didn’t have to share my goodies and no one had to deal with my picky eating habits. My next race shirt will have to say “I run for hot pot.”
We headed back to our friend’s place, and I took a nice long victory nap. It only lasted a few hours because I had some work to do. What’s a bummer is that now that I’ve cleared by 10 races, in between 10 and 15, Rock n Roll doesn’t issue any more heavy medals. I’m on my own, unless I get a specialty medal. Back to normalcy for a bit!
We were taking a red eye back to Denver, and after landing, I pretty much had to head straight in to work for a 15 hour day. It was like an ultramarathon that I’ve never had to run before. Before heading out to the airport, we had one last victory meal…some of the best enchiladas I’ve had in awhile.
So, for as much running as I did, I probably did more eating. It made up for all the food I didn’t really enjoy in Paris!
Amara in Training 