Oakland Running Festival - Race Recap
On Sunday March 20, 2022, I ran a Marathon. It was my third full marathon and I approached it with extremely high ambitions. The Goal that I was pursuing was to qualify for The Boston Marathon. The chosen event was The 13th annual Oakland Running Festival.
In this blog we’ll discuss the pros, cons, successes and failures as well as the plans moving forward. At the end, we’ll have a special offer for you, so keep reading.
For those new to the blog, this journey began almost ten years ago when I first picked up distance running. I was in the worst shape of my life, smoking & drinking heavily and knew that the shape that I was in didn’t align with my goals, my purpose and in general who I was. Visit our general blog page to get the whole story. I’ve been documenting this since 2014.
My apologies by the way for not providing more updates throughout the training. It was an interesting journey that resulted thankfully in me approaching the starting line injury free, healthy and more prepared for a marathon than I’ve ever been and for that, I’m extremely grateful.
Recap:
Like most of my prior races, I had trouble sleeping on the night before the race. I woke up repeatedly in an utter panic thinking I had overslept. At about 4:30am, I decided to just stop fighting it, got up and started getting ready.
I took a lukewarm shower, threw on the preplanned race outfit and headed out the door. This was a local race for me. I live 5-10 minutes from the race start/finish line. I’ve had the opportunity to compete in the Oakland Running Festival at various distances over the years, but this would be my first time doing their full marathon.
Being that I arrived over an hour and a half before the race start time, I was able to find great parking on Harrison between 14th & 15th St. I walked down to the starting line, checked out the logistics, small talked with some of the race volunteers, then headed back to the car to stay warm.
As the minutes passed, the number of runners jogging past the car warming up gradually increased. Finally, at about 6:30 I was compelled to get out of the car and get my stomach ready for the 3+ hour trek.
To avoid last race’s multiple bathroom breaks, I opted to not eat/drink too much on the morning of the race, but instead to rely on yesterday’s carb load and race day hydration plan. After a quick stop by the porta-potty, I checked my gear and was able to make it to the corral to frantically search for my nonexistent pace group just in time for The Star Spangled Banner, but before we get into that, let’s back up a bit.
In 2017, the race directors altered the marathon course to include the San Francisco Bay Bridge walk/bike trail. Less than a month ago, the marathon runners were notified that this wouldn’t be the case this year due to police presence shortage and that we would be instead running the half marathon course TWICE!
In track & field I was mostly a long & triple jumper (stay with me, this is relevant). Occasionally, for training purposes or relays, my coaches would throw me in a 400 meter dash. At Fresno State, our home indoor track was only 200 meters meaning that to complete a 400, you had to run around it twice. I was familiar with the psychological affects this caused. Although the same distance was being run, the race strategy was drastically different. The laps for this race would be 13.1 MILES long.
Instead of complaining about it on Social Media like I saw many runners doing, I instead altered my race strategy to accommodate the change. For those that issued complaints, I implore you to contact the city you live in and try to get ONE street blocked off for a few hours. Once you go through that process, I think you’ll have an increased level of respect for race coordinators who have to block off over 26 miles of road for races to take place.
As discussed in prior posts, in order to qualify for the Boston Marathon (or BQ) at my age, I have to complete a marathon in no more than 3 hours and 10 minutes. These were my goal times/paces. My strategy to achieve this was as follows:
Mile 1-13 (aka lap 1): average 7:15-7:20/mi
Mile 14-19: slowly progress down to 7:05mi
Mile 20-finish line: press the pedal and buckle up! (sub-7min/mi)
With the training that I had done, I was pretty confident that I could achieve a Boston Qualifying time if I just stuck to the plan, but reality doesn’t always care about your plan.
What Had Happened Was…
Keep in mind this: My belief is that everything happens for a reason, exactly as it’s supposed to and exactly when it’s supposed to. Every described occurrence was what was meant to be. It’s the journey, the reward and the point of it all. I embrace all that happened. It’s my responsibility to learn the lessons that they were supposed to teach me and move forward. Below are a few contributing factors that I’ll have to learn from:
In the weeks leading up to the race, my personal life was riddled with some hurdles. While I managed to still squeeze some miles in to avoid loosing fitness level, I was admittedly distracted on race day.
Due to the fact that I felt I needed some additional assistance in focusing on race day, I broke a cardinal rule: RACE HOW YOU PRACTICED. Instead, I decided to throw caution to wind. It had been years since I had run any race or trained with headphones, but decided that this BQ attempt would be a good time to resurrect this practice. You’ll see why this was a bad idea soon.
A few days before the race, the Oakland Running Festival sent out a link to an app called RaceJoy to all the runners that allowed our family/friends to track us live as we ran. While I had downloaded the app, I hadn’t tested it out and certainly hadn’t tested it with headphones.
A week before the race, I did a couple race course preview runs. During these runs, I noticed that the pace times on my watch were jumping all over the place swinging from 6min/mi to 11min/mi. I was concerned at first, then researched the race website to find out that there would be pace groups in the 3:05-3:10 range and was relieved to know that I could count on them to keep me on track. The problem resurfaced on race day itself when I realized that this information was incorrect and the fastest race group would be for 3:20 marathoners leaving me to depend on a watch that I didn’t fully trust to be providing accurate information.
So to reiterate, I’m now beginning a marathon in an attempt to BQ with minimal sleep, a lot on my mind, with an untested set of headphones in my ear, with an app that I’ve never used, no pacer and with a less than trustworthy watch. Let’s see how this goes…
My awesome friends Chad & Jen up early to cheer on runners. You both are awesome!
2022 Oakland Running Festival Marathon Course.
And So It Begins:
As I crossed the starting line, I started the live tracking app, as instructed, and began to shuffle through mile 1 with the rest of the herd. The course began at Snow Park, travelled along the Lakeshore side of Lake Merritt where I was elated to see my friend & his wife waving signs frantically cheering me on. I think the volunteers and spectators are the heroes of these races. They bring the magic. While the race coordinators bring the concept, the staff and police force execute those ideas to make it safe and enjoyable, but the volunteers & fans bring the unexpected laughs at random signs, encouraging words when needed most, bells, claps, whistles and instruments keeping us moving. All the things combined to create an enjoyable and memorable experience. From a racer’s perspective, we appreciate you, because you make it special, so thank you for that.
As I approached mile marker 1 I was unexpectedly greeted by a loud announcer from the tracking app telling me my splits and expected finish time. I’ve never run a race knowing my expected finish time. I had calculated approximate numbers but they certainly weren’t shouting in my ear. Anyways…on to mile 2.
The route then proceeded down International Blvd. before heading through Old Oakland. We passed back through downtown before making the trip down and back Broadway. I’d define the turn at Oakland Tech best by calling it clunky. It wasn’t the smoothest transition, but it did the job. After that, a short jog down 14th, Lakeshore and we’re off to round two.
This is the part of the race where I realized I was running too fast. At the half way point there was a clock displaying the amount of time that had passed since the race began. If I was pacing correctly, this clock should have read about 1:35. It instead showed 1:30 meaning that I had completed lap 1 about five minutes too fast.
Another Round Bar Tender
Around this time, I had picked up a conversation with a stranger. We ran together and talked from mile 11 through mile 21. It was great to get my mind off of the race for awhile. I even took my headphones off and further engaged in the conversation. I thought to myself, maybe this was the pacer I was looking for!
By mile 20 we both were struggling so it was less conversing and more plain old holding on. It was around this point that he faded back and left me to finish the final 10k on my own. Thank you Bobby for the push. It was appreciated.
Not long after my unofficial pacer took that walk break, my legs decided it was time for us to do the same. By mile 23 the run/walk method had turned into the walk + walk + walk more method. My calves were cramping pretty bad. I was just trying to hold on with everything I had left. I couldn’t wait to get off of the Broadway stretch, which seemed like a cross country trip on lap 2, and take those final couple turns to close out this race.
Time was against me. The RaceJoy app told me a few miles back that I was on track to run a 3:07. By the time I started the walking breaks, I had taken out my headphones out so I didn’t know exactly where I was in relation to BQ pace, but knew this wasn’t helping. I was in disbelief that I had run out of gas after feeling so good in the previous miles, but it happens and in hindsight, I’ve evaluated and figured out the why, which I’ll address more below.
Once I made it to 14th St., I was blessed that my friends from earlier had relocated for that final mile cheer. Being that my pace had significantly slowed I was finally able to take the time to see their signs. They were amazing & hilarious. I even heard from other runners that they were high energy cheering for all the runners as they passed by. I love them for this, but the journey for me was not yet over.
I knew by this point that I wasn’t going to BQ unless I called an Uber (and trust me, I was considering it). I managed to bring my legs to something resembling a jog to cross the finish line in some form of style. (see below)
Me pushing my automobile uphill after running out of gas.
Quick Review
I’ve road raced enough to recognize a well put together race. I’ve participated in enough Oakland Running Festival events to know that this race wasn’t put together as well as some of the priors.
The course changes that were released weren’t the only changes made. The changes weren’t extreme, but caused some confusion. The Broadway to 14th transition for example.
The signage for the race was confusing, causing some runners to make the wrong turns. The 10k/Full Marathon split on 12th is a great example of this.
Last but not least, the medal that I was handed after completing this marathon weighed less than ones I’ve received from a 5k. Now I’m not one of the people who cares much about the metals so this didn’t bother me much. Plus the sweatshirt received kind of made up for it.
I’ll definitely be back to run this race again, but I wanted to voice my opinion honestly to help to make improvements for the good of all.
Reevaluate & Retry
So there’s still a large elephant in the room. When will I qualify for the Boston Marathon? I finished the Oakland Marathon in 3:15:21 which is 5 minutes and 21 seconds too slow to even apply to run the Boston Marathon, but I shaved almost 10 minutes off of my Marathon PR. After I finished sulking, physically and emotionally healing from it all, I was able to formulate my plans moving forward.
I’ve chosen my next race and I’m excited to share more about it with you in the future. My training will continue, but with a few minor tweaks including:
increased speed work
altering the time of day of my training runs
more strength training, meditations and yoga
dietary changes to fuel for the long-haul
This has been a long & hard journey, but I feel blessed to be on it. I’m closer now than I’ve ever been to achieving this goal and look forward to helping you achieve yours as well.
Interested in a Fitness Consultation with me? I’d love to talk to you and find out more about your aspirations and share knowledge to help you be more successful in obtaining them. Book your fitness consultation and take an additional 25% off by using promo code: GRATEFUL at check out. I firmly believe that living a life in gratitude is the key to success and happiness. I’m grateful for the opportunity to run and to share my experiences with you all.
Thank you for taking the time to read this part of the journey. My Garmin & Strava apps will be set to private for the remainder of this training cycle, but I will be writing here and sharing on Social Media as developments occur. Make sure you’re on our mailing list to be updated about new blog posts as well as following us on Instagram & Facebook.
We’re just getting warmed up…
