Angela's Running Page: 03/02/08 Napa Valley Marathon

I didn't know 30 wineries would even fit into the space of 26.2 miles!

On Saturday, we had breakfast at this quaint cafe in Glen Ellen that was so good, I had to write a review.

The race started at 7:00am on Sunday with clear skies and a strong breeze.
Do as I say, not as I do!
Although the longest run I've done all year was the Buffalo Run HALF Marathon on February 9th, I do know that proper marathon training requires a few more longer runs than that before a marathon. Yah, yah... don't lecture me. Therefore, the Napa Valley "Training Run" was just meant to help me get back into the marathon groove. Also, I'll be running the Catalina Marathon on 3/15/08 so I didn't want to go nuts in Napa and injure anything before another rather expensive race in two weeks. So for those of you who are new to the sport of marathoning, do your long runs BEFORE the marathon. Once you have a "base" of distance running, then you can try running a marathon while being seriously under-trained. Until then, do as I say, not as I do.

The course started in Calistoga and ran down the Silverado Trail (which is paved) into Napa. The scenery was amazing (If I had a nickel for every "Ooh, look, another winery"...)

The weather was perfect and we even had a bit of a tail wind for some of the course. I grouped up with a few other girls around mile 5. Once we learned that we were all aiming for 3:30, we stuck together and chatted all the way til the end. It was nice to run at a pace that allowed us to enjoy each others company. I felt like I had a nice smooth stong kick at the end, and the second half split was pretty even with the first half.

Some of the surroundings reminded me of "Little House on the Prairie."

There were only about three gradual uphills (Mile 1-2, Mile 5-6, Mile 18-19). My slowest mile (Mile 24) was perfectly flat. I think that mile was slow because I could see where the next turn was and it looked outrageously far. For me, I felt that Miles 1-10 was the warm up, Miles 11-20 just flew by, and then time stood completely still during Miles 21-25. That probably would not have been the case if I had actually trained with a couple of long runs.
So please: Do as I say, not as I do!
Because I said so, that's why.
Well if your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?

Napa Course profile
Marathon results

Total time 3:30:27
Average pace 8:02 minutes per mile
244th place out of about 1800 total runners
29th female out of 745 female runners
10th female in age division 35-39 out of 130 runners in that division.

Afterwards, Lorenzo and I visited the cafe again, then went to the Benzinger Winery.