Last week, a free bib the Oakland Marathon fell into my lap. As a trail runner who is accustomed to soft dirt and elevation, training for 26.2 miles of hard asphalt was not in my running plans. But Oakland is home – or at least it used to be… And I’m realizing that nostalgia can be a powerful fuel. My stoke got the best of me, and I jumped on this opportunity without a second thought.
The ghost of Oakland past
Standing near the front of the starting corral with about 11,000 excited runners, the energy felt electric. As the race started, I noticed some pre-race jitters despite not having any real goal in mind, other than just finishing the race in one piece.
As we left Lake Merritt behind us and ran through the streets of Piedmont, I found myself deep in nostalgia. My time in Oakland ended in a divorce, and while I’ve been back many times since then, running this specific route on this particular Sunday had me feeling pretty emotional.
Every corner felt like a flashback. All of a sudden I was on a high-speed trip down memory lane. It’s not unusual for me to have some tears during a race, but usually they show up closer to the end, when the finish line is in sight… not mile 6.
I ran into some familiar faces in the crowd and shared some chatty zone 2 miles with friends old and new. These conversations and the incredible energy of the crowds really carried me through the first half of my race.
Oakland showed up with great signs, loud cheers and great tunes, and the unmistakable “Town” vibe, which was feeding my soul. This was crucial, because the meal I’d eaten the day before felt like it was trying to destroy my body.
A poorly-timed burrito
The day before the race, I drove up from Santa Cruz to stay with some friends in the East Bay, so that I could get to the starting line bright and early on race day.
My diet has been mostly plant-based this year. Standard logic would dictate that the night before a marathon is not the optimal time to pivot to a heavy, spicy meat-and-bean situation. And yet, there I was, sitting with friends in a diner that they were stoked to show me, deciding that a massive chorizo burrito was the ideal pre-race meal. I devoured the entire thing.
Looking back, I can’t help wonder if this was some kind of low-key self-sabotage. Whatever it was, my stomach let me know that it was not thrilled with me on race day, and I spent a non-trivial amount of time in various port-a-potties along the course, wondering why I had betrayed my digestive tract at such an inconvenient time.
Welcoming the pain to the party
The funny thing about not training for a road race is that you generally know when the blowback is coming. I’ve run impromptu road marathons before and I know that my hips and legs won’t be stoked with all the pavement pounding. I knew that hitting a wall wasn’t a possibility; it was more like an appointment.
So when that familiar pain started to hit around mile 20, I greeted it like an old friend who was showing up late to a party. I talked to it, welcomed it in and gave it a seat at the table. It was just another piece of me that’d be joining temporarily as I knocked out the 6 or so miles that remained.
That mental shift – acknowledging that the discomfort is normal and expected, and welcoming it into the picture – made for an empowering late race experience. The more I focused on the pain, the more it faded into the background. It’d enter the foreground again, and I’d go through the same cycle, but it never stayed in the limelight for very long, and in the meantime I was burning through those final miles.
My fastest road marathon yet
Despite the lack of road training and the multiple stops caused by my questionable brunch choice, I managed to set a new marathon PR, shaving a few minutes off of my previous best 26.2 time in Big Sur.
I’m still not entirely sure how or why I had such a good race. It must’ve been some combination of good vibes and crowd energy, my own feelings of intense positivity, the nostalgia factor of running the streets of Oakland, my greeting of the pain… or something else entirely. But it goes to show that sometimes, when you stop overthinking the perfect race and just show up for the experience, your body might surprise you.
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