Light on your Feet - Nike Marathon 2009

Light on your Feet - Nike Marathon 2009

Current mood:blessed

(Originally posted on MySpace on November 6, 2009. Lets see if I can find the pictures.)

There's a concept I learned from a race walk trainer called "light on your feet." Basically, you push a little more off your toes and visualize your chest rising. It lifts your center of gravity just enough so that your feet only *just* touch the ground enough to push your body foward. Do it right, and you feel like you're floating.

The Nike Women's Marathon and Half Marathon was held in San Francisco on October 18th. It's the largest sporting event dedicated to women athletes and the largest event for Team In Training. It's also my favorite event to support as a coach because it's in our backyard and I love walking hills like no ones business.

The Inspiration Dinner (formerly known as the pre-race Pasta Party) was held in Moscone Center North. Anyone who does catering can appreciate that they had over 6000 people seated within one hour of opening the doors. The cavernous room had several full screens to see the speakers.

Joan Benoit-Samuelson, winner of the first Olympic women's marathon.

Sarah - our honoree speaker. Her family had just the most amazing story. Her mother and father were both diagnosed with blood cancer in the 1990's, her father relapsed in the late 1990's. Sarah was diagnosed in 2007.  All three survived their battles and are currently in remission. Sarah credits a drug that was funded in large part by the money raised by TNT.

This is our summer team, "Team Stride".  7 full marathoners and 21 half-marathoners, 17 first-time participants. I have to say that our team cheer after the dinner in that big room at Moscone was nothing short of awesome. 




I made the mistake of not having a calendar to reserve our time share at the Donatello (a block from the starting line in Union Square). So our day stared with the alarm going off at 2:30 AM to leave the house at 3:45 to meet our early starters at 5:00. I can't imagine this falling on the weekend of the daylight savings time change. Ugh... The early start is for Team in Training participants only, so if you'd like to do Nike next year and are worried about the hills and the 6:30 cutoff, there's a way in!

I gave my walkers the following advice to get them through the race.

"When you walk by the early miles on the Embarcadero past Pier 39 and Ghiradelli Square, think of your survivors. Here is where you'll remember to live your life knowing that you never know what tomorrow will bring."



(One of our East Bay honorees at the Finish chute. Seems like we see him everywhere!)

"At mile 6, climbing the hills near the Golden Gate bridge, you'll see some of the most amazing views of the city and, more importantly, the TNT honoree boards at the Mission Mile.  If there's a heaven on a race course, this is it.  And this is where your honored teammates who lost the battle will be cheering you on."

(Tim and Nathania actually on the Great Highway. Nathania's uncle Chris started the season battling three forms of AML. Chris lost his battle in mid August. Nathania walked the race in his memory)


"At mile 11 or 22, when you are in your last few miles of your race, think of the honorees who are going through treatment now.  Understand that nothing you are going through will ever be as hard as what they go through. Share your strength with them and let them carry you to the finish line."  

(Nathania, Justin - team honoree, Justin's sister Jessica, Devon. Justin is currently at Stanford Hospital getting his latest round of chemo for Hodgekin's Lymphoma. He's one of the most upbeat people I've EVER met, cancer or not.)

There were a few special moments this season for me as a Coach also.
- Graciela (right, below) came over from the run team with stress fractures in both tibias.  With a lot of coaching and her following advice, she completed her first half-marathon and ended up being one of our top fundraisers.



- Sybil (right facing camera) finished her first marathon just under the 8:30 time limit.  For those of you keeping track, that's better than 99.5% of people in the world since most of them would never even attempt it. Ana Maria (foreground with all the honoree ribbons) continues to walk in memory of her niece.



Our whole team finished the race this year again. Naz had a hip flare up at mile 15 and decided to play it safe and take the turn to finish the half-marathon course.

Justin walked with Kate and Carol for the last 2 miles through Golden Gate Park. Kate was actually one of our faster half-marathoners until she was sidelined by a knee injury. Her brother Jared was diagnosed with CML last fall. I knew she was not going to let herself or her brother down.

My batteries died not long after I got to the finish chute for the half marathoners, so I missed quite a few pictures of some really moving finishes.  Several of the runners finishing near the 5 hour mark were joined by a friend or parent for the last half mile. Race officials were very strict about having only the participants enter the finish chute, so I had the honor to escort them for the last few hundred yards.

The run/walkers and walkers start coming in around the 5 1/2 hour mark (7 hours for the early start).  Nathania came in with a brand new MCL strain and slowed down for the last 6 miles. I welled up quite a bit when I saw our mentor Claudia enter the chute, exhausted, but determined. Her daughter Kyla was waiting on the sidelines cheering "Mom! Mom!".  Brief hug followed by "just let me finish". She did, with some med-tent drama, but she's OK, finishing her first full marathon.

Even with all this bumps and bruises that you get even until race day, it amazes me how resiliant these people are. After 13.1 or 26.2 miles of running and walking, I still see the expressions on their faces after finally finishing their goal.

Some of them even look like they're floating.

The numbers:
- Team Stride raised just over $100K for the summer season including Kauai, Portland and Nike
- This year's event drew over 4,000 Team in Training participants
- TNT raised over $14 million for this race alone, pushing the 21 year total over $1 billion raised to support the fight against blood cancers.

I'm proud and humbled to be a part of changing the world, one mile at a time.

Go TEAM!!

The winter season kicks off tomorrow.  If you're interested in learning more about Team in Training, visit their website http://www.teamintraining.org/ to find an info session near you.