1st time pacing: Amanda's sub-2 half.

Jill and I met Chad through Sopheak at the Headlands training run we did back in February.  The week after that we saw him pacing at the Niles edition of the NorCal half.  He invited us to run the Pleasanton edition Cinco de Mayo (May 5th) as his freebie buddies.  Free half and complete the series for double bling?  Yes, please!

Only problem was that Quicksilver was the following weekend, and I was feeling a little nervous about racing on roads after Ruth Anderson.  My dear pal and improving runner Amanda was also running.  She had run her first half at Niles in like 2:02.  I saw her post about Pleasanton on Facebook, asked if she was gunning for sub-2, and offered to pace her.  She jumped all over it.

I was having a bit of a crisis.  I was not all that fired up about running the race.  It would have been fun trying to PR and inch closer to the ninety minute mark, but I did not want to beat myself up going into Quicksilver -- a PA USATF GP race.  With Ohlone and Stockholm not far behind Quicksilver, it would have been the worst time for an injury.

Pacing Amanda was the perfect solution.  Fired up for the race, because I had a goal to run for now (just not my own).  But guaranteed not to push it too hard.

Amanda and I got to be close at Cisco.  She was an admin when I was doing desktop phones.  She was just super sweet, and I generally like people.  Not much more to it than that.  We just genuinely like eachother.  She gave me a hug and seemed genuinely concerned on some particularly rotten days, and I will never forget that.  She took an interest in me and my happiness without any reason to do so.  She just genuinely cared long before I could figure out why.  I notice when people do that, and it can endear them to me forever.  Amanda is one of those, and she is in elite company when it comes to how dear she is to me because of it.

She has gotten into running and fitness through Team Mo of the Go Team Mo crew I had seen at races.  This Mo has inspired some people very dear to me (Amanda and also Obie) to take better care of themselves.  She seems super supportive and a great motivator.  Anyway, Amanda has been working with Team Mo.  Amanda seems like a hard worker and tough gal.  I can tell she cares about her running by the questions she asks me and things she posts on Facebook.  Helping her in any way would be a joy.  Helping her meet a running goal might just be more satisfying than my own PR, so I was way into it.

Pacing is hard.  I think I am pretty tuned into my body.  I think I can run with a pretty consistent effort.  Well, that may or may not be true.  But if it is, that does not translate to a consistent pace.  I really had to watch my GPS.  And to make it worse, holding the "live" pace where I wanted it did not seem to produce good split times.  I have come to rely on average pace and pay closer attention to whether it is trending up or down.  I also kept an eye on the event pacers in front of and behind me.  The last complication was being Amanda's personal pacer.  If I were simply pacing 2:00 or 1:55, I would have a set pace and be bound to it.  But as Amanda's personal pacer, I had to be responsive to her her bursts one way or the other.  I encouraged her to run a smart race, but I was reluctant to hold her back when she was cruising early.  She tricked me into thinking she had plenty of gas in the tank with two miles left.  I asked her if she just wanted to take off, and she indicated that our pace was fine.  Shortly thereafter, she started to drop back.  The 2:00 pacer (an excellent pacer I knew from Morgan Hill and met personally through Chad.  He has or will soon have run a marathon on every continent, if I am not mistaken.) was right on our heels for a while, but Amanda did it.  She finished in 1:58.  I was stoked.  She was stoked.  There was a lot of love being sent between her and I.  I ran pain-free and had a blast.  I got my double bling.  Thanks Chad!

One jacked up thing: Picking up my packet the morning of the race, they look up my name and call out my bib "333".  I was stoked!  But it was gone.  331, 332, 334....  They had to change my number.  Well, somebody had swiped it.  I got emailed his event proofs.  He has a result as bib 333.  Not sure how he got it, but that is jacked up.  I ended up with 805.  Still have never had a 9.  If my replacement bib would have had a 9, there would have been an even more epic tantrum.