Palo Alto Moonlight Run 5K

Friday, September 28, 2007 (8:45 PM Start)

Palo Alto Moonlight Run 5K

Palo Alto, CA

Time: 27:59 / Pace: 9:00 min/mile

It turned out to be a night of belief vs. unbelief. Belief won. But I was the unbeliever until the very last seconds. The week before had been sunny and clear then Friday arrived with clouds and even some slight chance of rain. Why couldn’t that one day be clear when we wanted it most? In the afternoon Fr Jim arrived at the house and we zipped off to Palo Alto. We were going to visit my favorite running store (Runner’s High in Menlo Park, a store where all of the staff are runners and they create a runner friendly atmosphere) and Stanford University Bookstore (one of the finest university bookstores in the nation) which is also Jim’s alma mater. We also slipped in a light dinner (at Café Borrone, a delightful and healthy food café for the book reading set in the Menlo Park/Palo Alto area, because Europe is too far to go for lunch or dinner) so that we would have fuel for the race. It is so unusual to have a night race that you do have to think through how to rest, eat and prepare so that you are not depleted and tired by race time.

But Jim was more concerned about taking stock of the cloud movement and ascertaining whether the moon really could appear. That appearance was important since this was his first experience of the Moonlight run. I had no faith in such an appearance. Evidently the thick gray clouds and misting rain were affirming my position. Even when we pulled into the very crowded parking lot the intermittent rain continued, though it was still more than an hour before the race. As we were walking from the car to the race grounds (a ten minute walk as it turned out) to pick up our bibs and tee shirts, Jim kept finding blue sky poking through tiny holes in the clouds. He really was adamant about this visible moon- rising possibility. I tried to be supportive because it would be a less than interesting race if there were no moonlight but I was still an unbeliever. We had noticed earlier in the day that the clouds were moving right along in a southeasterly direction although it was not supposed to clear up until Saturday. But I did not think the gray clouds were going to move aside quickly enough for Jim’s desire to have a run bathed in moon glow. According to Google this night would bring a “waning gibbous moon at 80%” which I imagined as shimmering provocatively over the bay and turning the race course into a surreal landscape.

After picking up our bibs and tee shirts we hustled back to the car to deposit them. We then did a bit of jogging to warm up. It always helps me to warm up for a 5K although it doesn’t feel like it helps much with a 10K. Jim and I did our own private rituals and routines to get ready for the start. This event has a history of being slightly disorganized and this night was no exception. Every year “they” try something new; this year it was different start times for the two big events –the 5K and 10K—and a new course for the 5K. So the 10K runners, by far the larger crowd, took off thirty minutes before we were to start the 5K. By the time our start time had come around the moon was out! I couldn’t believe it but the sky had cleared up and that old devil moon was hanging low and shining bright. Jim seemed quite pleased and I had to swallow my unbelief.

The announcer for the race kept warning us about being careful and now that I have run the course that was rightly said. It included the chaos right at the beginning where a wide parking lot of runners quickly hit a very narrow bike/run path along a levee. We all tried to avoid bumping but it couldn’t be avoided, one slower young woman got bumped hard when I went by her on the left and another runner went by her on the right. Fortunately no one tripped or fell but it was close.

Suddenly we were in the dark running along this narrow paved path and all you could hear was the slap of shoes and the labored breathing of everyone who started out too fast. The moon was sitting right there in front of us even though it didn’t seem to give off a lot of light. I have a vague memory of Jim explaining that phenomena to me but I don’t remember what he said. There were people in front, behind, and passing me who had those “neon light sticks” that glow in the dark. They don’t shed light but they do help you keep track of the path because of the sheer number of runners wearing them around their necks and other body parts. And they are rather surreal, often they look like a circle of light bouncing along a dark path held up by a shadow.

The paved path didn’t last long and that was unwelcome news. Now we were on a gravel road; there was more room to run but much more chance for a bone bruise or a strained ankle. I hate running on gravel and I had to change my stride in order to accommodate the uneven surface. But it was nice to have some room to run and I was able to get into a semi-steady pace. I could never check my GPS because there was no light. Finally at the first water station with its blazing flood lamps I could see that we had gone 1.89 miles but it went by so quickly I did not see the pace. I kept lying to myself about how I didn’t care about my pace but it didn’t work. I knew that the minute we came out into street lamp lit roads I would want to know.

Eventually we did turn onto a paved road again and I could finally see runners more clearly. Now we had about a mile left and I moved out to the left fringe of the pack so that I could keep my pace and not lose ground. I seemed to running around a 9 min/mile pace and I had hoped it would be faster but then considering the running conditions it was acceptable. With this race I do know that I am going to begin a series of “sprint calculations.” When would I start pushing the pace, when would I motor up into full sprint mode, when would I have a sense of my remaining physical resources? I didn’t feel strong and I thought I would. I had not pushed the pace so I wasn’t sure why I didn’t feel perkier. So that meant I would need to back off the full tilt sprint until I was sure I could keep it up all the way into the chute. I don’t think I am actually very adept at these “sprint calculations” and I keep thinking that the more races I complete the more adept I will become. It hasn’t happened yet.

Now we had made the last turn onto the street right before the finish with all of the flood lamps blinding us, but it is still more than a quarter of a mile to the line and I knew I could not sprint that far. So I held back and then I realized I had held back too long. So I made a headlong dash and almost knocked over a couple of people as I bolted ahead of them by inches to enter the chute. Usually everyone is slowing down before the chute and I was speeding up, a clear prescription for a collision. We avoided it this time.

Jim found me and told me his time and I was excited for him. He could easily have won his age division with that time. But the weather turned bitter cold and we were both freezing. We tried to hang around but they only posted the 10K times and didn’t seem to be rushing to post the 5K times. We even checked at the official booth and the girls who were working on it were clearly behind and overwhelmed. So we headed back to the car, briskly, since we were now really quite cold. As it turned out once the times were finally posted online Jim had won his division and now he was “undefeated” for the season. It was great news.

I had maintained a 9:00 min/mile pace for the course and reframed that pace as progress toward my attempts to increase my pace after my bout with pneumonia. I was on the comeback trail. And I was thrilled to celebrate Jim’s success.