The city I live in, Laguna Hills, holds a yearly half-marathon and 5K run event on Memorial Day weekend over the past 10 years. I thought about participating in it a few times but never did. I finally did it this year: On the Sunday before the Memorial Monday, I went to the Laguna Hills Mall, where at the center court they had stands set up for the event's last minute registration. I filled out the application, paid the fee ($28), got the packet (a T-shirt, the "bib" and the electronic tag, some flyers and coupons), and went home.
The next morning, I woke up early and drove to Laguna Hills Mall, where the run was scheduled to start at 7:30 AM. It was a little before 7 AM, but plenty of cars and a crowd were gathering already at the mall's parking lot and the street nearby where the run would start, in a festive mood. Since this was my first time here (for the life of me, the only other time I had participated in an event like this was a few years back in Taipei city when I happened to be there and they happened to have a multi-national company sponsored half-marathon and 3K event with the city), I checked if my bib was pinned at the right place (it should be at the front side of the shirt, not the back), and if I were wearing the tracking tag correctly (circled underneath the shoe lace) like everyone else. Then I joined the crowd, waited behind the start line while stretching my limbs a bit for warm-up. I got my bib number at 2595, and I saw some people wearing 3-digit bib numbers, so I guessed there must be a couple thousand people registered for this event. As for the crowd's makeup, it's quite a toss-up: men and women, young and old, teens in team, kids with parents, boys with girl friends, mothers with babies in strollers.. athletic looking and weight challenged.. a lively sample of people of all kinds living here. (Not many Asians, though).
Then the time came, and after a short speech and a Memorial Day observance, the march started. Because of the crowd size, the start line stretched about 100 yards long, and I was at about the latter third of it. It was slow moving in the beginning, but pretty soon it spanned out, and everyone had plenty of room to move about (the thing I remember most about the Taipei run was the crowd was so dense from beginning till end I had no way of maneuvering during the whole run).
Right after we left the mall, we ran inside the city of Laguna Woods, the gated retirement community where youngsters like me are not allowed to enter, except today, and they even had amicable residents lining up on the curb cheering us on, and water stands where they handed you the water and you drank and then threw the cups away, just like the professionals did on TV. I took a few looks at the community, feeling pleasure and ease in the morning cool, and checked out a few of my fellow runners as I passed them by. I noticed many, especially the younger ones, were wearing their iPod earphones, probably the same way they did with their regular jogging. I also saw one woman running with a cell phone on a holster, must be quite serious about keeping in touch with people while on the run.
We came out of Laguna Woods after traversing a few blocks there and got back on the Laguna Hills city street Paseo de Valencia, where the police had cordoned it off so no cars could be on it except we runners. It came to my mind that I drive my car on this road almost daily, but this is the first time ever I had my feet solidly on the asphalt ground. That feels great.
From here on, we were working on our last one K of the run (an official stood at the checkpoint and announced the elapsed time to every passing runner). Now here we had a little uphill slope to overcome, which again in car you wouldn't feel a thing, but on feet the law of gravity did pull a drag on you. No big deal, I told myself, I exercise on my treadmill everyday with the maximum grade setting, just hang in there and it will pass in no time.
And in no time it did pass, and now I was trotting downhill, and I could see the end clearly, right at the corner of Valencia and Alicia Pkwy, where I just needed to turn right and then into the entrance of the community center where the run would end. Up till now, I had not thought about running for a ranking--all I wanted was to have some fun doing this--but now I recalled I seemed to have passed quite a few runners along the way, and as I looked up, I could see there were only about 50 people ahead of me.. so, who knew, maybe I'd got some chance of getting some good ranking (they pick the top 3 runners of each age group for awards) out of this. So I began to guard my place, tried passing a few more runners when I could.. Whoa, right before I turned the corner, a tall white guy sped past me.. A few seconds later, a young woman with her stroller whizzed right by me too.. Admirable last minute sprinters, I said to myself.. Seconds later, I turned into the community center entrance, and I saw a big timer panel flashing 27 minute something. I had made it!
There were a few booths and stands at the end line reception area, most touting sports related products and services. I was a bit exhausted, so I spared no time there and took the shuttle back to the mall, found my car, and drove home. It was not even past 9 AM, my wife was still sleeping. I took a shower, had my coffee, and felt never better before!
********************************************************************************************************
A few after-words:
* I got the run's result a couple days later from the event's web site (see attached). It turns out there were a total of 1028 people participating in the run, and I was ranked 298th over all, 202th among all male runners, and 17th in my age group (50-54 years old). The number one runner finished with 15:43, (and I with 27:46), and there are many others in the below 20 minutes range. These "professional grade" runners probably zipped through the race long before I even had a chance to see their backs. Talk about "short-sightedness," those 50 or so people I saw in front of me before the finish line were only those a couple minutes ahead of me!
* I felt so great about the run I joined another 5K run within the same week, this time the Saddleback Community 5K Run sponsored by Saddleback Church, on Saturday. It was a much smaller crowd (about 200 runners, by my estimate), but as fun, or even more so, than the Laguna Hills': It had better after-the-run hosting--more free refreshments: cookies, yogurt, fruits, juice, coffee, and a gift raffle, and this time I did win a 3rd place award within my age group (pictures attached), due to the smaller participant pool!
Come join the fun next year!
The next morning, I woke up early and drove to Laguna Hills Mall, where the run was scheduled to start at 7:30 AM. It was a little before 7 AM, but plenty of cars and a crowd were gathering already at the mall's parking lot and the street nearby where the run would start, in a festive mood. Since this was my first time here (for the life of me, the only other time I had participated in an event like this was a few years back in Taipei city when I happened to be there and they happened to have a multi-national company sponsored half-marathon and 3K event with the city), I checked if my bib was pinned at the right place (it should be at the front side of the shirt, not the back), and if I were wearing the tracking tag correctly (circled underneath the shoe lace) like everyone else. Then I joined the crowd, waited behind the start line while stretching my limbs a bit for warm-up. I got my bib number at 2595, and I saw some people wearing 3-digit bib numbers, so I guessed there must be a couple thousand people registered for this event. As for the crowd's makeup, it's quite a toss-up: men and women, young and old, teens in team, kids with parents, boys with girl friends, mothers with babies in strollers.. athletic looking and weight challenged.. a lively sample of people of all kinds living here. (Not many Asians, though).
Then the time came, and after a short speech and a Memorial Day observance, the march started. Because of the crowd size, the start line stretched about 100 yards long, and I was at about the latter third of it. It was slow moving in the beginning, but pretty soon it spanned out, and everyone had plenty of room to move about (the thing I remember most about the Taipei run was the crowd was so dense from beginning till end I had no way of maneuvering during the whole run).
Right after we left the mall, we ran inside the city of Laguna Woods, the gated retirement community where youngsters like me are not allowed to enter, except today, and they even had amicable residents lining up on the curb cheering us on, and water stands where they handed you the water and you drank and then threw the cups away, just like the professionals did on TV. I took a few looks at the community, feeling pleasure and ease in the morning cool, and checked out a few of my fellow runners as I passed them by. I noticed many, especially the younger ones, were wearing their iPod earphones, probably the same way they did with their regular jogging. I also saw one woman running with a cell phone on a holster, must be quite serious about keeping in touch with people while on the run.
We came out of Laguna Woods after traversing a few blocks there and got back on the Laguna Hills city street Paseo de Valencia, where the police had cordoned it off so no cars could be on it except we runners. It came to my mind that I drive my car on this road almost daily, but this is the first time ever I had my feet solidly on the asphalt ground. That feels great.
From here on, we were working on our last one K of the run (an official stood at the checkpoint and announced the elapsed time to every passing runner). Now here we had a little uphill slope to overcome, which again in car you wouldn't feel a thing, but on feet the law of gravity did pull a drag on you. No big deal, I told myself, I exercise on my treadmill everyday with the maximum grade setting, just hang in there and it will pass in no time.
And in no time it did pass, and now I was trotting downhill, and I could see the end clearly, right at the corner of Valencia and Alicia Pkwy, where I just needed to turn right and then into the entrance of the community center where the run would end. Up till now, I had not thought about running for a ranking--all I wanted was to have some fun doing this--but now I recalled I seemed to have passed quite a few runners along the way, and as I looked up, I could see there were only about 50 people ahead of me.. so, who knew, maybe I'd got some chance of getting some good ranking (they pick the top 3 runners of each age group for awards) out of this. So I began to guard my place, tried passing a few more runners when I could.. Whoa, right before I turned the corner, a tall white guy sped past me.. A few seconds later, a young woman with her stroller whizzed right by me too.. Admirable last minute sprinters, I said to myself.. Seconds later, I turned into the community center entrance, and I saw a big timer panel flashing 27 minute something. I had made it!
There were a few booths and stands at the end line reception area, most touting sports related products and services. I was a bit exhausted, so I spared no time there and took the shuttle back to the mall, found my car, and drove home. It was not even past 9 AM, my wife was still sleeping. I took a shower, had my coffee, and felt never better before!
********************************************************************************************************
A few after-words:
* I got the run's result a couple days later from the event's web site (see attached). It turns out there were a total of 1028 people participating in the run, and I was ranked 298th over all, 202th among all male runners, and 17th in my age group (50-54 years old). The number one runner finished with 15:43, (and I with 27:46), and there are many others in the below 20 minutes range. These "professional grade" runners probably zipped through the race long before I even had a chance to see their backs. Talk about "short-sightedness," those 50 or so people I saw in front of me before the finish line were only those a couple minutes ahead of me!
* I felt so great about the run I joined another 5K run within the same week, this time the Saddleback Community 5K Run sponsored by Saddleback Church, on Saturday. It was a much smaller crowd (about 200 runners, by my estimate), but as fun, or even more so, than the Laguna Hills': It had better after-the-run hosting--more free refreshments: cookies, yogurt, fruits, juice, coffee, and a gift raffle, and this time I did win a 3rd place award within my age group (pictures attached), due to the smaller participant pool!
Come join the fun next year!
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