sports

On Sunday August 17 we got up at 4.30 am to prepare for our race in San Diego, America's Finest City 2008. It was a beautiful course, the nicest I've ran so far, and Sasha and I were quite successful with personal records for both of us.

On Friday night we walked the last few miles of the half marathon course, pretty much all of it uphill in the beautiful but hilly downtown area. It was good I knew that this was coming at the end of the race; I was mentally prepared and in my calculations I allowed for some extra walk breaks near the end. The over-all result was 2:18, a couple of minutes faster than my previous two races.

A lot of people asked: "isn't it terribly hot in San Diego?" but the weather was great for running. It was sunny, but not humid at all and very bearable. When we returned back in North Carolina 10 days later it took us a while to get used to the warm and humid weather again.

Buses took us from Balboa park to the start of the half marathon. Early in the morning, watching the sunrise at the Cabrillo National Monument

There were more than 7,500 participants.

I dropped my bag with warm clothes at the start and they were at the finish when I arrived. I was glad I had some warm clothes with me; it was windy at the start, although not really cold.

After the national anthem, the race started. At the start there was music: "California Dreaming". I really liked running a race in California.

The first mile or so was downhill, through the military area around the Cabrillo monument.

After that, it was about 8 miles flat, along the Embarcadero with a great view of the San Diego skyline. We took this picture when we went to pick up our bib's on Saturday.

Downtown was uphill, and the finish was in Balbao Park where we had taken the bus early in the morning. The picture above doesn't show it well, but that's where the incline began (it would get a lot worse a mile in). We took this picture earlier in the week.

Our shoes together. Instead of chips the race used disposable RFID tags.

After our races!

This morning Sasha and I competed in the competitive 5k run during the Race for the Cure event in Raleigh.

This was Sasha's first race, and she did great! Her time was 31:19 minutes. I think she's caught the bug so she'll be doing more races in the future. I was happy with my time too, around 26 minutes. I think I improved with about 10 seconds compared to my first 5k, but I'll have to wait for the official results to be sure.

It was an impressive and emotionally charged event. It's an important fund raiser for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, to support research and prevention of breast cancer. There were a total of 30,000 people running and walking (2,600 in the competitive race), and a large number of women in pink survivor shirts. It was clearly not just a race for time, it was a race for a cause. The organization was superb, with clocks at each mile, two water stands at the course and at the finish, and tons of people cheering for the participants.

We saw Petra and her friend Allison during the race, and we spend the rest of the morning together.

To the start.

The finish line.

Balloons.

Cheering for the other participants.

Cheering.

A familiar face in the crowd! Petra and her friend Allison.

The start of the recreational race at 9.00 am. The people on this picture wouldn't cross the actual start line for another 10 minutes or so.

When Petra and Allison complete their race, we went to explore the event together.

The smoke has largely disappeared so it was sunny again today. It still smelled a little bit of smoke, but the air is a lot better so tomorrow's race will be fine. Which is good, since it is an event for a great cause, and some 30,000 people are expected to be there for the races and other activities.

I went to Meredith College after work to pick up some things, and the preparations were well under way. This is easily going to be the largest race I've ever ran in, which is cool. We'll meet Petra tomorrow as well, that will be nice.

I haven't seen today's game against France yet, but the last 30 minutes or so I heard on the Dutch radio. Pretty amazing! Sasha recorded the game so I'll see it this weekend. I'm looking forward to the Tuesday game against Romania, but even more so to the quarter finals since they'll be on a Saturday so I'll be able to see the game live.

The finish line, being build up.

Registrations.