Hi all,

This Napa Marathon and weekend recap is brought to you by our very own Vera who graciously provided details on the weekend. A couple of notes:

1. Jacob ran his fastest marathon at 4:21 and I believe Art may have PR’d at 4:23 as well. Considering the rain and all, that is pretty cool.

2. Maha also provided some feedback on the race as she had a pretty good race and was able to finish strong despite the weather. The 800’s seemed to really help her stay focused towards the end of the marathon.

Here is Vera’s recap of the weekend.

Well, the Napa Valley Marathon is behind us.
Jacob and I drove to Sunnyvale on Friday to visit with Jacob’s sister. We
took our time driving, stopped at various places like  Harris ranch for a
coffee break, went to Gilroy to smell the garlic and shop at the outlet.
On Saturday, we drove for about 11/2 hours to the beautiful Napa valley.
We went straight to the expo.  The merchandise were overpriced , so we did
not buy anything. We picked up our bibs and disposal chips and were
given one duffel bag and one backpack as a souvenir.  That day we had a
great lunch and dinner , Napa style minus the wine which was a torture for
me.
We took the shuttle on Sunday to Calistoga  @ 5:15am.  It was a cool rainy
morning.  We arrived around 6 and waited in the bus for about an hour .  We
also hooked up with Maha, Rosie and Art.  Everyone was quite at the start
line, waiting impatiently for the Marathon to start..  We did not even
noticed when the race started!
Jacob an Art took off right away.  They started together and finished
within couple minutes of each other.
Us ladies started together, but by mile 3 , I sped and left Rosie and Maha
behind.
I was surprised at myself for doing this race and finishing it.  I did not
train properly this year.I spent almost one year nursing me knee.  I had no
pain the whole way.. So, I think that I am back in business.  Only time and
patience healed my injury.
The marathon route was extremely scenic.  We ran from Calistoga to Napa
along the beautiful Silverado trail where many famous wineries like
Rutherford are located.  It was a rolling course, we started at an elevation
of 365 and ended at 94.  It was raining, non stop, the whole time.  We had
water/ gatorade and bathrooms every 2 miles. After mile 17, we had also
bananas  and oranges .  All together the marathon  support was great.
At the finish line, there was hot soup  and food for the finishers. There
was also massage service  and hot showers  for the runners, but I did not
take advantage of these services because I could not wait to go tho the
hotel and get rid of my wet soaking clothes.
I checked on the Internet our finishing times, only the clock time results
are posted:
Jacob 4:26
Art     4:28
Vera   5:46
Rosie 6:02
Maha 6:02
I don’t know why the chip times are not posted.  We also lost few minutes
because we did nor realize when the race started!
Jacob and I went to a nice Italian/French restaurant that evening and
celebrated with a great Pinot Noir.
We drove back to La yesterday in the rain storm.
Despite the rainy weather, I recommend this race. Go and enjoy it, don’t
worry about race time  and make a vacation out of it.
That’s all, hope to see you soon
Vera

Hi everyone,

Below is a PDF of our South Route. It is not to scale as it would need to be quite a bit bigger to be at scale. Each number represents a mile marker. For example, if you wanted to run 7 miles, you would start from the sidewalk that leads to the front door of the Senior Center and then run to Jib St. Turnaround and head back to the sidewalk where you started and you just ran 7 miles.

If you have any questions, just let Dan or I know and we will be happy to answer them.

26ers’ South Training Route

Hi everyone,

This is our first post to our new blog. Both Dan and I will be adding content all year long. We plan to talk about running, marathons, half marathons, training, strength training for endurance athletes as well as flexibility and nutrition topics. We plan to use this blog to go into more detail about all of the various training modalities that seem to crop up each month in all of the fitness magazines.