My first 10K run experience mostly with no prior training, enthused me to try for half marathon running. I found out there is one soon called Grape Stomp in Livermore, CA about 20 miles from my home in Fremont, CA. I signed up immediately on 9/30/13. The run is on Sunday Oct 30, 2013. I started practicing run in Fremont Lake Elijabeth walking track.
Fremont has one big central park with a in big lake in the middle. There is a cemented path around the lake which is 2 miles in length. One one side is lake, other side is picnic spots, greenery, playing grounds, facilities, and creek one side. It is scenic. It is a favorite walking spot for many old, middle aged, families and dogs. It has accessible places for drinking water and rest room. Few runners also practice on it. I practiced on couple of weekends. Running around 5 times makes us run 10 miles. Each 2 mile loop run takes me about 24 minutes and five rounds takes about 2 hour. Running alone in loop more than 2 hours is difficult. So my half marathon practice is limited to 2 hours of 10 miles. For my 10K run, I used ordinary sneakers costing 20-40 dollars. For my half marathon I looked around bought light weight Nike running sneakers. You can nice blue shining shoes in my running photos below.
On Sunday 20th morning, I got up early, drove to the Robertson park in Livermore. I drove first time that part of Livermore on street roads. Previously my drive is Livermore is limited to driving on highways to Livermore Shiv Vishnu temple. Robertson Park is a very huge park, with a lighted playing stadium, plenty of parking space. A creek which goes through most of the Livermore called "Arroyo mocho". The run starts in the park, goes along creek, crosses the creek to enter a near by road separating wine yards and town community, enters pastures, horse properties, goes up the hillock, goes along trail in the hillocks and empty lots, under the transimission lines, enters the wineyard road, finishes the loop back into the park, then goes along creek into residential, school and commercial plots till the border of big road where the arroyo mocho creek merges into another big drainage channel. Running in the hilly ups is challenging and we slow down. Luckily it it limited to initial 2 miles. Rest of the running path is on flat roads, or moderate slope along the creek. Up to first 10 miles it is easy, stored body glycogen reserves serve, and I also practiced for 10 miles, but the last 3 miles are like drag, motivating self, running and walking intermittently. The goal of running at this stage is finishing. I finished the race in 2hr 34 minutes. Ate, drank what ever they gave at the finish, relaxed listening to music and festivities, drove back home with the finisher medal. That time, I did not have Smartphone and carrying phone, taking pictures was not even thought about it. Just the goal is finish the half marathon race. So I had to rely on what ever photos the event photographer took and my memory and the google maps landscape. Due to development restrictions, That area has not changed much in the last 10 years.
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