This was a double event weekend, I wrote several weeks back. Initially, I did not feel good to write about this run because it was not a run in my view. I had Stone Mill the day before, a 50 miler. Then I rushed to do this. I ended up walking, which I was not my intention, yet could not really blame anyone but myself.
My two races required waking up around 3/4 AM. It meant sleeping early or having very little sleep. For me it was not enough sleep. The were relatively far from my house. Both required about an hour to 90 min of driving.
Saturday event required more energy from me, since the race lasted 13+ hours. I was there from 5 am to 9 pm. I finished it, hungry, tired, cold, and sleepy. This was the beginning of my “tilt” (tilt in gamer term means anger that causes one to lose concentration in a tournament and ultimately causing a lost. It is like a building or a leaning object that eventually would tumble over). Things went down hill actually even way before Saturday night. The second race required even more mental energy.
Why do I do it? I wanted to run the Bay Bridge 10K a few years back when I first heard of it. I tried a few times to sign up but usually one reason or other I did not get to run it.
I have driven over the bridge many times. It is awe inspiring in our area due to its length. It id quite scary to drive on it. I used to white knuckle holding on the steering wheel on this bridge.
It might not be the longest bridge in the nation but it is probably the longest in this area because it connects one side of the Chesapeake Bay with the other side. The bay is quite wide. It is 4 miles across at this crossing. It is also high too.
I always like bridges and this one a bit more. There is also an annual event where people swim across the bay at this location. It is quite beautiful to look down at the water below, seeing sail boats and other water crafts.
It is a novelty for me (the wow factor). In our area, we have couple races like this such as running on our biggest airport runways or the cherry blossom 10 mile in DC. It is once in a life chance event.
In fact, I have done both. The Dulles run was more memorable. Running on the Dulles Airport’s runway was unforgetable. Now every time I fly in or out, I’d say to myself, I ran on that runway before, like an airplane. Imagine, they stopped all the flights for us that morning so that we could run on it (actually it has couple runways, they only shut down one of them). Same for the bridge. It is a crucial crossing point, but they shut down the traffic on one of the spans for us to run across, which I think is quite cool. There is a special feeling to able to run in a landmark location. Now I can say, I walked across this bridge.
As a joke, I want to remember it also by peeing over the side of the bridge at its highest arch for some reason. I think someone did at the New York Marathon (at a different bridge, maybe Brooklyn). I think it is funny that whatever silly idea I have, some other people too had considered or done it. There were too many course marshals and police officers here though to pull it off. They also had Coast Guard in boats below patroling. It would have created a scene for evening news if someone did do it. I might get locked up somewhere if I had tried.
In a previous year, I ended up running the Bay Bridge virtually. The virtual option is still available this year. Some virtual races, I did them pretending them as a real event, but this one, I wanted it run in real life since I could get to it.
This year, my friend said his parents were going to do it. This was exciting. I always wanted someone like my mom to join me in my races to share in my passion but I knew my mom’s physical fitness is not capable and it is not ever likely she would be able to do it due to her health issue. I was similarly excited for David’s parent who are in my age to decide and run/walk a 10K with us. David was obligated to join them. When I heard about it, I decided to join in as well. I felt like an honor to be part of this (their) epic event. This was a few month ago in the fall or near the end of summer when I signed up.
At the time, we also wanted to run Stone Mill 50 which fell on a day before of the same weekend. So the logical choice was either to run Stone Mill or the Bay Bridge. I have signed up for Stone Mill. The question then to me, would I add a second race to make it a double header.
I was pretty sure I could do both, Stone Mill on Saturday and Bay Bridge on Sunday. The challenge is more on the recovery and the mental readiness.
My friend David too felt he had to pick one over the other. I did not force him to do Stone Mill with me, but I believe he could run in both events like me and a 10K would be easy. Though if he had to pick, I would support him doing the Bay Bridge over Stone Mill because I wanted him to enjoy the run with his parents rather than with me.
A little background about why we wanted to run Stone Mill: David, me and another friend, Alex had run Stone Mill last year together. At the time, it was David first 50 miler. I had thought it was a once and done thing for them. But this year, they wanted to it again. Stone Mill was one of my favorites, so I already signed up. David though was on the fence. He did not want to get injured by the distance then could not run in the 10K, plus he has other races such as the New York Marathon.
As it turned out the day before Stone Mill, David told me he registered at the last possible moment and would run Stone Mill with me and Alex. He kept it as a secret to not alarm his parents, because they would not want him to overdoing it. However, I was happy someone joined my craziness to do a double header.
My other friend Caroline heard of me running the Bay Bridge wanted to do it too at the last possible moment. Because we became closer friend through couple trips and races we did together this year (Connecticut and Idaho), she made it my responsibility to sign her up.
Since it was a last minute sign up for her, many amenities, like shirt and parking was no longer offered. As how she was to travel there, it became my responsibilty too somehow. I did not want her with me because I had my own race yet was impossible to turn her down without upseting her.
She had a 50K scheduled on Saturday. Her race would finish way before me because mine is almost twice as long. She would have to wait for me.
I had to go out of my way to pick her up after my own race. I also had to drive Alex home first after my Saturday race before picking up Caroline. Initially, I tried to refuse or at least have her meeting me at my race or the hotel, since her race is not too far from the hotel. At some other previous events, she had done so. Personally, I think she could have stayed at her house and maybe it only added 15-20 more minutes to her commute. It was frustrating to me she added a significant time to my travel for no reason, but anyway, I was willing.
To readers, the best course of action was to say no to both Alex and Caroline.
The hotel when we arrived had issues and we ended up either having to share the same bed or sleep on the floor. It shouldn’t happen but sometimes, things don’t work out. We were in an awkward situation and it was embarrassing. The whole thing was preventable because I had in mind for her to get the room ahead of time since she was in the area after her morning race and her race ended much ealier than mine at 3-4 pm instead of 9-10 pm. I believe we could have gotten our room if she had done as I wanted. All the extra work, I had to put through and now we didn’t have a bed.
At my Burning River Trip next year, I will share a room with another female runner (note, not my idea); From this 10K experience, I might need to rethink on sharing a room. I might have to decline my friend kindness in order to get a good sleep.
I knew running my best was impossible when I woke up, because I hardly slept. Caroline and I started talking a bit too early in the morning. We were sleeping on the floor, so it was uncomfortable and we did not sleep well. As to why, because we did not want to share the same bed, which was a given. The irony. We slept too late at night. Still morning arrived, we had to make our way to the event.
The morning was colder. I dressed in multiple layers, more than usual, for as if I knew I would not be running that day. Or maybe because I overdressed, which prevented me from running.
We drove to Annapolis which was about an hour away. In picking the hotel I had considered this, either taking a long drive in the morning or a long drive at night. I chose a long drive in the morning because I wanted to sleep early after my 50 miler. Usually, I am not a good late night driver but I’d rather be an early riser. This time, it seemed to be a mistake.
We had a beautiful sunrise. We followed other cars into the parking lot at the Navy-Marine stadium at the Naval Academy. The directions given and organization of how and where to park once we arrived were well done.
Initially, I was nervous because I haven’t been there before. I did not want to get lost (like at the Philadelphia Marathon). We still needed to make the shuttle ride and so forth, because we couldn’t park at the start or finish. There were a lot of things Google map can’t tell you, like where the shuttle located and how to get there, since there would be road closures. Google usually is not good at detecting closures. We parked. The lot was huge. They used the extra field around the stadium as additional parking spots. There were many thousands of cars there and yes finding our car afterward was hard, since the lots have no labeling system. To me all directions around the stadium looked exactly the same (I even snapped a picture beforehand to help me). My friend who has been there before warned me about this. She had difficulty in finding her car in past events.
We found the our shuttle that would take us to the start. Underwent security check, which was pretty quick.
There was an incident on the bus too. Maybe this was the one tiny thing that got magnified and remembered. When you think you are having a bad day, you start to notice a bunch of bad things.
Caroline trying to get to a seat almost tripped over by a guy who was man-spreading in his seat because either his arm or leg was in the aisle.
He took up two seats even though he was not a big guy while everyone on the bus shared a seat. We were not going to sit next to him anyway because Caroline and I were going sit together.
He gave us a mean look maybe because he was expecting an apology. I am sure we had apologized. He might have thought, we were falling on top of him. We avoided further escalating the situation and so ignored him. Usually runners are a nice bunch of people. This was unusual. He had ruin the joyful atmosphere.
Once we reached starting area, we got in line for the bathroom which like any other races took almost an hour because everyone chose to use the first bathroom area they saw.
Note, there were more bathrooms at the starting line and on the bridge throughout the run, so there was no need to panic at the time, but we did not know. We lined up for bathroom here because we saw other people doing it. Everyone got off the bus and saw people lining up, so we did as well. I did not really needed to go. Of course, going was better than holding it in. It was group think.
My starting wave was at 8 AM. We just barely made it in time. We were lucky to have set out so early to only barely made it to the start. We can imagine where some might have missed it. We were in the first wave where they allowed walking about middle of the pack. I think there was a 9 AM start and maybe even 10 AM.
We had another friend, Jana, who was running in this event. However, I believe she started at 7:00 so we did not get to see her. Initially, we were planning to meet up at one point either before, during or after the race. There were just too many people and due to various parking locations and we did not get to meet up. Jana was also at the Philadelphia Marathon, I also did not meet her there because I was doing too much that weekend. We only see each other through social media even though we ran in same races, which was no different than any other days. It drives home the point, unless it is arranged or destined to meet, it is impossible. I count it as a blessing at least I ran with David and Caroline in-person.
I also met a fellow local runner and blogger, Vanessa from SheRunsbytheSeashore. She wrote about meeting me in her 10K Bay Bridge report! So as a return courtesy, I am returning the honor. Please check out her blog. She typically runs 5k to marathon distance. She is a running coach and the president of her running club ESRC. She reviews races and products on her blog. She is a race ambassador (Bib Rave or Rave Bib), so gets free runs on some of the races. I followed her blog since forever. She has been improving at her mile time, something I am jealous about and wanting to do the same.
We both are chasing our 50 states. She is about where I am at 14-15 states. I am usually a few states behind. There are some states she done that I haven’t such as Georgia and Rhode Island.
I was glad to see her. Sometimes you bump into people you really look up to. Out of thousand and thousand people you get to see a familiar face. As the race got under way, Caroline went out ahead and was gone. Of the races we did together, we never waited for one another. Maybe this was the first time I am being left behind. I was a bit salty. Soon I caught sight of David not far from start line. Maybe a quarter mile in. He was walking in his jeans. I did a double take. So he explained to me that he might have injured himself the day before while running Stone Mill. I felt sorry about that. I originally, promised he would not get hurt because I would pace him gently in the 50 miler.
Walking the 10K. I chose then to walk with David rather than trying to catch up to Caroline and we talked and took pictures. David’s father occasionally dropped back and took pictures of us or asked us to take pictures of him. David urged me to run ahead but I was not in a mood for running anyway, so I stayed behind and kept David company was a better option. Maybe also finally, it was a down time where I could better process my Stone Mill run from the day before too.
Question to self, if I didn’t encounter David, would I have enjoyed the run more? Original that was my intention to run “fast” on the 10K, but by then, it was no longer the goal. I was glad I ran into David. Even though I gave up running my event (so the whole event did seem like a waste of time and money by my usual standard), I did not regret it. My friend Caroline commented that, I finally understood running is not everything.
David too could have blamed me too for getting him to run in Stone Mill and so resulted in him not being able run the Bay Bridge. He did not blame me though. The least I can do was to join him in our slow walk across the Bay. I think this way, we could enjoy the view more.
Time flew by. I was bundled up. Most people around us (80-90%) were walking. There were some runners running by on the left side. Many of them should have been in the earlier waves but maybe because of bathroom issue started in the later waves and trying to run through the crowd. There were just so many people. A note to self, if I want to run in this race again, to request for an even earlier starts where walking is not allowed.
We finished after an hour or so. Maybe 90 minutes. I did not check my watch. I was there to just enjoy a good walk. The day was good. The weather was chilly and windy but being prepared for the cold, it was not much. There were times when I felt overheating and had to take off my coat, but then I felt the chill and had to put it back on.
We had plenty of snacks after we finished. We had a free beer. There were various tents with different sponsors. So we went tent to tent to check on various sponsors and get free stuff. Most of the times, it was candies they were giving out.
I found Caroline. She did not know I was walking the course instead of running it and thus I finished like 30+ minutes later. David and I were remaining inside the finishing area to eat our fill before exiting. It was one expensive buffet of eating fruit cups! We were having fun. It was a one way ditection for the runners, once you exited, you could not go back, so we stayed. Caroline already exited, so she asked me to bring her some food to the outside. There was not much to do once we were out so we decided then to head home.
Getting back on the bus was a bit chaotic. There were buses to different places. No one knows where to go and there was of course a long line. It was not as well managed as when we arrived in the morning. We eventually found the correct bus and got back to our car.
In term of running, it was below my effort. I had fun being around other runners. There was band playing on a stage. The atmosphere was festive like any big marathons. There were give-aways. We didn’t stay too long but still, it was an all morning affair.
The lack of sleep kicked in soon in the afternoon as we were driving back to DC. David and Jana and I were originally planned to go somewhere near Annapolis for lunch, but we were quite late in getting back to our cars and I did not want to fight for a table with ten thousand other runners there. Both David and I have extra people with us (David with his parents and I with Caroline). We understood it would have been hard to get a table for a large party. It was best each of us to have lunch separately.
Caroline and I headed for northern Virginia because we were more familiar. She has a favorite restaurant in Annandale. We had Korean seafood, and best of all Caroline paid for my meal. After that I got home, all I wanted was sleep, since I haven’t slept for nearly two days. I slept till the next morning.
Looking back, probably I should not have done both events together. I wanted to do 20% more in everything. I imagined if I had a good rest, and even if I ran into David, I would be so focus in my run, I might shout out to him and wave and then pass by. It would have been a different experience. Whether that is a better experience is hard to say. However, I would have missed the chance to talk or hang out.
We did cross the Bay Bridge on foot. It was an accomplishment and I might never get a chance to do again. But if I do get to do it again, maybe next time will be better when I actually run across the Bridge. There’s always next year they say.
In awe 