Running Ruminations

This year is my fourth year serving as a social media ambassador for Represent Running, JT Service’s race event management company here in the Bay Area. If you’ve read my blog at all since my family and I moved here in late 2013, you’ve read about RR races I’ve done before — the San Jose Race to the Row 408k (my favorite SJ race) or the East Bay 510k (previously called Let’s Run 510k). In addition to those two races, RR recently acquired the Across the Bay 415k up in SF (and this year, I’ll actually be in town and thus, able to run it, hooray!), and the newest addition to RR’s race repertoire came this year, just this past weekend, in the form of the Silicon Valley Half Marathon and 10k, Food Truck 5k, and kids’ race.

I’ll write about all the SV Half races in separate posts, but I first wanted to talk a little about the SV Half back story. From what I have gleaned in talking to JT about the subject and reading about it online, back in the day — well before my family and I moved here — Silicon Valley had a San Jose-based half marathon and full. (I’ve read that Dean Karnazes had his name on one here, but I don’t know if it was the same thing or something different). As I understand it, that original SV race went under — for reasons I don’t know — and in time, JT (and his company, Represent Running, which is part of the bigger Soul Focus Sports production) decided to resurrect it.

What’s interesting, in my opinion, about San Jose’s racing and running scene is that — quite frankly — I think it’s lacking. SJ prides itself on being “the capital of Silicon Valley” (I kid you not, even our trash cans say that here), and the city wants every.single.person here to know that SJ is the third largest city in CA and the tenth largest city in the nation. With over a million people living here, SJ isn’t small. There are tons of runners here, too — road runners, trails runners, and the hybrid types, too.

Where the mismatch occurs is that for a city as big as SJ, with as many people living in it as there are, and with as many runners who live and run here that we have, SJ’s race market is really pretty small: or at least that’s been my observation in the past almost-5 years I’ve lived here. That’s not to say that there simply aren’t road races here because there are at least a few; it’s just that I’m genuinely surprised there aren’t more races held more often. Sure, there are running races held at various parks around town throughout the year, but there simply doesn’t seem to be too many big-scale, shut-the-streets-down, community-encompassing events overall. Maybe the permits are too expensive? Perhaps the neighborhoods fight the proposals? I have no idea. In fact, I can only think of a few races held on city streets: the 408k is one; the SJ Giants race is another (also managed by JT’s team); and the San Jose Rock and Roll event weekend is one more. I think there’s a neighborhood 5k in Willow Glen each year, too, but I’m blanking on anything else. I don’t know why this is the case, and realistically speaking, this is all based on my perception and observation. Maybe there’s a lot more out there that I haven’t encountered yet. For a city that’s as big as SJ, this relative dearth of road races surprises me.

And therein lies the opportunity. This year’s inaugural Silicon Valley half marathon, 10k, and Food Truck 5k was veritable years in the making, and among the many incredible things that the event brought with it was the small detail that Meb Keflezighi — yes, that Meb — was a founding investor. To help kick-off Race Week, RR hosted a community run at Santana Row’s Lululemon the week before, on Saturday, and then on Race Week Wednesday, RR hosted another big community run out of Sports Basement Campbell.

The difference: our friend Meb would be at the Wednesday run, and the community would be able to come run with him, get autographs and photographs, and hear him talk.

Though Meb wouldn’t be running with us come SV Half race day — he was going to be in Boston, preparing to run the Boston Marathon on Patriot’s Day as a fundraiser for Team MR8, in memory of Martin Richard — Meb would be in SJ to come share in the excitement of the inaugural SV Half weekend of events.

The turnout at Sports Basement was incredible: standing room only, easily 150+ people, what looked like an entire high school track team, many of my Wolfpack teammates, several folks from the Too Legit to Quit crew (who’d be serving as pacers come race day), tons of people from the community, just a huge swarm of Meb acolytes. What’s more, easily 75% of the people who showed up went out for the group run, an easy 5k along the Los Gatos Creek Trail. That’s a lot of people on a pretty narrow, two-lane bike path, and it was just perfect.

Once we returned, Sports Basement treated us to snacks and adult beverages, and Gen UCan (who sponsors Meb and which would also be the on-course beverage at the SV Half) was offering samples as well. The audience got some great group selfies with Meb, and before long, Meb had a casual conversation with us and entertained some audience questions and some from facebook live sent in from people across the country. Someone asked if he thought racing marathons or parenting is harder; his response: marathoning is part-time, even at the pro, full-time level. Parenting is full-time, around the clock. (Truer words never spoken, especially coming from a father of four!). Respect, man.

After the brief discussion, we got another opportunity for pictures and autographs, and you can believe that my little runner heart was just beaming at the opportunity to talk to Meb one-on-one. I remembered reading his autobiography a while back, right after it came out, and for this special occasion, I bought his more-recently-released Meb for Mortals training book so he could sign it (no shame in my game!). We talked for a minute about goals and training — he asked me for advice for Boston when he realized that I had run more marathons than he had (insert cry-laughing emoji here, for sure) — and he wished me well in SF in July.

I had always read and heard that Meb is such a cool, down-to-earth, class-act type of guy, and I couldn’t agree more. I loved that he was supporting my new hometown’s newest race, and I love that it was Meb who was doing it, not some other pro athlete. (Don’t get me wrong; I also really like certain other pros. That said, Meb is in a class all himself).

The opportunity to meet and run with Meb in advance of the inaugural SV Half weekend was fantastic, and I’m so glad I was able to take advantage of the opportunity.