{"id":43136,"date":"2024-03-25T09:49:11","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T13:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=43136"},"modified":"2024-03-25T09:49:11","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T13:49:11","slug":"the-modesto-marathon-a-slow-er-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=43136","title":{"rendered":"The Modesto Marathon – A Slow-er Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSo, you\u2019re the one,\u201d a couple said to me as I stood waiting for the start of the Modesto Marathon.\u00a0 Uncertain if they were about to tell me I should accompany them to Alderaan if I were to learn the ways of the Force and\/or if there was in fact \u201cno spoon,\u201d I opted to reply with the very Canadian, \u201cSorry?\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cYou registered at Thanksgiving, during one of the flash sales, right?\u201d\u00a0 Curiouser and curiouser, I thought, thinking this was some kind of impromptu magic class test\u2026 I\u2019m taking magic classes, have I mentioned that?\u00a0Level II Mage\u2026 and I\u2019m terrible at it.\u00a0 But I digress.<\/p>\r\n

One didn\u2019t need to be a mind reader to see the confusion on my face.\u00a0 The couple pointed to my bib number \u2013 100.\u00a0 And then they pointed to their own: 99 and 101.\u00a0 \u201cWe registered at the same moment but were wondering who got in between us \u2013 you\u2019re the one.\u201d\u00a0 I guess registration for a marathon can be like the 24-hour check-in for a Southwest Airlines flight \u2013 a few milliseconds to us is a wide-open eternity to the computers of the world.\u00a0 And I guess if that\u2019s enough time to separate a couple between group numbers with Southwest, it’s enough to separate them from race bib numbers.<\/p>\r\n

I have to admit I felt like Bib 100 was a weird fake-out.\u00a0 I guess somebody has to be number 100 but if it felt like there\u2019d been a glitch in the matrix or something had gone wrong, and I was slotted in at the last minute.<\/p>\r\n

I had run Modesto seven years prior, at the height of my marathoning obsession, when I was pushing every which way\u2026 and if not always succeeding, I was putting up some really strong clock times and was noticeably in better shape than I am these days.\u00a0 Plus, even in the best of times, seven years can take a toll.<\/p>\r\n

So it shouldn\u2019t be a surprise to say that I did not break my own course record, I did not BQ, and I did not blow up the Death Star or free the minds of humanity operating as batteries for robotic overlords.\u00a0 But I did run, I did finish, and I got back in time for dinner with some old friends.\u00a0 Not a bad way to spend a Sunday.<\/p>\r\n

One quick note on the course before I photo bomb this post: it\u2019s a pancake flat route through the growing fields of Modesto\u2026 save for one highway overpass that you run on the way out and then back to the finish.\u00a0 The race team dubbed it \u201cMount Modesto\u201d so be on the lookout for that in the photos below!\u00a0 Otherwise, not much to see but the fields\u2026 and we didn\u2019t even run pass the famed Modesto sign (which I swear we did back in 2017\u2026 but memories play tricks on us).<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSo, you\u2019re the one,\u201d a couple said to me as I stood waiting for the start of the Modesto Marathon.\u00a0 Uncertain if they were about to tell me I should accompany them to Alderaan if I were to learn the ways of the Force and\/or if there was in fact \u201cno spoon,\u201d I opted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43136"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43139,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43136\/revisions\/43139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}