Earth Day

Earth Day started pretty early for me today. I dragged my butt out of bed just after 5:30am, so I could make it down to Santa Cruz before 7am. It was the Santa Cruz Half Marathon this morning.

I had planned to meet up with my SP friend Addy, but I didn't see her at the start area -- there were quite a few people there, dispite the bad forecast.

I arrived just before 7am to find that they were having trouble with the bib number handout and timing chips, so they were delaying the start for 10 - 15 minutes.

Since I'd tweaked my knee just last week during the 50 mile run, I had thought that I wouldn't run this morning and I'd just hand out flyers for San Jose Fit, since we're already into our program now. However, when I got there, the energy was up and I was fire up to try running. I made myself a promise that I would stop running and walk back at the first sign of a problem with my knee. I started at the back of the pack to stop myself from going out too fast. It took a good 4 minutes for me to cross the starting line from my position, so I didn't start my GPS timing until I hit the start.

Off we went. There's a short uphill right at the beginning, so a lot of people had trouble with that -- especially the people who should have started at the back. I started out easy and just ran along.

The weather was awesome! Considering the forecast for rain, we had a great time. The clouds rolled back just before the start and we hd blue skies above us for the entire run.

The course runs from the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk, along West Cliff Drive to Natural Bridges State Park, around and into Wilder Ranch, looping around the bluffs and back the way we came.

Since I was taking it easy, I didn't push too hard along the way. Starting at the back meant I could keep passinng people through the run, until I found the group running my pace. This didn't really happen, though, as I kept passing people all the way to the finish and set a new PR for the Half-marathon (1:38:59 -- if I can keep this pace for another 13.1 miles, I get the Boston Qualifier that I want.). The last 100ft of the course takes you out on the beach at the Santa Cruz pier. Not the best running surface, but at least it was only a short distance.

Since I didn't pay for the race, I refused the medal from the volunteers. It's not like I need a t-shirt or medal for the half. ;-)

After the run, I walked back to my car, grabbed the flyers and plastered as many cars as I could, until 10:00am. At that time, I got back tot he car and headed over to UCSC for a TreeSpirit Photo.


http://www.treespiritproject.com/

Jack Gescheidt takes some awesome photos blending the beauty of trees with the beauty of the naked human form. He recently took a photo at the UC Berkeley campus in support of saving the grove of old growth oak trees. Today, we were trying to create a photo to increase the awareness about the UC Santa Cruz campus plans to develop certain forest areas around the campus. There were a couple of dozen people who came along to help out, or just lend a hand and some support. My wife drove down from San Jose to appear in this photo, too. It was a great a experience, enjoyed by all. Even though it was a little cool and wet, and we needed a ladder to start our climb up the tree, once we were up in the branches it was fine.

I climbed up to the top of the photo frame and found a spot off to one side of the proposed shot. We were all given some finishing touch instructions from Jack and then we disrobed. I was able to store my clothing out of the picture, on a branch on the back side of the tree. I didn't want to climb naked because of the temperature and I wasn't sure how my feet would react, having just ran 13.1 miles. Fortunately, the tree was quite smooth, from all the other people who've climbed this tree before us. The footing was secure, as were the hand and arm support locations. I had no problems arranging my body close to the tree in order to obtian the look that Jack was trying to get from the image. Trying not to shiver, we all stayed still for a few minutes while Jack took some long exposure shots on B&W film. Then he took a couple of shots on his digital camera, so that we would all be able to see the shots after we got down out of the tree.

A few people had to leave right away, so they climbed down and got dressed. The rest of us remained naked in the tree for a few more minutes, so that Jack could take a different angle shot. One that was more vertical to capture more of the height of this amazing tree that we were standing in.

We were back at our cars and heading home by 1:30pm. Time to get something to eat and get home for a refreshing shower.