On Sunday, Dec. 2, three high school teachers participated in the annual California International Marathon (CIM).
The marathon is held on the first Sunday of December each year.
Physics teacher Glenn Mangold, math teacher Patricia Jacobsen and English teacher Jason Hinojosa participated in the race.
Both Mangold and Jacobsen ran in the full marathon (26.2 miles), and Hinojosa took part in the relay with members of his family.
Mangold finished fifth of 349 runners in the men’s 55-59 age group and 739th of 7,843 competitors overall. His overall time was two hours, 56 minutes, 18 seconds (6:44 per mile).
“I have been running this marathon for five years since I started in 2013, but this was the first year that I had ever been in the same race as Ms. Jacobsen,” Mangold said. “I haven’t run many marathons before; the CIM was my seventh, but it also ended up being my best marathon time.
“Running the marathon, it felt a lot like my practice runs, which vary in distances up to 22 miles. I run normally about every other day, so about three or four times per week. My training definitely helped in running the marathon.
“After a marathon, my path to recovery consists of sitting in a La-Z-Boy, watching professional football, and eating chocolate cake. I do that for about four days and only about a week later do I start jogging again.”
Jacobsen finished 474th of 573 runners in the women’s 40-44 age group and 6,849th overall. She clocked 5:18.33 (12:10 per mile).
“This year was my third time running the CIM,” Jacobsen said. “This year’s CIM was probably one of the faster marathons I’ve run, but I’ve never been able to finish a marathon in under five hours.”
Jacobsen said she wasn’t completely prepared for the marathon. She and her husband signed up for it back in August but were not always able to stick with their training schedule due to the smoke from the fires and other problems.
“Despite not training very well, I still did pretty good in the marathon. I’ve run multiple marathons before so I knew that I could finish it.”
Jacobsen’s recovery may not have been as interesting as Mangold’s, but that was because she didn’t feel particularly sore afterward. She just needed to catch up on some missed sleep.
“The following weekend, I signed up to do an ultramarathon,” she said. “Since I didn’t prepare very well for the previous marathon, I wasn’t too prepared for this one.”
The marathon was a 50K, so just a little bit longer than a regular marathon
(about 31 miles). What made the marathon especially difficult for Jacobsen was the climbing. The marathon included two peaks that needed to be climbed four times total.
“For the ultra (marathon), I think the reason that I eventually failed at it was because I wasn’t hydrating enough,” Jacobsen said. “Normally, I would take a drink at the end of each song I listened to. However, this time I took my earbuds out and was just listening to nature, so I ended up forgetting to hydrate enough.”
Around mile 18, Jacobsen’s back started to ache, so she stopped after 37 kilometers.
Jacobsen has been running marathons for 10 years. She does a couple half marathons each year and recently started doing ultramarathons. As well as running marathons on her own, Jacobsen teaches a half-marathon class at school.
Hinojosa ran the marathon in a relay with his father-in-law, wife and sister-in-law.
Hinojosa’s team finished 61st out of 89 in the co-ed family division with a time of 4:47.52 (10:59 per mile).
“Technically, I’ve only ever run one marathon,” Hinojosa said. “A few years ago I ran the Big Sur marathon, but I wouldn’t count this relay as running a marathon.
“My sister-in-law has been really getting into running for fitness, so we all decided to do this for fun as a family.”
Hinojosa trained by running both 3½- and six-mile runs. He said he prepared well as his leg of the race turned out to be 6.2 miles.
“My recovery wasn’t that difficult,” he said. “Only running a leg of a marathon didn’t require much of a recovery, so I was back in the gym two days later.”
According to Hinojosa, the relay was a “bit of a pain, logistically.” Each person in the relay had to be picked up and dropped off throughout the race, which he said was kind of a hassle.
“We were also trying to cheer on my other sister-in-law who ran the full marathon, and it just became too much. I may just run the half (marathon) next year.”
The marathon featured 7,844 participants. Brogan Austin of West Des Moines, Iowa, won in 2:12.39 (5:04 per mile).
—By Miles Morrow
