At 7 a.m. Sunday, 3,000 runners stood on the stretch between Park Avenue and Almaden Boulevard, anticipating the start gun and the beginning of their marathon, half-marathon or 5,000-meter run.
The ninth annual Metro Silicon Valley Marathon featured eight San Jose State University students and residents of the International House, as they stood on the start line in matching bright orange T-shirts to race into new and unexplored territory. "Only two of us have run a marathon before," said team organizer Adrian Wiesebron, a software engineering major and student from France. "We want to just have fun and run together.
" Running the out-and-back course to Los Gatos High School, first-place runner Sean Gross came through the finish in 2:42:40, and first for women was Alexandra Wolfe with a time of 3:07:25. Both runners ran qualifying times for the Boston Marathon. As the runners crossed the tape into Discovery Meadow Park, family, friends and community members cheered and rallied for the runners coming down the home stretch.
"Boston Bound" signs waved, a baby in a "Go Mommy 26.2" onesie waddled across the grass and spectators dressed in Halloween costumes yelled for the runners, many saying "thank you" or screaming "woo-hoo" as they neared the end. Wiesebron, Clement Guyot from France and Omar Cossio Gonzalez from Spain ran down the 100-meter-long stretch, their hands joined and raised to the sky as the orange trio finished all 26.
2 miles in 4:18:29. As they embraced and their friends from the I-House took their photograph, they smiled, and Guyot and Gonzalez leaned on the barricade, exhausted from completing their very first marathon. "The beginning you are happy, and then after the half-marathon, that is when there is pain," Guyot said.
Moving his hand up and down, Guyot explained the valleys and peaks of the marathon. "You are fine, and then it is work, fine and then pain." Wiesebron, an experienced marathon runner, said he got the I-House students together to run to have fun and finish something together.
The first finisher for the I-House team, Remi Astier, said Weisebron initiated the idea. "Most people in the I-House are active, and running is a sport we can all do, that we all share," said France-native Astier, who is double-majoring in software engineering and business. Wiesebron said Jamba Juice through the Spartan Shops donated $300 and their orange T-shirts, and rock-climbing facility Touchstone Climbing added $150, which covered more than half of the $85 marathon registration fee per participant.
After Astier was asked by another I-House student who came to the race to support his friends, "How was it?" Astier replied laughing, "I'll never do it again." "Around two-thirds of the way, you start to feel so much pain," Astier said.
"But you must still go on." "It is hard to have serious training when you are drinking beer and partying," Astier said. But he did say that Elke Harms, an international student from South Africa and former SJSU tennis player, helped coach the runners and lend advice.
Harms also ran in the marathon as part of the I-House team. "If we did not run as a team, it would be much harder," Guyot said. "People were yelling, 'go orange team' the entire way.
It was nice." Also representing the I-House Jamaba Juice/Touchstone team and finishing the marathon were Sara Hussein, Dino Kouiyalis and Rosemary Workman.
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