Jacob Wilkinson had an impulse, or at least that’s what he
called it.
Hanging out one day with friends Aaron Hsia-Coron and Izzy Parra
late last year, the threesome spoke openly of their desire to run a
marathon.
”
It was an impulse,
”
Wilkinson said.
”
I was thinking about it and how it’d be awesome to train
for.
”
Sure, it’s not your typical impulse. But it’s not all that
unusual, either.
SAN JUAN BAUTISTA
Jacob Wilkinson had an impulse, or at least that’s what he called it.
Hanging out one day with friends Aaron Hsia-Coron and Izzy Parra late last year, the threesome spoke openly of their desire to run a marathon.
“It was an impulse,” Wilkinson said. “I was thinking about it and how it’d be awesome to train for.”
Sure, it’s not your typical impulse. But it’s not all that unusual, either.
After all, the three run for the Anzar High cross country team, while Wilkinson and Parra extend their time as harriers into the spring months for track. So, as long-distance runners, running a marathon might not have been that much of a surprise.
But while impulses typically come on a whim, and leave little time for decisions to be changed afterward, Wilkinson had plenty of time — four months, to be exact — to back out of the night-and-day training that comes with preparing for a 26.2-mile race.
And he almost did just that.
After Hsia-Coron focused his attention on swimming in the spring and Parra geared his focus to the 800 meters in track, Wilkinson trained all alone, all by himself, for last month’s Big Sur International Marathon.
“My friends were thinking about it, and I just went up and paid the fee without thinking about what I was getting into,” he said. “It was kind of sudden.”
And when it was all over, he was all alone atop his race category as well. In a time of 3:31.26, Wilkinson took first in the 16- to 19-year-old division, besting some 12 other competitors in the category, including Daniel Thompson of Tolland, Conn., who was second in 3:39.12.
It was his first marathon, and overall, Wilkinson was 224th out of nearly 3,500 competitors.
That’s some impulse.
“There was a lot of people, but it was a normal race like I run in cross country,” Wilkinson said. “I was going for 3:30, but I was happy with (what I got). People say you have to add 20 minutes to Big Sur because it’s so hilly.
“But I’m not good at short distances. I just decided to get out and do it.”
Wilkinson received a book on marathon training for Christmas, and began his regimen shortly thereafter. While cutting soda from his diet, he would run six days a week with each week building up toward a 20-mile trek, sometimes running a loop course to Watsonville, other times running from his home in Aromas to the Pizza Factory in San Juan Bautista — a couple slices being his reward.
His father, Fred, would often meet him at the halfway point for a break. But otherwise, Wilkinson was all alone in his lengthy runs.
“Only during the end of my training was I thinking about (backing out),” he said. “Running 20 miles by yourself is miserable.
“The last three weeks was tapering. Right before the tapering, my emotions were tapering. I just had to pull through it.”
Not surprisingly, it can be difficult to find motivation in the fourth month of training while on mile 17 to Watsonville.
While his friends, parents and coaches all provided support, Wilkinson pushed through the lackluster feelings simply because it was a goal of his.
“It’s kind of surreal,” Wilkinson said of the day of the race. “You train for so long that you don’t think it’s real, that it’s actually happening.
“And you get up at 3 o’clock (in the morning) anyways, so you’re half-asleep as well.”
Wilkinson’s goal was to run at a pace of eight minutes per mile, and he finished just four seconds off of that. His faster-than-wanted start led to a soild first half of the race, he said, but it’s always those last few miles of a marathon where early-race mistakes catch up to you.
“It’s what people call ‘the wall,'” Wilkinson said. “I felt like I could keep going, but my legs couldn’t go any faster.”
Wilkinson was forced to briefly stop around mile 25 after his legs cramped up, but the Anzar senior didn’t walk for too long. Crossing the finish line one minute and 26 seconds off of what he wanted, Wilkinson found out the next day that he won his age category — a fair consolation for the pain he was experiencing.
Whether this is the only marathon he ever runs (“Maybe again, but not for a long time,” he said), Wilkinson now knows the baggage that comes with training — or the “mileage and emotional trauma,” as he put it.
“It was just me training for four months,” Wilkinson said.
“But it was just a goal that I had to do.”
Big Sur International Maraton — Local Competitors
Place, Name, City, Time
42, James Dunlop, Aromas, 3:06.53
224, Jacob Wilkinson, Aromas, 3:31:26
1015, Andy Hsia-Coron, Aromas, 4:09:50
1241, Rebecca Thistlethwaite, Aromas, 4:18:14
1338, Nathaniel Thomas, Aromas, 4:22:15
2770, Janae Caetano, Hollister, 5:16:08
2819, Joseph Caetano, Hollister, 5:19:27
3049, Charles Thompson, Hollister, 5:30:04
3435, Gloria Valenzuela, San Juan Bautista, 6:12:08
