Surf City Half Marathon Recap

The type A personality in me was torn between posting this first or my January Recap- this won.

I first thought of running Surf City back in 2011 when I drove NikeC down so she could run it. I have thought about running it ever since but the timing was never right. It still wasn’t the best timing this year but I decided screw it, I’m gonna run it anyways. Even spectating it that once, from the finish line and mile 4ish, did not prepare me for the size of this thing. I knew going in that it was touted as 20,000 runners but I didn’t completely comprehend that until Sunday morning. My mother and I made a road tip of it and headed to Huntington Beach on Saturday. Other than parking packet pickup was fairly simple. Parking made it kind of nightmare-ish. I was less than impressed with the expo. For such a big race I was honestly expecting something better. But at least I got out of there cheap since all I bought was a new Fitletic belt.

That day we planned that my mom was going to drop me as close to the start as she could then go back to the overflow parking and kill some time before heading to the finish line. That worked out great as she got me within a half mile and we wouldn’t get stuck in the parking lot trying to leave after the race. It just meant I had a 2+ mile walk after the race. We got to the start so much quicker than planned so I had about a little over an hour to go. After some unfortunate experiences with Apple maps and the freeways the day before, we didn’t take any chance. After walking to the start line, most of my time was spent waiting in the bathroom lines. The race start was 7:45 but I knew my wave wasn’t scheduled to start until 7:55. Even so I headed over around 7:30 because this was my first experience with a wave start. This may have been my first time but even I know corrals only work if the guidelines were followed and I saw so many of the wrong bibs in my wave. At one point I was shoved out of the way by some spectators making their way through the corral- really? Thanks for stepping on my feet too. I crossed the start line at 8:01.

Miles 1-3 9:48, 9:55, 9:46

The goal for this race was to treat it like a long run not a race. I had been concerned that I would try to push it too hard at the start like I do most races. Luckily there were so many people, I don’t think I could have run any faster. What was concerning to me was that I hurt. My shins, calves and knees hurt right from the start and that is not normal. I’m not sure if it was because of waiting in the bathroom lines so long or the short beach walk the day before or hey the 25K the weekend before but I was hurting. The two hours of sleep I got the night before probably didn’t help. My goal was to keep the 2:10 pacer in sight.

Miles 3-6 10:11, 9:59, 10:12

Holy crap, the water stations were a cluster f***. There was just so many people and most just came to a completer stop mid run. And who flings their arms out at water stations? I am surprised I don’t have bruises from how many times I was pegged. But there were plenty of aid stations and volunteers on the course, so that was huge. My legs were still hurting but I was determined to keep the pacers in my sights.Miles 7-9 10:23, 10:38, 11:13

I lost the pacers around 6.5 when my lungs protested the humidity. Honestly I knew it was coming at some point I was just hoping it held off longer. When I had checked the weather that morning, I saw a scary number next to humidity- 95%. By the end of the race it had dropped to 70% and the temp was mid 60’s but by then my asthma was cranky. So from then on it was intervals of run til I wheeze, walk it out. I also felt like a disgusting mess thanks to the humidity. My arm warmers, which were unneeded, worked great at wiping down my face. I also started dumping water down my back at aid stations.

Miles 10-13 11:22, 11:49, 11:04, 11:09

I slowed down more but managed to pick it up a bit by the end. I was still surprised at how crowded it was even then. I am used to it thinning out but it never did. I underestimated how much the bobbing and weaving was going to take out of me and I was ready to be done.

Finish- 2:19:00 Pace 10:37Once crossing the line and receiving the medal, there were a few photographers taking pics there so we bottle necked. Then there we went through little stations about 20 feet apart- water bottles, space blankets, bag of snacks, bananas. Then there was a row of finishing pictures before walking through the medical tents. I felt so nasty from sweating that I didn’t even put on my medal, I didn’t want it be all nasty. I just held it up for the finisher pictures.

Then we were finally turned loose into the crowd of spectators. I had no idea where my mom was and texts weren’t going through but I finally got a call through. The lifeguard stations worked as great landmarks. 🙂 I so wanted to just go sit in the ocean but wasn’t going to walk the 2 miles back to car barefoot nor was I going to put wet feet into my running shoes so I passed.

I'd dried off a bit by then :) — I’d dried off a bit by then 🙂

My overall pace was actually right where it was supposed to be for a long run according to the McMillan calculator. My pride would have preferred to be under 2:15 but considering the humidity and how unused to that many people I was, I am actually fine with my time. First half of the year complete and I finally got my surfboard!! Yay!

The Oddest Taper

It’s almost Friday!! And I’m on vacation! 😛

But let’s back up. Even before the reality of a trail 25K kicked my ass, I knew I may have to adjust some things this week. I figured if I was feeling extra achy and sore after Sunday, I would push Tuesday’s run to Wednesday and Thursday’s to Friday since I took a few days off for Surf City. Ummm, what was I thinking running a 25K and a half 7 days apart?

13.1 It Takes a Special Kind of Idiot... I think I should start training for a half marathon :) — 7 days later, ouch source

I was a little achy but headed to the gym on Tuesday per usual. I ran super slow but I was just fine with that. 3.5 miles later, I stretched and called it a day. Even though my pace was slow, I unintentionally pulled off the perceived effort progression that was on tap per my training plan. Calling that a win! Oh and my gym now has those scary stair things, it was interesting watching people on them. But much better than the freaky cut-the-alien-out-of-the-stomach sci fi movie on in front me. Blech, I love sci fi but not creature flicks.

Going Tuesday worked out well as I was so tired on Wednesday I overslept that morning. Then I fell asleep in the comfy chair trying to watch Supernatural that night. How I didn’t knock the laptop off my lap, I have no idea. I had planned on running today per usual but my stomach was rebelling pretty badly so I went back to the Friday plan. Well hopefully. 🙂 I kind of need to pack at some point too.

I got this... right? — I got this… right?

I took a few days off around Surf City because I figured these 8-9 days were going make me pretty tired. However when I planned that I didn’t realize that was also my window to complete reviews at work. So I spent most of this week trying to kick those out. Or at least to a point where I only have to make some minor edits when I return. Writing reviews stress me out, maybe that’s contributing to my tiredness. I am so turning off the alarm tomorrow morning.

Wednesday was also my re-check with my gastro. He’s at a loss, so we’re changing my medication. This kind of freaks me out, I’ve been taking it for 12 years, what’s going to happen? He actually warned me that I could have a rough couple of days when I make the change, so we agreed that I could do that Monday after the race. Plus I have those days off so yay? Way less exciting than the original plan to go to Disneyland on Monday. But you know, measles.

Ever use those scary stair machines? I am not even sure I could even get on one without falling.

Would you chance the measles?

Anyone racing this weekend or having a Super Bowl party?

Who cried at the Budweiser commercial?

Spooners Cove 25K- Race Recap

First race of the year, first 25K, first recap of the year! And it was a doozy. I tend to get long-winded in recaps so let’s see if I can condense this somewhat. And feel free to shake your head and grumble/ yell while you read.

Thursday- Checked the race website late that night and discovered a course change. They had offered a 5 mile, 7 mile, 25K and a 50k. Now the 7 mile was an 8 mile and the 25K course had changed. Previously the description said that the course was out the Bluff trail up and down Valencia Peak, back to start and then up to the grassy summit of Hazard Peak and back. Now, it stated that the course was up Hazard Peak, down the backside to a farther point before turning around. Waah. Truthfully, I had been trying to talk my mom out of doing the 25K for the last two weeks- all the way up to start time.

Race morning dawned bright and sunny. It was 65º at the start with not a cloud in the sky nor fog-in January. See where this may be going? There were a few pre-race announcements and we were off!

Miles 1-3 —-14:02, 14:02, 15:52

Ok, not too bad, we’re doing good. Damn, mom walks fast, I can’t keep pace, but when I jog I out pace her. Tricky, tricky. Mile 3 starts the climb.

Mile 4-5—- 18:34, 26:48

Hello Valencia. I start outpacing my mom, her knee was sore but it was manageable. I stopped and waited for her at times on the way up. Disclaimer- she told me to do that- shouldn’t have done that. The thing about Valencia is that it is deceptively tall, you think you’re near the top, but it takes so long. Plus the shale makes footing sketchy. But we made it- first climb done.

Mile 6-8 —- 22:14, 15:27, 15:38

Again, shale made the first part of the downhill sketchy but we turned to a different trail down. Hard pack, much better. Picked up the pace as we made our way down to the start line and only aid station. Those continuing on for the 25K and 50K went down some funky stairs behind the finish line before going through the parking lot up another set of funky stairs to another trail. Let’s call them the stairs of death. Man-made, uneven, random heights and absolute hell for someone with a sore knee. Can you guess what’s coming?

Mile 9-11 —- 20:53, 22:41, 25:37

Heading up Hazard in full sun, the temp had climbed to above 70º. My mom was in pain and slowing down. I was trying to not get too far ahead of her but sometimes I did and would double back. She started cramping at mile 10 but refused to quit. She had been drinking water and had eaten her fruit snacks but it was hot out there. We stopped and I made her drink more and gave her the pretzels that I had in my pack for the salt. I also took her pack at this point. We continued up pausing for all the runners coming back down and mountain bikers and horses. Once at the top of Hazard, I tried to get her to quit again. I also thought it was only .5 mile to the turn around. Ha!! Closer to a mile. A nice runner offered my mom a gel but we didn’t think it would help. I had become a water dictator and was telling my mom to drink every 2-3 minutes. I also noticed that my Garmin was off… by a lot.

Mile 12-14 —- 23:12, 23:35, 20:04

It was hot, she was cramping but refused to quit. I ate it on the shale but managed to pull some cool shale surfing move and stayed mostly upright. At least it felt cool, not sure what it actually looked like. At this point a woman passed us on her way back and says-“Oh, I thought I was last”. Umm, not cool. Particularly when there were 2 people behind us. On the way to the turn around, I pulled out my phone and noticed numerous texts from the Pops. Crap. I tried calling but lost signal. A nice runner man had given my mother 2 salt tabs at that point. They didn’t stop the cramps but probably kept them from getting worse. My phone rang when I was almost back to the top of Hazard- Pops!. My mom was a little behind me. He asked where we were (mile 13) and I predicted it would be another hour at least. He asked about our water- I said she still had a bottle and I had given her my Gatorade. What I didn’t tell either of them was that I was completely out by then and we had 3+ miles to go. I felt fine but knew it was getting warmer and that was still a fair amount of distance to go. I popped a piece of gum so I could trick myself. 🙂 I had started the day with 3x the amount of water I usually take for a half marathon.

The hideous I'm out of water face — The hideous I’m out of water face

Miles 15-16.2 —-18:12, 17:56, 3:17

We kept plugging along. I stilled yelled drink every few minutes and we paused when she had a cramp. She now says she will never tell a tennis player to play through the pain again. Just before mile 15, I looked ahead on the trail as it had widened out and saw something awesome. Pops!!! I literally threw my hands in the air and yelled this. He’d come to see the finish but brought supplies because he’s awesome like that and had started hiking our way when we had talked on the phone. He had his camelbak and 2 20oz bottles of water. He’s the best. I took a bottle and we trekked on. .3 miles from the finish line, the only 25K person who was still behind us ran past. Boo. Once again we ended with the damn stairs before crossing the parking lot to the finish line.

Finish — 5:18:10

Once crossing, a volunteer saw me first and asked if I wanted a soda or water. I said my mom needs water, she grabbed a bottle and ran to my mom. We made her drink that and brought her some watermelon as well. She was glad she finished but she was hurting. After water and some stretching I realized that we should have seen Pops by now. So I left her at a picnic table with the packs and water and went to find my pops and get the car so she didn’t have to walk back up to where we parked. I found pops waiting in his truck, he said he’d already walked more than planned and was not going down to the cove. We chatted for a bit and I went to move my car to go pick up my mom so we could all go to lunch.

I was stuck. I tried to back up and just spun my tires. Seriously?! My poor car. I was near my pop’s truck, so I opened my door and yelled for my daddy. There was group of high school boys out hiking that day and 2 of them came over to help too. I finally got loose and headed back to the cove. By now my mother was walking up because she was wondering where the heck I was. So with all the drama, we have no finish line pictures. Boo.

But we finished! Should we have? Probably not. She agrees that next time she will stick to the 8 mile. If this race had been last November like usual, I think she could have rocked it. It wouldn’t have been so warm and she wasn’t hurt yet.

I am not sure why my Garmin was almost a mile longer. I know I walked balk to her a few times but even she agrees it wasn’t enough to get anywhere near a mile. I am not sure if anyone else had a similar issue as we were the last 25k finishers and didn’t do a lot of chatting after. The race was very explicit about the fact that they only had the one aid station and that you needed to carry your own water in between but I think with the temperature being so freakishly high they should have put some water bottles up by the turn around. Just after we left my pops on the trail, a volunteer with a full camelbak was heading up. His plan was to be a roving water station, but by then everyone was 5 hours in. Looking at the finishing times, one 50K’er took the full 9 hours. It hit over 80 that day. Which is great for a day at the beach not so much for an ultra marathon.

Giant shout outs to everyone who helped that day- the girl who offered the gel, the man who shared his salt tabs, the awesome volunteer at the end who helped my mom. I am horrible and didn’t get names but they were all awesome! And I met another SLO ambassador at the top of Valencia- Hi Jason! And to my awesome pops, he saved the day,

Damn, that was still epically long. Sorry!

No questions today, just share your thoughts!

Random Roller Coaster

Man, this week flew by! How do I have a 25k in 8 hours? Yikes!

Even though my shiny new plan came on Sunday and I was eager to start it, I also had to rearrange the days. In the first week!! But Monday was scheduled as a rest day and I just couldn’t waste a day off of work to run outside. So Tuesday’s easy 50 minutes were completed on Monday. That worked out better than the gym after on Tuesday anyways- work ran late like it tends to after a 3 day weekend. I thought about running on Wednesday after work instead of Thursday but the day just ran away from me. Or rather, my brain did. Every quarter work gives out an award that goes to a few individuals. The people are nominated by their peers and then voted on by a committee. It was something new that rolled out at the beginning of 2014 and is kind of a big deal. The executives deliver the award in person and then a story and picture go up online. Every person who earns the award then has a chance to earn/win the Presidents’ Award for the year. I knew they were coming out to our location because a coworker had received one. I had to be sneaky when I was scheduling the lunches because I wanted everyone to be there to see him get it. They arrived on time and surprise!! I received one too! Two of us! Holy crap! My brain left the building for the rest of the day, I was so excited.Ever since I was sick, I have not been sleeping well. I have had coughing fits every night and it makes it hard to sleep. According to my lovely Fitbit I have been averaging 5 hours a night. Ouch. After a few coughing attacks at work on Thursday, I decided that an extra rest day would be a good idea and skipped the gym. Boo!

Friday was average as Fridays go and I allowed myself to indulge in one cookie at work. The shocking thing came that night when I went to sleep-10 hours? WTH? I knew I was tired but come on! I’ve also noticed that when I sleep with the Fitbit in my sock, it doesn’t measure restlessness very well. Either that or I was unconscious. You’d think that with all that sleep I would be raring to go today. Not so. After running my usual Saturday errands I came home with the intention of running sooner than usual. Instead I took a nap. Seriously? Once I woke up I headed out for an easy 45 minutes. It was not. The whole 4.5 miles felt so hard. I took plenty of walk breaks. Which now leads me to being less than 12 hours from a 25K. Commence the freak out. Even knowing that I am predominately hiking it, I am freaking out. What was I thinking? Maybe I should just go to bed.

How was your week?

Ever been surprised (in a good way) at work?

Who raced today? Anyone racing tomorrow?

A (real) Plan for the Slacker?

I’ve mentioned before that I have serious problems sticking to training plans I’ve found online or in books,etc. They’re all a little too cookie cutter and it’s very rare to find one that has rest days on Fridays. And with my pace being all over the place these days, the pace based plans just make me sad. Then there’s the Slacker in me that just has a knee jerk reaction to being “told” to run. Which is why I created my own plan back in November in my almost free student planner. Which I still kind of love by the way. 🙂

Personalized plans are available from a variety of websites but have you seen the cost? Now if I could promise myself that I would follow it and not rebel like a clueless 4-year-old, the cost wouldn’t be that much. I’ve just never trusted myself to follow through. So I had my plan for the next few months and I was good. Then I got an email. The SLO Marathon partnered with McMillan Running for course specific plans. A limited number of free training plans were offered to the ambassadors. A personalized plan, just for you. The length of your choosing, designed for you. For free. Free? Seriously?!

I was so torn! I mean that is an awesome offer. I use their pace calculator all the time and they have articles and videos filled with training advice. With a limited number of spots, I had to think quickly. I liked my plan but also knew that I will likely need a little (or a lot) of guidance to break 2:00 at SLO. But would a plan stress me out? Also with the 25K this weekend and Surf City next weekend, I didn’t really have the time for a 12 week plan. After all most plans don’t have a 13.1 mile race the first week. 🙂 I checked out the website and saw that they offered an 8 week plan. Hang on, that’s doable. I would have a little time to rest after Surf City and surely I could stick to a plan for 8 weeks right? I finally decided it was too good of an offer to miss out on and jumped on it.

I received the questionnaire email about a week later. Mother of Toledo, it was 6 pages long. It asked my goals, my running habits, my usual schedule. It asked for my best times ever as well as just the best times from the last 12 months. It asked what I wanted out of running after accomplishing my goal and how many miles a week would burn me out. Etc, Etc. There was also a question about any races I may want to run before my goal race. I answered all of the questions as truthfully as I could. I do admit that I left out the 25K part. For some reason I was scared to put that in. 🙂 There was also a section that asked about any planned trips or events that would require schedule changes. I may not have any planned trips but I put Fridays in that section. Fridays usually end up being a longer (open to close) day plus my commute each way on top of that. That combined with the fact that Fridays are usually busier and I take Friday as a rest day 99.9% of the time. I wanted that to reflect in my plan so I made sure to specify that. I submitted my answers and was told it would be 1-2 weeks before I heard back. Even knowing that, I stalked my email everyday. It came on Sunday night.

Woo hoo! Included in the email was their half marathon race guide, their training philosophies, as well as a nutrition guide. Ok, cool but what about the plan? I opened the excel file with trepidation… and then blinked. Wait, what? I paid more attention to the dates and workout before going back and reading the comments, if I had done it in order, I would have been less confused. 🙂

Fallon, thanks for choosing McMillan Running to help you train optimally for your upcoming goal race. As you head into your San Luis Obispo Half Marathon training program, remember that recovery between key workouts is the key. If you simply perform the workouts and get to the race healthy, you give yourself the best chance at success. Consistent, smart training will produce the best results. Run hard, but run smart. Listen to your body to know when to push and when to rest. For each workout in your plan, there is a corresponding training pace listed in the McMillan Running Calculator (www.mcmillanrunning.com). I know you requested 8 weeks of training, but I wanted to give you a full 14 weeks so that you will have some guidelines over the next few weeks to help you transition into half-marathon specific training in the final 2 months before SLO.

14 weeks? That’s a long time but the more I read it, the more I felt like it was doable. Most of the runs are time based as opposed to distance based. I’ve been transitioning to that since December so seeing that built into the plan was kind of awesome. Specific speed work drills are built in, no paces but guidelines that I can follow and actually accomplish (fingers crossed). Surf City 13.1 and Wine Country 13.1 are built into the plan as long training runs. The weeks following those are built as recovery weeks. Hmmm, I think I can do this. I was actually super excited to start. Now, if only I was feeling 100%! I am still coughing up a storm at night so I thought it would be smarter to only run 3x this week. Boo!

Ever follow a McMillan plan? Or use their pace calculator?

Think I can stick to a plan? Or will I slack off?

Who’s racing this weekend?