I feel like I was just posting the Run or Dye recap then I blinked and now it’s Thursday. 4 days without a post, total Slacker! I really did mean to post but this week ran away from me, so here we are. On the upside, tomorrow is Friday!!!
On Sunday, I enjoyed an overly warm uncomfortable run. 4.5 miles in 48:08-ouch. I won’t say it was hot, because it was only mid 80’s. It actually nice outside, until you started running that is. 3/4 of a mile down the road, I realized I had misplaced my water bottle. How does a person do that? I pushed on to complete the 4.5 miles but took so many crawl breaks. I felt nasty sweaty at the end but I was done. I also found my water bottle. On top of the dryer in the garage. Oops.
Monday was a pretty good day at work. To keep things lively and stay upbeat on a busy day, a coworker and I had a little transaction battle. It was a close one but I lost. 😦 I don’t usually do that many anymore so it kept me moving. After work I met my mom and the puppy at the lake for a few miles. It was a nice little warm up, I walked a little over 1/2 a mile with them before running. The first mile was slower due to the walking but my legs felt pretty good so I decided to do a little speed work. I managed to pull in a decent progression run for the night.
I was a little sore on Tuesday so I kept it as my usual day. I knew Wednesday was going to be a busy day so I had thought of switching days but decided against it. I lucked out actually because since I work on Saturday I had the chance to leave early on Wednesday. I had a doctor’s appointment in the later afternoon but I thought I could squeeze in a run. I headed to the lake aiming for 3.5 easy miles. I wanted to run an average pace of 10:00-10:15. I also wanted to concentrate on my form.
I noticed awhile back that I relied heavily on my left leg. All of my issues are usually on my left side. I wanted to work on my form but didn’t want to try anything new before the SLO 1/2. I figured that would be a bad idea. 🙂 So after my first mile, which was a little fast, I focused on my right leg and its turnover. Apparently I can’t do two things at once. I couldn’t maintain my planned pace and focus on my form. I ended up being faster than planned. What was weird was that it felt easy. Too bad that doesn’t happen all the time. If that pace could become my easy run that would be sweet, but that’s likely farther out.
And I found this branch in my shoe…
After my doctor’s appointment, I headed to a tennis meeting with my mother. She likes to drag me along when she can. She always ropes me into filling out the draw forms for her. Wow, 7 team coaches trying to get their players seeded? There were a few times I though there was going to be a throw down. I just kept my head down and kept writing, trying not to laugh out loud.
I’ve been feeling super run down and tired lately and that translated into a rough morning today. It took me a little longer to get going. I figured if I was so tired that I was texting my boss for an extra 45 minutes then I was not running tonight. Boo. Well, more time for an update then! Tomorrow’s a planned rest day, so fingers crossed, I can also avoid the temptation of cookie Friday. Especially since I ate a donut yesterday. Ok, 2 donuts. But they were so good. 🙂
Back in January, it hit Facebook that our little neck of the woods was getting a Run or Dye race. I swear my Facebook feed lit up like a Christmas tree. C and I had always said that we wanted to do a fun, less based on pace race, and the fact that we didn’t have to drive far for this was perfect. I had also promised her that I would run in a tutu. When sign up time came around, there were so many locals signing up that the website actually crashed. I probably should have taken that as indicator of how may people were attending this shindig. But, Team Slacker (discount!) was able to register fairly quickly so I put it out of my mind.
R, me, NikeC, C
When I picked up my packet, I found out that 8000 people registered. What?! That didn’t even seem possible. Friday night before the race, I was texting C back and forth about where we were going to meet up, texting NikeC about what time I was picking her up and texting ME- ok, every time I type that I feel narcissistic, so from now on ME will be ML- about where we could meet up with her group as well. The race was taking place in a park/ golf course across from a community college. Parking was in a few a of the college lots. It wasn’t enough.
Blurry but I love this
After picking up NikeC nice and early in the morning, I decided to take the back way there. It’s the same rural highway I drive to work everyday, actually. I had mentioned it to ML the night before and she thought it would be slower, plus everyone seems to hate this highway. Not me! Halfway there, ML starts texting me about traffic and C is calling tell me that the left hand turn lane is backed up for literally miles. Another plus about the back way- I got to make a right hand turn onto campus with no traffic! Woo hoo!! We were directed to a lot where we parked. Then it was the walk to the actually event. If you add in the walk to and from the park, we probably did 5 miles overall that morning 🙂
Me and NikeCMe and C
The crowds were ridiculous. The highway patrol was out directing traffic so everyone could cross the highway safely. I had hoped that the majority of people would still need to check in and get packets but judging by the sea of white shirts in front me, most everyone picked up early. We finally tracked down C and her husband, from now on called C-Hub, R and T. We could not find ML and her crew. We were looking for them when we were just absorbed into the crowd and wound up at the starting line; which turned into a mini dance party and the first throwing of dye. Part of packet pickup included a packet of dye, which everyone opened and started to throw around.
Just a little pink
That stuff is cold! I don’t know what I was expecting but it felt cold when it hit you. There was a countdown and we were off! Well kind of, even with a wave start it was crowded. There was never really a time when there wasn’t a crowd on the course. That was partially aided by the course being in a golf course, so we running the path. A very incline-y path at that. We did a lot of walking with some sprinting in between for the whole course. Let’s call it fartlek training! We lost R and T fairly quickly, so then it was just the four of us. The first dye station was pink and not too bad. Ran through it and continued on. The stations after that were more aggressive. One purple station was so cloudy, I couldn’t see the ground or my feet.
purple haze
I love running with C and her husband. They crack me up, plus C-Hub has great drill sergeant moments. 🙂 Then we hit a blue station. They were hardcore! It seriously all went right down my bra, blech! It was starting to get a little sweaty too. About a mile in, I was also feeling pretty stinky. Which is weird because my mother insists that I don’t smell even after my half marathons. I mentioned it to NikeC and she felt the same way. Maybe it was something about the way the corn starch reacted with your skin? Who knows? All I know is that C mentioned it later too.
Mid race photo op
We kept trucking along, it really was great getting to run with everyone. I got in some sprinting while trying to run away for C Hub, he didn’t think there was enough dye in my hair yet. 🙂 Walking up a little hill we saw turkeys!!!! Don’t know why they were there but we had to try and get pictures of them. I had my phone in a plastic bag so please enjoy the filter de plastic 🙂 It works pretty well, just kind of blurry sometimes.
Turkeys!!!
By the time we went through the later dye zones, I was walking like a mummy, hehe. My arms were at my sides, eyes closed and mouth squeezed shut. It was fun and all but I had kind of had enough corn starch. 🙂 The last pink station was so backed up that we came to a stop while waiting to get through it. C thought about skipping it, but C Hub wouldn’t let her.
tutus rock
There was one last color station after that and then we were running through a campground to get to the finish. It ended up being after a single track stretch of trail and a little wooden bridge. We also met back up with T and R right before the finish line. The finish line was seriously anticlimactic. We crossed the bridge and that was it. No one was cheering as you came across and people were just milling about. There was the color party going on in the middle of the field and some booths selling stuff to the right. That was kind of a bummer. 😦 NikeC and I stayed on the outskirts of the party while the others waded their way into the middle. They had the crowd pleasing moment of everyone throwing their remaining dye packs in the air. I tried to get a pic but was a little late-
Throw your hands in the air!
Then it was photo time!!!
We got a little goofy-1and 2!
C, NikeC, me, T, R, C Hub
I texted ML, wondering where they were at on the course but they had already left 😦 We started the long trek back to the cars thinking about lunch. I couldn’t handle the blue boobs anymore so I took off my white tank. I was wearing tanks which might be why I was so warm but I took that white one off while we were walking and shoved it down my bra. So classy, right? But I felt so much better after that. The shirt actually worked pretty well at cleaning myself off as we walked back to the college. NikeC and I managed to get pretty clean by the time we made it to lunch. 🙂
Mid run selfieso very, very blue
It was around 10:30 when we were walking out and we could see about 1000 or more people still coming as well as a long line of cars still trying to park. The pre-race info has said that the last wave was at 11:00 so I hope all those people had the chance to run. I don’t think they were adequately prepared for the amount of people who signed up. Another beef- strollers. There were so many parents with the kids and babies in strollers going through the course. Not only was the path not that wide, did you really want your poor kid breathing all that in and getting it in their faces?
Lunch was awesome. We hit Firestone in SLO because they have outdoor seating. Yeah we were not the only people from Run or Dye to think of that. It was packed! The food was amazing though. We had to laugh because we notice that us girls all ordered burgers and both guys were eating giant salads. 🙂 Then we all headed home where we were met with the task of trying to get clean. It actually came out of my hair fairly easily which I had been worried about. It did not come off skin quite so easily. C and I texted each other later that our underarms still had a blue tinge no matter how hard we scrubbed.
Overall it was a good run. It needed to be in a bigger location and a little better organized but it was the chance to run with everyone that made it great. Would I do it again? Ask me again when I am sure that there’s no lingering dye anywhere. 🙂
April was a busy month. Not just for me but most people I think. I mean taxes and Boston in the same month, right? Or in my case, the SLO Marathon weekend. So my month brought me this-
I actually felt pretty good after Sunday’s race even with all the hills. I took Monday off, both from running and work, planning to return to both on Tuesday. Work went great on Tuesday and I was looking forward to my run. What I did not account for was the freak heat wave we have had lately. Even work town was friggin’ hot and it rarely gets above 70 there.
I went to the lake after work hoping for an easy 4 miles. I was warm, not hot but uncomfortably warm. It was 88º when I set out. I called it after 5K and just walked back to the car. I didn’t see a need to push it. It was a bummer because my legs felt good but I need to acclimate to the coming summer heat a little better.
For some reason, I thought Wednesday was Thursday all day long. Not cool. I had planned on running after work but for the first time ever, this Slacker forgot her running shoes. How does one even do that? I do have a spare pair in my car (and socks, shorts, shirt and sports bra) but it was hot again, so I decided on another rest day. I did just run 13.1 right? Sadly it meant that my monthly mileage stalled at 70.4 and I had really wanted to get to 75. But I am still on track for my yearly goal, so yay!
Thursday, well yeah. I felt like Thursday turned into a mayday, and not the fun dancing around the May pole kind. Work bordered on insane and the town was crazy. My original plan was to run 3-4 miles in work town before heading to SLO for packet pick up for tomorrow’s race. But there is a huge car show in town this weekend and people were pouring in so I just got the heck out of dodge. I was halfway to SLO when it occurred to me that I had lost $200.00. I could not remember what I had done with it but I did not have it. That was the final straw and I burst into tears while driving down the highway. 😦 Once I made it to packet pick up (Sports Authority), I was texting all of my co-workers in a panic. No one could remember seeing it. There was nothing more that I could do about it then, so I dried my eyes as best as I could and went to get the packets. I figured I would be in and out and hardly anyone would see me, so the red eyes wouldn’t be so bad.
Wrong. This pick up was for Run or Dye. The line was wrapped around the interior of the building. I was in line for over 30 minutes. Seriously?! I am still on the fence about this race as it is. Then when I was picking up my bib and for 4 friends, the Run or Dye staff told me 8000 people registered. I’m sorry what? How do you fit that many people in a smaller park and where do they all park? I was still super cranky so I think I may have given the poor guy the look of death at that news. Sorry!
New stretching equipment?
I was still so frustrated that I was torn between getting a pizza on the way home and eating it all or trying to run it out. I chose the healthy choice and took the freeway exit to run town. I was running behind on time so I was thinking 2 laps of the lake would be good. Apparently there was some function at the pavilion because I had to circle around a few times and ended up parking on the backside of the lake. Which was weird but I jumped out, walked a quick warm up and then just ran. 2 miles later, time had run out but I was feeling a little better.
Rebel without a clue
I am something of a clean freak about certain things, so I am really not sure how I will handle people throwing colored dye at me as we leisurely ramble through the course tomorrow. Plus, I am wearing a tutu. I had always promised C that we run a race in tutu’s. Why, I am not sure, I always feel awkward in costumes or outfits. I am still just getting used to running in shorts. But, I did buy a bright pink tutu and I will be rocking it tomorrow. Along with all black. 🙂 I’m picking NikeC up early so we can hopefully get a good parking spot. Then it is time for a Team Slacker meetup! On the upside, I think we have a group of 10 or more running tomorrow! Plus no pre-race jitters. 🙂
And the lost money? Found today, I have awesome co-workers. 🙂
Sunday’s SLO Marathon was the completion of my 7th half marathon. I have never run a marathon nor am I sure I want to. When I first started running a few years ago, my naive goal was to qualify for Boston one day. I was averaging 12:30 miles, running less than sporadically and clearly had no idea what I was talking about. Once I did figure it out, my enthusiasm for that idea waned a little. One because by qualifying time for me right now would be 3:35:00- Ummm, not gonna happen. But it was the training time that really got me; a 3 hour run on average on the weekend? Yikes! There’s a reason I call myself Slacker Runner. Would I love to get there someday? Yes, but you’ve got to crawl before walking right?
So I reassessed again. I stumbled on triathlons. Sprint distance that is. A sprint generally runs around a 750km swim, a 20km bike and a 5k run. That sounded totally doable* so I said that I wanted to complete a sprint tri before I was 35. Now, I realize that this would require just as much training as a marathon, but for some reason in my head training for 3 events makes this ok.
Now here’s where the * comes into play. Running a 5K- easy peasy, I got that. Biking- well I haven’t been on a real bike in probably 15 years and when I did own one I rarely rode it. I can bust out 12 miles on the stationary bike but that is so not the same thing. I have also never ridden a bike on a public street so that should be interesting. Then there’s the swimming. I was raised near a lake, so I was swimming before I was walking almost but that wasn’t real swimming. The last time I swam laps was in 8th grade PE. Oh and did I mention that open water swimming kind of terrifies me? Yep, for two reasons. One- people swimming over the top of you or just running into you and two- Jaws. No joke. When we went stand up paddle boarding for work last August, I admit to being a little unnerved.
nope
So this was why I gave myself a 5 year deadline at the time. Plenty of time to suck it up or conveniently forget it. Over the years I came across a few local options but have yet to figure out the logistics of things. Like swimming, how would I train? I can’t afford the gym that has a pool and the municipal pool only has free swim during lunch hours and I work 45 minutes away. Then there’s the biking, I don’t really want to buy anything because what if I hate it and never want to ride again? So that means I have to try to borrow stuff? That’s kind of awkward. Again, a good reason for the 5 year window.
So why bring it up now? Well that window is half over. When the hell did that happen? Also, wandering around the SLO expo on Saturday, a booth caught my eye. Apparently there is a triathlon in November that is super close. So close that I gave them the “say what!” face when they said it was the 5th year. They admitted to poor marketing. Which also means that it wouldn’t be too big. Like Wildflower, which is also super close, but is insanely huge and meant for the people with real talent. Then there’s the SLO Triathlon, which is in a pool but that’s 36 laps!
So why am I so interested in this one? Which involves open water ocean swimming? Because you can modify it. You can swap the swim for a 1.5 mile kayak loop or SUP. Really? Sweet! So not a traditional tri per say but one this Slacker might be able to train for. And you can rent a kayak before hand and they will truck it to the staging area on race day. So now, I am giving myself until August 1 to see if I can train and if I can, I will register right before prices go up on 8-2.
This is probably all a pipe dream but it feels good to write it down. You gotta throw it out there right? Or should I say its good to dream 🙂
The course was amazingly pretty. The sun was shining and I really wished I had a better camera than my iPhone in a plastic bag. There was one spot where the hills and roads lined up perfectly enough that I could see almost 2 miles of road- full of runners. I tried to get a picture but its hard to snap while running. 🙂
Mile 4 ish?
There were plenty of water stations stocked with water and sports drink. Miles 1-10 were all street and miles 10-12 were on a paved bike path running along the railroad tracks before returning to the street. A little before mile 7, there was even a Cliff Shot zone. There was a big inflatable and tables lined with numerous kinds of Cliff Shots. The only bummer was that I had forgotten about the shot zone on the map so when I could see the inflatable in the distance, I thought it was half marathon turn around. Oops. There was a “cheer zone” filled with people, and live local bands scattered around the course. Around mile 12.5, we ran passed some type of conga drum line which was really cool.
The home stretch
The road leading to the finish line was lined with people and flags with plenty of cheering and cowbells. After being given our medals, we were able to pose for Finisher pictures. The recovery food consisted of bananas, a protein bar, English muffin, small bag of pretzels and a small Jamba Juice. I took one of everything but the bananas (blech) but only managed to eat a small part of the muffin and the Jamba Juice. There was a recovery tent with rollers and ice, and results could be checked in the TekCafe. The awards ceremony started at 10:00 for the elites. Crap, they are fast. About 1:55 into my half, the guy leading the marathon comes ripping past me. It almost looked like his bike escort was having a tough time keeping up with him. There were also awards for the challenged athletes, the military division, and age group awards.
Elite MalesElite Females
With all that being said, today was not my day. I slept so poorly last night. I tossed and turned, felt like my sheets were itchy and was warring between having a headache because I didn’t think I had hydrated enough and having to run to the bathroom every hour because I had drank too much. My alarm went off and before getting up I checked the Twitter feed for the race. The people that had to be bussed to the starting line were already getting on their buses and I was just waking up. You’d think I’d feel better with that extra sleep, but nope. If anything I felt super nauseous. I skipped the antibiotics this morning because I didn’t want to aggravate that. Loaded up the car and my mom and I were on the way. She was able to drop me off about 3 blocks from the start line just as the marathoners were starting.
Once getting to the start line, I met up with another SLO Ambassador-Heather- and we chatted while waiting to line up in the corrals. I was about 5 people behind the 2:00 pacer as we walked to the starting line. And then we were off.
I lost the 2:00 pacer before the first turn. Well crap. My first mile was a 9:00 mile and I still could not see them. I just kept pushing. I started to get hot so I ripped off my ear warmer headband. I thought about tossing it but ending up running with it in my hand for the rest of the way. There was a small incline up to mile 2 but nothing much, leading up to 3 is where the real hills started. I drove it yesterday so I knew it was coming, I told myself I was running the whole thing. As I was getting to the top, I was thinking that it seemed so much easier than I had thought. Yeah, I wasn’t at the top, it was just like a staircase with landings, I was only 1/3 of the way up. But I managed to run the whole damn hill. Then we were leaving the city streets for the rural area. And more hills. But the view was amazing!
Plastic bags make interesting filters
I was somehow managing to not pay too much attention to my watch and was running on effort. That may have been a bad idea. Rounding a corner, it was time to run through the cheer zone before once more going up. I really needed that; I was tired. I ran up until just before mile 7 when I had to take a walk break going up a hill. I told myself one was fine but I was fading. Hit the turn around 7.5 miles. Which meant I was almost at 8. I love mile 8. To me, mile 8 means that no matter what I am finishing that race and there are more miles behind me than in front of me. I checked my watch- 8 miles in 1:20. 6 minutes slower than mile 8 at my last half. I felt like I was pushing so much harder than that, I got a little emotional. Or a lot, I sent a whiny text to my mom about how I was so not breaking 2.
From then on it was like my brain had to admit what my body had been unsuccessfully trying to tell me. It was like it was saying-” I let you run 7 miles straight, but you’re tired and on antibiotics, so slow your roll, you were supposed to take it easy”. Waah. I lost count of how many walk breaks I took over the next 5 miles. I just kept plugging along. Coming up towards mile 12 was a little surprise. If my brain had been processing a little better I should have taken a picture. We had to cross a footbridge to get across the train tracks. But the bridge was built like a parking garage, with 3 levels from the ground to the top, it actually looked really cool with runners on it. I ran the levels going up but had to slow down on the actual bridge. When I did I almost thought I was going to fall; at first I thought I was either more tired than I thought or we were having an earthquake. Then the woman next to me squealed. No earthquake just an extremely bouncy concrete bridge. Concrete should not move like that. We both booked it across after that.
Hills
I walked a lot of mile 12. This is also where the speedy marathoners were starting to streak by. Then I was in the home stretch, just under the freeway overpass and up a little baby hill, then it was down hill to the finish. Yeah, I walked right up to the top of that little hill. According to my Garmin, I still had shot to come in under 2:10 so I flew down that finish line. Well I tried to at least. This was also the most crowded finish line I have run across. I crossed the line and stopped the Garmin. I collected my medal, took my finisher shot and then looked at my watch- 2:10:14. So much for flying. I was still hopeful that my chip time would be a little faster. I then tried to find my mom. It was crowded!
We finally met up and I munched on a bit of the recovery food. She took a few pictures as well. I waited to see Heather who was coming out of the food tent. She ran an awesome race and PR’d today. The wind was picking up so we headed back to the car to get my jacket and drop off some of my stuff. On the way there, I realized that the headband I had run almost 10 miles holding was nowhere to be seen. I don’t recall ever dropping it but I can’t remember when I last had it! It was the only all black one I had. 😦
I swear I was trying to smile not smirk
After getting my jacket, we hung out a bit longer. Saw Lisa from Runner in Training cross the finish line- another PR! Watched most of the awards ceremony. I almost had a meltdown when I checked my time in the tech cafe. There were screens set up in the cafe that showed 2 tagboard websites and multiple laptops where you could type in your bib number and get your results. My results showed 2:11:14?!!? While I was spazzing about that waiting to see Lisa finish, her husband pointed out that that could be the gun time and the more official results would be posted later. Oh yeah, gun time, where was my brain?
So warm and comfy
After a quick lunch at Chipotle, we headed home. It was barely 12:00 but both my mother and I were exhausted. I was a little cold so I made myself comfortable on their deck in a chaise. Feet up, compression socks, a bottle of Nuun and my iPad and I was good. By then my phone had died but I still wanted to post some things. Great plan but I fell asleep instead. It was a nice little siesta. 🙂 I awoke to find that I had given myself a new interesting runners tan/ burn and check the official results. Once I figured out how to read it, it was little better. This is the first time that I have ever had an official time that is slower than what my Garmin says. Has that happened to anyone else?
This was a tough one. There were a lot of hills. That also seemed to a be a popular theme in everyone’s social media posts. Thanks tagboard.com (#raceslo), you made me feel better. Even with it feeling hard, there was never a moment that I felt I wasn’t going to finish. I knew I was crossing that line, it was just going to be slower than hoped for. I managed to keep my average pace under 10:00 so I’ll take it! And I finished in the first 1000 runners!!! This race was hard but amazing and I can’t wait to run it again next year. Those hills don’t get the last word!
Slacker Runner 