Tag: half marathon

Week 49

Upcoming Races
Holiday Half 12/9 (Thanks Bibrave!)

Vacation- woo hoo!!! Why am I always sick on vacation?? Seriously, is it some kind of jinx? I didn’t get in as much exercise as I originally would have liked this week. I did get some nice downtime in and finally managed to get the toy shopping for work done. Oh and both parents had birthdays. 😯🎊

Monday– Does cleaning your car count as exercise? I mean it was ridiculously dirty and I did work up a sweat for the first time in weeks. 😛

Tuesday/Wednesday– The rain came to town and I hid. Did I want to run in it? Yes. But I was still coughing and didn’t think running in the rain would be a bright idea.

Thursday-3.3 miles I ran! I headed to the gym to see if my legs still knew what they were doing. They did!! I couldn’t get anything else to work properly though. I forgot to start my Garmin, realized I never paired my headphones with my new iPhone and my footpod is out of calibration. Whatever, it was still a good run.

Friday– I wanted to run again but with the race this weekend I knew that would be more miles this week than I ran in the month of November. Yeah, you read that right. So I just spent the getting some errands done and packing for Pomona.

Saturday- Road Trip! Grrr, traffic. It felt like it took forever to get to Pomona. Once there, we checked out the race start location (not well enough) and then headed to the hotel to check in. An early dinner and then it was time to try to sleep. Ha! I think I woke up every hour on the hour. 😒

Sunday- Holiday Half Marathon– race recap to come.

16.55 miles for the week. Yes, more than I ran in November. Haha.

How was your week?

Ho-Ho Holiday

Disclaimer: I received an entry to Oakland Running Festival as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews!

Just like that, it’s race weekend.

Wow, time flies when you’ve been sick. 😛 I have managed to get in a run but as you may know my training has been conspicuously absent these past 2 weeks. Oops.

So, with that being said, what am I thinking? I have run races on uglier month’s than these (looking at you Carlsbad). I realize this will not be “raced”. Likely, this will be barely run. Run/walk intervals will be used and if that doesn’t work, walking it is. I know part of the course takes runners on the Pomona raceway and I am looking forward to that.

And all the festive-ness! I get the feeling that everyone is going to be wearing their holiday finest in running wear and I can’t wait to check it out. I actually owned nothing festive so I took myself to Wal-Mart to remedy that situation. I feel like I need more though, I didn’t get very much. I still have time to look for more. Hmmm.

This is my last race of the year and I just want to have fun. And stay warm. The 8AM start time will help but I am getting there early for packet pickup. #allthelayers

What are you doing this weekend?

Third Try’s the Charm?

You could say that Surf City was my spring board into half marathons.

It wasn’t my first half marathon, not even close. It wasn’t even my first travel race. However it was the first time I spectated an event that didn’t involve working any water stations. Prior to Surf City 2011, I had volunteered numerous times at water stations for the local fun run and even the Master Elites didn’t inspire me to run. They also never wanted my water but that’s not the point.

I drove NikeC down to Huntington Beach to run Surf City back in 2011. I remember standing on a corner with her aunt and now uncle and watching all the runners run past feeling a little lazy. I thought to myself- I can do this. So I started training (sort of) for my first half and ran a local one a few months later.

It took me years to get myself back to Surf City. I ran it for the first time in 2015 and then again in 2016. Now, full disclosure, I love Surf City but it doesn’t love me. The course is fairly flat and the humidity runs pretty high. To some that is PR ready and the first two times I ran it, I attempted to run it fast and my lungs pitched a fit by mile 8ish. This has always colored my view of the later miles which bites because you run along PCH and the beach is right next to you!

Which is why I am looking forward to going back in 2019! Time to live it up!

So this time, I plan to have no plan. Well, that’s not true. I still remember the really good breakfast place we all went to after NikeC’s race years ago so I want to run the race leisurely, enjoy the party atmosphere, the beach and then walk all over until I find it again! #goals

Want to join me? Use code SCMBR10 to save 10%!

Ever run Surf City?

The Unexpected- Monterey Bay Half Marathon

When I last left you, I had just received the email that had changed the course of my weekend.

If you are unaware- California is currently on fire, North and South of me; the largest of the fires currently being the Camp Fire and the Woolsey Fire. Thoughts and prayers to all the victims and first responders. I knew Woolsey was sending smoke our way but I admit I am bad about geography or maybe I was just naively hopeful when it came to the Camp Fire and Monterey Bay.

When the wind shifts, it shifts, which is what happened on Saturday. As a person with asthma who has been known to do stupid things (you’ve read about them here) I appreciate BSIM Events making the tough and smart decision for the safety of not only the runners but the volunteers and everyone else involved on race day.

Within an hour, I had more emails regarding the race cancellation. For those doing race day bib pick up, runners could still do so for their shirts and bibs at the predetermined location. Medals would be given out to runners at the finish line festival starting at 7 if runners in the area wanted to come pick them up. The beer tent was already up so it would start serving beer at 8AM. You couldn’t run, but you could have a little fun.

I live 2+ hours away and one of the reasons I was doing race day pickup was because I was going to have the dog with me. My mom was going to hang with her during the race but I wasn’t going to drag either of them 4+ hours just to pick up a shirt. I felt a little weird picking up a medal for miles that I hadn’t put in but I appreciated the offer.

Then I got an email this week with more post race information. I have to say that I am really impressed with how BSIM Events is handling this cancellation-

And it got better-

I loved this race before for the views, the organization and the on course support but the organizers themselves are class acts- I’ve run Monterey Bay, the Big Sur Marathon and Salinas Valley Half and loved them all.

Race day may not have gone according to anyone’s plan but I will be back one day. I waited 3 years, I can wait a little longer, it’s worth it.

Ever had your race canceled?

Week 45: Monterey Bay Half Prep

Upcoming Races-

Monterey Bay Half Marathon (Thank you BibRave!)- 11/12
Oakland Turkey Trot- (Thank you BibRave!) 11/22

Wow, this week was just nothing like I’d thought it’d be.

I was back in my office but work was chaos. I came back to a new hire starting on Monday, a surprise announcement of an audit coming down the pipe and just general insane busy-ness.

Then I was still abnormally tired. I was falling asleep in my chair watching TV. I was falling asleep in the break room on my lunch. I did manage to complete a Liift4 workout once but I can’t remember it it was Monday or Tuesday. 😛

I kept meaning to run, I packed my bag every day but things kept happening. Work kept running super late- people, my time card clocked in at over 105 hours. Then when I set an alarm to run in the morning, it was below freezing. I hadn’t brought out the winter running gear yet, wth? I tried for a lunch run, thinking it was fall, temps should be fine- nah, work town hit 86*. I don’t know about you but my hair wouldn’t recover from that for another 3-4 hours of work, let alone stressing about if I smelled.

So that brought me to race weekend. I was doing race day pickup so I was hoping for a shakeout run on Saturday but catching up on other things just saw the time run away from me. Plus I had an early wake up call (2AM!) so I needed to try and get everything together and then to sleep.

Then I received an email-

Wait, what? Is this really happening? I mean I get it but I was also kind of in denial.

Now what?