Tag: heat

If this is February-

I am getting a little nervous for summer. It was 80 today. Really? On one hand I love it but on the other hand- man it was warm.

I had a big work meeting on Thursday and I was a little stressed about it and figured that combined with the driving to and from and back to work, I would not be in the mood to run on Thursday evening. So I moved my 45 min easy run to Wednesday. After Tuesday’s tempo, I knew it was going to be a little rough but man it was a slog. I was just not feeling it. I hit 42 minutes but it was only 3.5 miles. I straight up walked 1 mile of it. Yeah, it was ugly.

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Thursday was my dress meltdown and the big meeting. They were presenting the President’s Award to one of the Heritage winners so part of the meeting was fun. My coworker took 1st runner up- woo hoo! My former boss and I cracked jokes that since we hired him, we could be equally excited. It was also pretty cool that when they called out the Heritage winners to the front, there were 3 from my location. 🙂 3 out of 19- sweet!

Friday was girls night and yes, we saw 50 Shades of Grey. I was proud of myself for not getting kicked out of the theater. ML and I always sit next to each other so we can whisper things but she knew I was going to be a total smart ass so she put everyone else between us. 🙂 This was the worst behaved theater I have ever been in, it was ridiculous. Some people had had way too much to drink before the movie and kept drinking the whole way through. The woman in the row behind us made a phone call during the previews because her friends had not arrived. Said friends arrived 5-10 minutes into the movie, laughing and talking about how they couldn’t find their seats in the dark. Seriously?! I think I heard 3 wine glasses break and the women in the front couldn’t go to the bathroom without going in multiples while laughing and yelling at each other as they left. At the end all the men in the theater boo’d and I laughed out loud. But other than that and the fact that the Mexican place we went to for dinner made me sick- it was an amusing and fun night.

This is my in pain grimace- why do my grimaces look more like smiles?

I worked on Saturday, so I knew I would be eating a later lunch than usual. This was also apparent when I set out for my run. The training plan called a 45-55 minute run and fairly shortly, I knew it was going to be closer to 45. My stride felt off and everything ached. I was at the top of a hill, 1/2 mile from home when I wanted to curse out loud. The outside of my right knee and the area a couple of inches up started screaming. Are you freakin’ kidding me?! My right leg never hurts, my left one is the problem child. It felt like something was about to rip. I instantly stopped and just started stretching on the side of the road. A few minutes later I decided to see how it felt, I ran home and concentrated on my form just keeping an easy pace. I felt a little tight but made it home. I walked up half of my driveway backwards and spent extra time stretching and rolling with my foam roller and stick.

Yesterday’s pain made me nervous for today’s long run. The plan called for 10-12 and yeah, 12 wasn’t happening. I headed to the lake path, thinking that flat and outside would be best. It was also easy access to my car if I needed it. I was a little worried I would get bored lapping the lake so many times but I have run 10 miles on both a treadmill and the track before so it had to be better than those. Right? I headed out around 2:00, thinking that I should take it slower and might need more time. So for the second time in 2 days, I ran too soon after lunch, for me at least. According to McMillan, my long run pace should be between 10:34-11:54. I was aiming for 11:15-11:30, I was afraid it was going to hurt and I did not want to push. My knee felt ok but my left hamstring is still sore from last week’s strength training fail. I walked my warm up as usual and then picked up the pace.

When miles 2, 3, and 4 clocked in at 10:04, 10:10, and 10:11, I was a little ticked. It didn’t feel hard but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to sustain it with the way I felt and the temp being around 80. My mom had joined me today and was walking the path and I ran into her on lap 4. I took that opportunity to extend my walking break. Since the park was so busy, I walked the playground section every lap- easier to dodge the little people and their parents. 🙂 Even with that longer break, mile 5 was 10:36. 6-10, the heat was getting to me and I finally slowed down a bit. Those miles clocked in between 10:41-10:50. Except for 8, that was 11:12. I admit I almost quit after 8 miles just because I was tired and hot and irritated that I just could not control my pace. I had a conversation with myself and decided that I wasn’t hurting and should just start acclimating to the heat now since it’s only going to get hotter. So I finished my 10. 10 miles is a little more than 8 laps so the last .5 mile was me running back and forth between 2 of the exercise stations because I didn’t want to do another lap. 🙂 Plus by then my mom was waiting for me.

I am a little concerned by all the achiness that I have been feeling lately. It’s one of reasons I passed on my long run last weekend. I am hoping it’s just the treadmill. Normally I dropped to running 3x a week during winter so only one run would be on the treadmill. I run differently on the treadmill and I remember being a little achy last year but not like this. I am kicking that thing to the curb in 20 days. But for now, I am pretty sure I can get in a 30-35 minute run outside after work. I can do my easy run that way and just use the treadmill for my speed work of the week until Daylight Savings time. The work route is all hill so I could still get in hill repeats too, the workout might just be a little shorter.

How was your weekend? Who raced?

Anyone else go to the movies?

Anyone else run differently on the treadmill?

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!

Runaway Chicken

With daylight savings fast approaching and being one of the few runners who does not look forward to it, I have tried to get as many miles in after work as possible. This can mean shorter than normal runs but I would rather run that than the treadmill sooner.

Tuesday I headed to the lake path on the chance that it was open like last week. Unlike last week, the signs were out. Waah. I stood for a few minutes and pondered. Then I became a lemming and followed the 20 people ignoring the signs. So bad I know but it was my last time at the path until spring. I only managed 2.5 miles before I thought it would be too dark to complete another lap. The path only has two lights- both near the playground.

from last week, when the signs were down

I was stretching out on the fitness bars when I saw a Chihuahua looking dog coming down the street. I waited a moment and didn’t see any owners. This corner of the path can be pretty busy car-wise so I decide to see if I could figure out where the dog lives. He was having none of that. His barking made me laugh. He didn’t sound mean, more like a petulant teenager. “Leave me alone, mind your own business, what are you looking at”. While I am trying to decide if I want to force it, I hear a rustling in the bushed across the street. I looked up to see a chicken walking away from a house and going towards the street. It’s making a jail break!

So now I don’t know if I should chase the dog or the chicken! Or do I leave them both and just go back to my car? A group of people was coming my way and a nice older man told me that the dog wanders on its own all the time. He also agreed that it wasn’t the friendliest. So I asked him about the chicken. While we were chatting the chicken came back down around the house. It walked to a gate in the fence and tried to squeeze in. Then it tried to climb the bush running along the fence. It wasn’t escaping, it was locked out! Once again, it followed the path around the fence, I think there must have been another gate back there. The man tried to open the gate but couldn’t get it open. I was beginning to feel bad for the chicken, all it wanted to do was go home. It knew exactly what door to go to but couldn’t open it. So the nice man and I went door knockin’. We found someone who lived in the same house but didn’t own the chickens. He called the owner before heading out to try to catch it.

Apparently the chickens roam during the day before going back inside the fence. I run this path 2x a week and have never seen or heard the chickens before. Plus it’s a residential area. After handling that, the man and I parted ways. So I probably could have finished another lap but I wouldn’t have had the runaway chicken experience. 🙂 Last evening at the path completed. I work this Saturday, so I was able to get off a little early on Wednesday. I headed back to town hoping for at least 6 miles but dreaming of more. Ha! I completed 6 but it was so damn hard. Nothing hurt, I just had zero energy. It was also 87º… on October 29. Ugh, where is fall. I hit 4 stop lights between mile 2.5 to 3.5. Then my stomach informed me that 4 miles would have been a better idea at mile 3.75. I was 2 miles from my car. There was a bench just past mile 4 and I took a break. I think I sat for about 10 minutes before finally heading off to finish my run. 6 miles done and I managed to keep my overall average pace at 11:45. Considering how I felt though, I will call that a win!

What was not a win was the bloody toe I found when taking off my socks. Boo.

What’s the strangest animal situation you’ve ever run into?

Did you know chickens were so good with direction? I had no idea.

Anyone racing this weekend?

Too Many Lightbulbs

Happy Thursday!!! This post kind of ended up as a brain dump, so join me for a random ride.

Getting Nowhere-

Yesterday was my appointment at USC. I was nervous going in. I was afraid they were going to say there was something really wrong with me. I equally afraid they were going to tell me that it was all in my head. I was concerned they might tell me stop or cut back running. What I wasn’t prepared for was a cranky older doctor with such a thick accent I asked him to repeat himself at times. He implied that my current gastro is not the brightest and disregarded my previous diagnosis and 4-5 years of symptoms and focused only on those of the last 4 months. He is sending a list of tests to my doctor for him to run. One of them is something I have been asking for so I guess that’s a win. Actually everyone there was a cranky pants. They need to work on their bedside manner.

Getting Slower-

I’m trying to adjust to the fact that 11-12 minute miles are my normal now. And that sometimes even that normal is hard. Today’s run was closer to 13. Then again, it was 95º and I have had less than 9 hours of sleep in the last 48. So I was happy to get it done and still felt good about it at the end. Forward motion right? On the downside, I ran the lake path on Tuesday and saw a sign saying they are closing the path. Effective yesterday. Boo. I though at least another month before I lost it to darkness, now it’s gone so they can clean the lake bed. But I did get one last day in the dirt to break in new toys. Still more on that later. 🙂

Zombies-

Even though I have accepted that I need run slower right now, sometimes seeing it makes me cranky. So I finally downloaded Zombies, Run as a distraction. Yes, I am about a year behind on that. It sounded silly but I thought why not. It’s amusing and I found that listening to spoken words slows me down better than when I was pacing myself. Apparently I need more brain power to process the story, ha! It doesn’t require anything more than running and the story plays out in the background. I also talk to it, oops. So the character just survived a helicopter crash and is running for their lives. But along they way they are supposed to pick up supplies. Like batteries and water and first aid kits, etc. Oh and underwear and sports bras. Did I miss the part where I stole a horse and buggy to carry all this?! The first run picked up 28 items. How would a person carry all that and still out run a mob of hungry zombies? Oh, and 4 of those items were boxes of light bulbs. Maybe the runner wrapped them in the underwear and sports bras? Otherwise how are they not just shards of glass? Ok, maybe I am thinking too much about this. 😛 But like I said, it’s a distraction.

#bakingfail-

I saw a recipe for Halloween Bark over at backatsquarezero.com. Let me preface this by saying I have no talent in the kitchen. None. But this only had 3 ingredients, I thought I could make that. Yeah, umm no. Did you know chocolate could burn? In a microwave? I didn’t. After that I had to scale back the amount I was making. I sort of stumbled through the rest. The end result- not pretty. But damn tasty! I took it to work and we ate all of it. 🙂

So what random thing did you do this week?

Ready for the weekend? Anyone racing?

Ever run with Zombies?

Have any baking tips for dummies?

Ventura Marathon-Half- Recap

I had a feeling this post may border on wordy which is why most of the pictures were uploaded in the last post. Now for what those photos didn’t show.

The Weekend-

I was able to get off work a couple hours early on Friday, so I headed straight home to finish packing and preparing. I felt like I was both taking too much and not enough at the same time. My mother and I headed out early Saturday morning, we planned on spending some time at the Ventura Mall before heading to packet pick up and the hotel. I haven’t been in a mall in years and well it was kind of a let down. The only upside was a Hot Topic for my inner nerd and I may have spent a little too much at Macy’s (damn Dooney!). From there it was on to the hotel.

When I booked the hotel I looked for one that advertised as being near to the pier. It didn’t occur to me to compare the addresses until 2 weeks ago. Oops. But I lucked out, the hotel was 1.2 miles from the pier on the same street and right next door to an In n Out, and I was able to get chocolate milk from the 7-11 across the street. Sweet! Dinner was at BJ’s Restaurant, where I indulged in a pretty good burger and fries. That was followed by a 3.5 mile walk down to and around the pier to get my legs moving before trying to get some sleep.

Once checking out of the hotel on Sunday, we headed back to Santa Barbara for a little more shopping. I was looking forward to a real Lululemon and just some window shopping. The weather in Santa Barbara was amazing. After that it was north to SLO for dinner and then finally home. We were tired.

The Expo-

Not much to say here. Packet pickup was a breeze, both easy and super windy. Instead of a bunch of useless samples in the bag, they had a table or 2 of samples. I only took a sample of KT tape. The website looked like there would be a lot of vendors but most seemed more like local crafts and things. Kind of like a farmer’s market minus the food. I stopped by the ProCompression booth but there was no one working it? There was live music playing and a little listening area as well. A very nice (cute) police officer took a picture for us, but my mother deleted it- so there’s a selfie instead. 🙂

The Race-

Race morning dawned and I had no need of an alarm. I hadn’t slept well the night before and had been awake off and on from about 3 on. I wasn’t feeling so great but that wasn’t too surprising to me. I had packed some candy corns for race fuel but they sounded nasty so I did not even take them. I got ready and headed out the door, I had planned on walking to starting line. While I was walking there the marathon runners were running up the other side. They looked so ready to go, to the point that 3 were bouncing basketballs while running. Seriously? It’s all I can do to run a half marathon and you are going to bounce a basketball (or 2!) while running 26.2!!!

Anywho, I made my way up to the starting line in time to jump into the first wave. A few announcements and count down and we were off! I had issues getting both my Garmin and my Nike+ app started but managed to get them going not too far from the starting line. I was aiming for a 10:00 average so when mile 1 came in at 9:50, I was ok with that. Mile 2 seemed a little tougher and fell to 10:17. I was using intervals of 8:30 run and 1:00 walk as I knew going in I wasn’t 100%. Even with this I was tiring quickly. The weather felt way warmer than I would have liked. The course went through a nice housing area before going back to the main street. It turned off towards the harbor for a quick out and back to add mileage before heading back down the main street into Oxnard and out into some fields before turning around and going back the way we came. Mile 5- I took 2 walk breaks, I was having trouble getting my breathing under control. I had already used my inhaler 3 times. Which was odd because I hadn’t used it on any run since my last half marathon in July. I kept trucking along until my next walk break at mile 6.5. Which is where I had to get real.

I only ran once in taper week leading up to the race. It was 3.5 miles and it was the hardest run I have ever done. I mentioned briefly that I had finally started my antibiotics. Between those and my lovely stomach I was thisclose to deferring Ventura. I was feeling so crappy. I told myself I was being a big baby and would be fine. In reality I had no business running a half marathon at this time. Mile 6.5 was the beginning of this epiphany (and others but more about that later).

I walked it in from there. I called my mom at mile 7.5 and told her she had more time to relax at the hotel because I wasn’t going to be near 2:10:00. I just kept walking. I was so hot, my hamstrings were cramping, and my left shin felt super angry. I took 2 cups of water at every aid station. One to drink and one to dump over my head. I alternated my Gatorade and their water to stay hydrated. I had Honey Stingers in my belt but the very idea of those made me ill. I grabbed a Cliff Shot around mile 9 and carried it for a while. I eventually ripped it open around mile 11. I had somehow managed to grab one with caffeine and I was hoping it would help the lungs. I know it didn’t have enough caffeine to do anything but one can hope right. I jogged a tiny bit each mile both to keep the pace below 14:00 and to loosen up my stiff legs. The volunteers and the crowd support was pretty awesome. Around mile 11.5, there was a little boy dressed as the Flash giving high fives. He was cool. 🙂

The last 2.5 miles or so I was keeping pace with a women who was race walking and a guy who would run ahead and then walk. I always caught him on the walking portions. I couldn’t tell if he was doing intervals or if he was as spent as I was. I never saw the 13 mile marker but did see the 26 one. I figured I could run the last .2. Ha! That was the longest .2 of my life. I thought the finish line was never going to arrive. I did leave race walker and interval guy behind. Finally there was the finish line and I was done. Half marathon #9 complete, not my best, not my slowest but probably the most walking. I won’t lie, I did get a little teary eyed at the finish. Thank goodness for sunglasses.

Since I had finished later than planned, I barely had time to limp back to the hotel to shower and check out. I hurt badly. I don’t think I have been that sore after a race since my very first half marathon. I gimped the 1.2 miles back to the hotel, stopping to stretch along the way. The chocolate milk in the mini fridge was the best thing ever. After checking out, we hit In n Out for food. I was suddenly hungry. Finding out that they still sold extra large drinks was the second best thing ever- that Diet Coke tasted amazing. I did feel bad for my mom though, she had to be seen in public with me- jean shorts, teal tank and bright purple compression socks. I was styling, ha!

So no, this race did not go according to plan but it was still a good weekend. Shopping was fun, the food was yummy. I also learned that I have serious problems tolerating humidity (74% WTH?!). I got a few compliments during the race about my use of neon and I got a shout out from a fellow SLO ambassador when she ran by me. So while I am rethinking some things, I still call this weekend a win. 🙂

How do some of you deal with humidity on a regular basis? Seriously, anything over 25% is rough for me. Maybe I am spoiled?

What’s your post race reward?