Tag: Rock n Roll

BibRave, Race Day, Recap, Run!

Rock N Roll Los Angeles 13.1

Fallon @ Slacker Runner

Disclaimer: I received an entry into Rock n Roll Los Angeles 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!

Going into LA, I knew it was going to be less race and morning training run.  With the last few weeks of work kicking my tush, I knew it might turn into a stroll around LA instead.

The parking situation from the day before had me super stressed and then I realized that my hotel was further away then I thought so I set a very early alarm for Sunday.  I used Siri and Waze and still ran into road closures but found a spot in a parking garage near the start before 5AM.   I hung out in my car for a bit then headed out to find the start.   There was a short line at the potties so I took advantage, I then headed off to the #werunsocial meetup.

I jumped in corral 9 after the National Anthem and just stayed there.  I didn’t feel like shoving my way up to my corral and I knew I wasn’t going to be fast.

Miles 1-4 9:47, 10:31, 11:11, 11:27
We were off and headed out on the first out and back.  I was actually feeling pretty good which was surprising considering the dense fog and poor air quality warning I had woken up to.  I took a walk break in mile 3 for water and the pavement seemed more slippery than usual at the water stations.  Mile 4 I felt a little fatigued so I went to my run/ walk intervals, it also had the biggest climb on the course.  I like hills but after a week of crap sleep in a hotel- yeah I walked.

Miles 5-6 10:55, 14:19
My little reset mile helped so I picked up the pace for mile 5.  I was feeling good, we were running down Wilshire (?) BLVD and things were going my way.  Then they weren’t.  At 4.8- 1/2 mile past an aid station, my stomach cramped- hard.  I came to a complete stop.  What the hell?? I walked until about 5.4 trying to calm my stomach.  Then it was a slow jog while I prayed for an aid station and a port-a-pottie.  Just before mile 6 there was and thankfully there was no line.

Miles 7-10 10:51, 12:03, 12:10, 11:48
My stomach was ok but not great.  From then on, it was run/ walk.  I was actually running a decent pace but when I walked I was so slow.  Normally I power walk pretty well but my stomach was either run or crawl.  I tried to just enjoy some of the buildings around me, the other runners in costume and major shout out to the Korea Town Running club- their cheering section was awesome.    Oh and zombies on stilts?

Miles 11-13 12:13, 13:07, 11:39
We were on our way back of the biggest out and back.   My stomach was starting to really act up again and trying to ignore it was making me tired.    This was also the first time I’ve seen a sweeper car on a race damn near on top of the last runners.  Kind of a drawback to courses with such long out and backs.  I walked most of mile 12 and 13 before I finally told my stomach it just had to shut up for 1/2 mile and I ran it in.

Finish-2:34:43

Considering I walked 45% and spent 3 minutes in a bathroom mid run- that ain’t bad.  In fact, if my stomach had not been an asshat, this probably would have ended up being my fastest half of the year, instead it was my slowest, haha.   And that is perfectly fine considering how the last 2 weeks went.  Not my best, not my worst, either way I have no problem entering my time into Athlinks while I wait for the official results.

While I did like the course- good hills and buildings- and Rock N Roll always puts on a great race, the parking and the traffic were nuts.  Too many things going on in a small area and I just don’t deal well.

BibRave, Run!

Week 43: Monterey Bay Half Prep

Fallon @ Slacker Runner

Upcoming Races-

  • Rock n Roll Los Angeles 13.1 (Thank you BibRave!)- 10/29
  • Monterey Bay Half Marathon (Thank you BibRave!)- 11/12
  • Oakland Turkey Trot- (Thank you BibRave!) 11/22

Haha, I think I underestimated just how this week was going to go.

Don’t get me wrong, things are going well at work but we are so much busier and a little more stressed than I figured we would be.   Running and working out fell by the wayside as I was often so tired I was falling asleep on the couch way earlier than normal.   Also, I won’t lie, it’s very hard to motivate myself to run on a treadmill.

Monday/ Tuesday– Nada
Didn’t get off work until almost 7 and then it was getting back to the hotel.  Sometimes I’d pickup food on the way, other times it was EZ Mac.

Wednesday–Dizzy
This was the latest night all week but I was still going to try and run when I got back to the hotel.  However, I was starting to have a little vertigo issue.  It actually stayed around the rest of the week but that day was the worst.

Thursday– 2.3 miles
I squeezed in a few treadmill miles while I was doing a load of laundry in the hotel washing machine.  I had learned that I was staying in San Diego for another week and I did not pack for that.  Laundry time it is!

Friday– Nada
I worked. Then I spent my time getting organized for the drive up to LA for the race on Sunday.

Saturday– Drive
I lost my shit.  So the race expo is at the LA Convention Center.  Sounded easy enough.  Except nowhere in the race information did it say that it was also the weekend of LA Comic Con.   The traffic was nuts and I circled for 30-40 minutes trying to find a place to park.  The stress of the week caught up to me and I was the emotional crying driver and I may have punched my steering wheel every time a convention center employee gave me wrong information again.   I finally found a spot in a garage and made my way down to the expo for my bib.   Then I went and hid at the hotel for the rest of night.  I also possibly made a poor choice for dinner.

Sunday- Rock n Roll Los Angeles 13.1
Such an early morning!  Race recap to come soon

15.5 miles for the week.

How was your week?

BibRave, Run!, Training

Week 39:Upcoming Races-Rock n Roll San Jose Training Week 11

Fallon @ Slacker Runner

Upcoming Races-

  • Rock n Roll San Jose 13.1 (Thank you BibRave!)-10/8
  • City to the Sea 13.1-10/14- maybe
  • Rock n Roll Los Angeles 13.1 (Thank you BibRave!)- 10/29
  • Monterey Bay Half Marathon (Thank you BibRave!)- 11/12

Peek weak redux? More like epic fail.

Like I said in Friday’s post this week was less than stellar.   I was in a funk with no real reason as to why.    I started the week out sick and things just kind of went down hill from there.    We had an employee with a last day on Friday and it’s always sad when the team changes.  On the upside, I finally have a hotel for my work trip coming up in October so I won’t be sleeping in my car, haha.

The plan called for a 6 mile run, 6 mile pace run, 10 mile long run and 3-4 cross training workouts.

Monday- Sick
I felt fine in the morning and had my running gear with me at work.  However things went south around 4:00pm when I suddenly felt nauseous, clammy and like I was running a fever.   I went home and just curled up under a blanket.  It was still hot outside so it was a sign that I really wasn’t feeling well.

Tuesday- Liift4
I still wasn’t feeling well.  I couldn’t focus and everything took so much more effort.  I ran into my uncle during the day and he took one look at me and asked why the hell I went to work.  I’m stupid??  I felt like a total sloth so I dragged my way through a Liift4 workout in the late evening.  I did feel a little better after.

Wednesday-1.2 miles
Not what I intended.  I planned to attempt 5-6 pace-ish miles around the lake path but the path had other plans.  Creeper alert!  Both could have been false alarms but my #1 rule is Be Paranoid.   The first creeper was a windowless van parked on the path.  Ummm, why?  Next up was a gold Ford Fusion that slowed as it passed me, then drove in front of me.   When it came back for a second, slower pass, I was done -I’m out.  I’ll run another day.

Thursday- 3 miles
My leg was hurting.  I was stupid and sat in my chair this week- why do I keep doing that- and it aggravates my right leg in a bad way.  I toughed out 3 miles but managed to find a decent, easy pace actually.  I knew more would probably be stupid judging by how the leg felt though.

Friday- Nothing
I just wanted to stay in bed all day but I went to work.  I did bring back the desk chair instead of my stool though.

She had the right idea

Saturday-Nothing
And I mean nothing.  I set my alarm to get in my long run but when it came time to run I was so not feeling it.  In fact I was feeling like being a sloth.  So I did.  The upcoming month of October is looking to be crazy busy and this was my last weekend before things get crazy.  So, I did the bare minimum.  I ran 2 errands and I napped.

Sunday- 6.35 miles
I should have napped more.  I kept putting off this run because I really didn’t want to run.  I wanted to be lazy but I told myself that was stupid.   So I headed out for a run.   Why?  It was miserable.  It was too warm, I wasn’t into it and my leg started to hurt towards the end.  I walked a lot.   I was done.  I just looped and headed back to the car.   I should have just skipped it.  My pace wasn’t completely horrible- it was actually near marathon long run pace so I guess I have made some improvements in the last few weeks if I tanked that badly but it doesn’t look like it.

10.56 miles for the week.  Yay. And with that it’s race week.

How was your week?

Run!, Slacker, Training

Week 32:Upcoming Races-Rock n Roll San Jose Training Week 6

Fallon @ Slacker Runner

Upcoming Races-

  • SLO ULTRA 5K-9/2
  • Rock n Roll San Jose 13.1 (Thank you BibRave!)-10/8
  • City to the Sea 13.1-10/14
  • Rock n Roll Los Angeles 13.1 (Thank you BibRave!)- 10/29
  • Monterey Bay Half Marathon (Thank you Bibrave!)- 11/12

This was an odd one.

I ran but not enough.  I lifted but not enough.  I had an odd headache on Wednesday, my side pain became a little worse and then my back started hurting towards the end of the week.  Really?? I can’t blame the lifting because I barely did it this week.

I also stupidly dropped a migraine pill down the side of my recliner on Thursday evening and spent 3 days tearing the chair apart, vacuuming sides trying to find the damn thing.  Meanwhile my cat was confused as to why she wasn’t allowed in my room for 3 days.   Surprisingly the chair still holds together after I put it back together- although I feel a little crooked.

This training week called for a step back week and a 5K race.  However that didn’t fit my  not running life schedule.  Plus I have a 5k scheduled for the following week.  So I decided to flip weeks 6 and 7.  Except somehow I still screwed it up.

The week should have played out like this- a 6 mile run, 5 mile run and a 9 mile long run.  4 Liift4 workouts sprinkled around for cross training.

And reality?

Monday-Liift4
I had planned on running after work but we got out really late.  Combine that with who beats who game I play with the cleaners and that I had already seen their truck pull in and I just decided to push the run to Tuesday.   Then I ended up stuck in traffic on the way home.    However I stuck to the lifting plan.

Tuesday-Rest
I had plans for running and plans for Liift4 but my side pain which is mostly tolerable these days was intense.   Something I did that day must have angered it but I don’t know what.  But considering I am 8 months in without a diagnosis who knows???

Wednesday-1.2 miles
Epic fail!  I headed to the lake path for a 4 miler but all of my gear was in the wrong places in my car.  As I was getting my pepper spray from my gym bag as opposed to my pack, I put my car key down on the front seat.  Can you guess what comes next?  Yep.  Locked my key in my car.  Tried all my doors and pushing the windows down.  Nope.  I talked my parents into getting my spare and driving it to me on the caveat that I take them to dinner after.  😛  I then squeezed in a lap of the lake while waiting for them.  In all honesty, I may have called it at a lap anyways as there were 2 total creeper cars on the backside of the lake.

Thursday-5 miles -tempo intervals
Not gonna lie, after the previous days’ fiasco and the last week of rough running, I was not feeling this run.   And for some reason, I thought I had a 40 minute tempo on the plan.   We were under an air quality warning the latter half of the week so I broke the tempo into intervals- it was supposed to 15-15-10 but it was more like 12-12-6.   I ran a completely different route than normal and there was a hellacious headwind that damn near shoved me backwards in the last interval.   I made up for it in the cool down though when I inadvertently hit an 8:30 pace for 1/2 mile thanks to The Big Gigantic.  Oops, not how to cool down.  Then the chair drama started.

Friday-Liift4
More chair drama.  I searched for hours and tore the thing apart to no luck.  Grrr.

After she was allowed back in

Saturday-Rest
I had a work event at the homeless shelter in the morning.  I was thankful for the chance to help out, I’ve missed helping out since it’s been a few years since we ran a dinner night each month.   This event was a walk and I was calling on all years of race experience working the registration tables.
Afterwards I went home and performed more surgery on the chair and was finally successful.  The pill was found!    After that I was in a cleaning mode so I kept organizing a few things before running some errands and then being lazy.

Sunday- 8.23 miles
When my alarm went off in the morning, I kind of growled at it.  I just wasn’t feeling it.  I wasn’t feeling like doing much of anything.  I made a quick trip to SLO to the Running Warehouse to exchange the Neuro’s and then came home and took what was supposed to be a 20 minute nap.  An hour later I finally decided to head out for my run.  I wasn’t feeling like a long run anymore so I figured I would just run a short run and break in the new shoes instead.

And yet, I kept running.  Up one hill and down the other.  There’s a reason I don’t do long runs in my neighborhood.  I stopped twice to BodyGlide my heels as I felt a blister forming from the new shoes.  I told myself to bring a band aid but forgot.   Oops.  A funny moment happened around halfway when I ran past a car that had been in an accident.   It looked like it had been rear ended- it still had the bumper of the other car attached- and the it had hit something else.  They must have it had towed there but it still smelled like a car accident- that metal on metal on burnt plastic smell?  Apparently that brings back memories for me as I kind of started to hyperventilate.  😛   I’ve been in a few accidents but until today I wouldn’t have said that smell would trigger any reaction.    On the return route I went a different way.
For not wanting to run my long run, I ended up running all 8.  Only to check the plan later and realize it should have been 9.  Oops.

14.52 miles for the week.  How did I ever come close to 1000 miles in a year once?

How was your week?

BibRave, Race Day, Recap, Run!

2018 Rock n Roll San Diego 13.1

Fallon @ Slacker Runner

Disclaimer: I received an entry into Rock n Roll San Diego 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!

Last year I loved this race and I jumped at the chance to go back.   The course is great, the crowd support was awesome- sign me up!  However, I also knew that I was would be one month out of Big Sur, so realistically I had no idea how that would affect me.  So I was going in with the only goals of having fun, enjoying the race and crossing that finish line.

I joked in my previous post that with 8 aid stations this would be the race to try running without carrying water however I knew I was too paranoid to actually do that.  Except I forgot my flasks.  I didn’t figure it out until after the expo so it was too late to buy anything.  I thought about carry a plastic bottle but that just didn’t sound appealing to me.   Guess I was relying on aid stations after all.

Race morning dawned all too early after a poor night of sleep.  I was ready fairly quickly which was surprising as I was having major indecision about what to wear on my bottom half, I settled on my Skirt Sports skirt, made a quick compression sock change and was out the door to meet Kate.  I love my hotel because the race morning shuttles pick up 1/2 block down and the finish line is 3 blocks away.  Met up with Kate, we boarded a bus and in less than 10 minutes we were at the starting area.  We wandered for a bit before getting in a porta potty line.  We missed the National Anthem- too noisy- and separated to our corrals after that.   I appreciated the new larger corral markers- it made it easier to find mine (17 of 33) but we were still packed in like sardines.  I also started to question what the hell I had put down as a finishing time.  The 2:15 pace group was in the corral behind me.  Say what?!  But we steadily made our way up and then we were off!

Miles 1-3 10:17, 10:44, 11:43

I love that there is a man shouting encouragement though a bull horn as we run past .25 mile in.    It can pretty crowded in the first few miles but my goal was to just keep my effort steady.  I had told my mother that I wasn’t really concerned about my finishing time but in the back of my head, I figured 2:25 ish wouldn’t be too off the mark.   However during mile 3 things started to get rough and I realized there was one thing I forgot to take into account- humidity.

Miles 4-7 11:21, 11:03, 11:36, 12:01

I was still running just a lot slower.  It was so damn humid.  It was mile 4 and the people running near me looking like their shirts could be wrung out.  The men running shirtless looked like they just got out of the shower.   I happened to pull out my phone to text my mother that is humid- actually I used much more colorful language- and she reminded me to use my inhaler as humidity is one of my asthma triggers.  But when I pulled my phone I saw that it showed 80% humidity.  What the what? I am used to like 15%.  The sun was pounding down on us and I could tell we were all struggling.  I texted Kate and told her to be careful.   I did all this while running, haha.  I was still enjoying the race, I love running through North Park and Normal Heights.   Mile 5 also brings us the Wear Blue- Run to Remember section and I like to try and pay more attention in that area.

My strategy was to run everything but walk the entire aid station- getting water and Gatorade at each one as it was offered.  Clearly this was not the race to not carry my own water.

Miles 8-10 11:57, 11:49, 12:41

Oh my gawd, I was hot.  Temp wise, it wasn’t even hot but the humidity was kicking my butt.  I was now taking more time at the aid stations.  One cup of Gatorade and one cup water.  If the station only offered water, I would get one cup of water at the very beginning, drink it while walking the station slowly, then get another to drink at the end.  I took off my hat and dumped water in it before putting it back on. The stations were also struggling to keep up with demand from the runners- in fact I would be surprised if the one at mile 9 lasted the entire race.

I took my first non- aid station walk break around mile 9.5.  I just had to.  I was starting to feel nauseous.   Kind of like I had consumed too much water.  Which I coudn’t see how as I wasn’t carrying any and they don’t fill those cups up too full.  But I skipped an aid station just before mile 10.

Miles 10-13 111:56, 11:30, 12:22

From then on it was a run- walk to the end.  Which is a bummer because I really like the last 3 miles.  We come back into Balboa Park, run under the big guitar guy, up a hill past some Taiko drummers, by a golf course, then there’s a sweet downhill that brings you back into the city.     I may have been feeling rough but I was still trying to enjoy as much of my surroundings as I could.   Then it was through downtown with a slight down hill to the finish-

Finish- 2:33:38

I honestly hadn’t been looking at my watch at all so I had no idea where I was at time wise until after crossing the finish line.  That time is fine by me.  So fine, I’ve already gone and input my results into Athlinks.  😊

I stood around for a couple moments needing a moment if that makes sense before getting my medal and heading out of the chute.  One of the volunteers became my new favorite person as she was handing out bags of ice.   I stuck it on my head as I walked to the meeting point to find my mom.   I still felt way too hot so I jammed back to the hotel for a cold shower before flying back to the finish line to see Kate.    Success.

The weather may not have been my friend but I still love this race and it was only made better with friends out there too. And Kate got a PR!!!!!

What’s your weather nemesis?