Tag: Running

Giant Race San Francisco

Disclaimer: I received an entry into Giant Race- San Francisco 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!

This was the year. I was finally going to run The San Francisco Giant Race. I’ve been wanting to run this race for years. I am not even a huge baseball fan but I this race has been on my to-do list for years. Maybe it’s because the stadium was such a great thing to see during my first marathon. It meant I was close to the finish. Maybe because it’s a gorgeous park, maybe it’s because I grew up playing softball.

The idea of running a race and ending in the ballpark was awesome. Getting to explore the park? Even better. Count me in! Except every year the race was the same weekend as my mother’s tennis tournament. The one where I am always a chaperone. Grrr. So in the beginning of 2020, I told her she needed to find another chaperone, I was finally running my race.

You can all see where this is going. 2020. Yeah.
I even held off on posting something as I was afraid to jinx it. But nope, it went virtual around a month ago.

I had planned my vacation around it (granted that vacation originally started with a marathon too). I signed up for the Lou Seal Challenge and was going to run the 10k and the 5k. The plan was to take the 10K easy and try to race the 5k. Previously I had only a week to recover from the marathon now I have COVID induced laziness to contend with. Ha!

The beauty of a virtual race though is the flexibility. So instead of running the races back to back, I will be running them on consecutive days. Or slogging them, as it is. Let’s be real here… even back to back running on 2 days will feel hard. Tell you all about it next week.

But the swag-

I am not afraid to say, it’s all kind of awesome.

Looking for a virtual challenge this weekend? Join me (virtually) and use code Giants2020 for $10.00 off.

What virtual races have you done?

35-Countdown

I ran!! Kind of.

Anyways, lets back up. Most of the week was spent low key wheezing, trying to catch up on work. The winds had shifted again which brought back some back but I was focused on keeping my head down and checking things off my list.

My first PTO in over 9 months was coming up and I was focused. I have been so tired and while I love my job, I knew I needed a break. Granted my plans have changed drastically due to COVID- bye marathon- but I was looking forward to a break.

So Monday through Friday was just work and hoping I didn’t forget anything. I feel like I did but I set my out of office on Friday and I won’t be back until after Labor Day. Now if I could just tell myself to not check my work cell for email.

Not gonna lie, I slept in on Saturday and it was awesome. Then I just kind of felt lazy all day. I was going to run and then I wasn’t. But then I jumped up from a nap and changed in like 2 minutes and was out the door. It was a hard, hot slog but really what did I expect after 20 days off? It actually wasn’t as horrible as it could have been and I managed 3 miles.

Sunday, I headed for somewhere different. My mother had never been to the Bob Jones trail, so we headed that way and just it a brisk walk. The ‘trail’ is a paved path of sorts that runs from one city to another south of it. Well, mostly. There were moments where there was no one on the trail and moments that there were too many people. And no one seemed to understand any form of trail ettiquette. Granted these bikers were more of the beach cruiser type but still. We also got a little sidetracked going off the trail but we made it back to where I had parked. 5ish miles for the day.

Then we went for a truly decadent slice of cake at the Madonna Inn. We also witnessed what could have been a horrible pileup on the freeway yet turned into a miraculous recovery. For reference, we can’t eat in restaurants in CA but dining is allowed in parking lots or street side. The Inn has a great lot but if you’ve been there, the 101 is right next to it. Which I used to my advantage that time I jumped out of the car on the freeway and hopped the fence to get to the race start years ago. But this also gave diners a front seat to a car spinning out into a 360, fishtailing into the center divider but somehow pulling out before wrecking and getting back in a lane. How they saved it, I have no idea. How no other driver hit them, I have no idea. Scary.

How was your week?

34- Smoke

Last week was another lazy week. However, this was not my fault.

If you’ve read the news or watched it, you may have seen that California currently has an unprecedented number of fires. While the fires near my city and in my county have been small and put down quickly, the same cannot be said for the rest of the state.

While our fires were small, the smoke was not. Something about the way our county sits seems to make it a settling zone for the smoke from other fires. It’s happened with other fires over the years but this was a new level. Our air quality made headlines last week and not in a good way. The one site only went to 500 for AQI and we were maxed out.

I spent very little time outside all week and had the air conditioner maxed at home (with a new filter). I still ended up having asthma troubles most of the week and ended up going home sick on Thursday. Boo. So it was a very low key week.

Oh yeah, and I bought a car.

How was your week? What weather keeps you inside?

33- Unsure

I am not sure how it happened.

The beginning of the week was crazy. The middle wasn’t much better.

A heatwave- all days above 100*- rolled in on Friday.

A migraine followed that for Saturday and Sunday.

I did not run at all last week. Zero. I didn’t do any workouts.

Hell, even my step counts look horrible. I work in a 2 story building with a stand up desk and I was never anywhere close to 7500. Which is the goal set by my calorie tracking app.

To add to that insult- our bathrooms broke on Wednesday at work. So that meant each time I needed the restroom, I had to go outside, cross 2 parking lots and an alley to get to the bathrooms in one of our other offices. Which I did twice. I still didn’t hit 7500.🤦‍♀️

The weekend brought more than heat and the migraine. Severe dry lightning sparked several fires around the state- 3 in my county- which brings the smoke into the county. I usually sleep with my window open a bit and my fan going full steam but after waking up choking, I won’t be opening that window anytime soon.

So here’s to hoping for an improved week to come….although the heat warning is still in effect. For at least another 7 days.

32- Rest

All though I loved the time I spent in the dirt on the trails last week, parts of my body did not.

The sun burn lingered for a few days but had mostly eased by Tuesday. What had not eased was the pain in my foot. To the point where even coworkers commented on my limping. Not good.

I wore flats all week instead of heals or boots and kept my feet up as much as possible at home. Which, let’s be real, that’s not too hard to do with my new recliner and general slacker-ness.

I did that for 7 days… Sunday through Saturday. I will say not running due to foot pain felt different than not running due to laziness. Ha!

Sunday, I wanted to test things out. I taped up my foot with KT tape and headed for a soft surface. I went to the beach.

A heavy marine layer meant it was not as crowded as I had feared but there were a ton of dogs out! They all wanted to play.

I started off real slow, with around 3/4 of a mile walking. From there, I moved on to intervals of 1 minute run, 1 minute walk. I tried to keep the pace real easy and focus on how I was landing. I also had the marine layer keeping my pace down- this is the same beach I’ve had a massive asthma attack on. I didn’t climb any rocks and turned around at the rockiest point.

My right foot- the injured foot- felt pretty good the whole time. And I did take my shoes off for the final .3 miles.

Not cool was that my left foot went numb around 3.5 miles in. What?! I had that problem at the beginning of last year but it got better. It did! Plus, I was wearing my PureFlow’s and those were the one pair of shoes that they never went numb in. Granted, I have turned this pair into beach running shoes but still. I slowed to a walk while I tried to stomp feeling back into my foot. It came back around 3/4 of a mile later. Grrrr.

Still it was a good 5 mile test of the foot.

So 5 miles for the week. Better than nothing.

How was your week?