Tag: Running

36-Vacation

I spent the last week sleeping in, not doing my hair, not wearing eyeliner. No alarms, no phone calls, no emails. Ok, that’s a lie, I checked my emails a few times.

I also ran/ walked more miles in the last 10 days than I did in July and August combined. That said, it was still less than I had hoped.

The original vacation plan was the 2 race weekends but COVID. The second plan was to road trip and visit some National Parks. I even ordered new trail shoes and a fancy new pack from Orange Mud. Not that I really needed an extra reason to buy those. But other things put those plans on hold. Reality was a staycation with a little shopping and a little adventuring. And a lot of melting… but we’ll get to that.

The vacation fun started with the previous weekend’s runs. I had planned on a run on Monday, but my stomach decided to remind me that it was an asshat. Boo.

Tuesday, I wanted to break in the new trail shoes but was still feeling a little off. So I headed for the lake path. I think it’s been more than a year since I ran there? I miss it but it’s no longer on my way home from work. Boo. I did 4ish laps of the lake, switching directions while testing my shoes. The lake looked good, I have to say that it had more water than I had expected. I really need to get back there more often. 4.88 miles. And yes, I could have run back and forth until I hit 5 but nah.

Wednesday, I rested in prep for Thursday’s adventure. My legs were slightly sore from almost 15 miles in 4 days. That was more than I ran in July.

Thursday was The Pinnacles! I haven’t been in years, my goal was to reach the top and not get lost. I loaded my pack, my mother prepped and we were off! We got there early in the morning but it was already hot. We’re in the middle of a heatwave here in CA, yay. We started the climb and boy it just got toastier. I was feeling pretty good actually. We got slightly turned around for a moment at the top but success! The High Peaks Trail at the Pinnacles throws all sorts of fun things at you- quasi steps in the rocks, a railing so you don’t fall, and even more tiny “steps” down. The plan was to do the High Peaks and continue on to the old trail before looping around the caves. It would have been around 10ish miles. There’s one last junction which will take you back to the parking lot around mile 3 but after that there is no shortcut. Period. My mother was having a rough time- and if she reads this, she’ll be pissed I wrote that- and I convinced her we had to take the shortcut. She was bummer but hey we got to go through a tunnel! We came out around 5 miles but I know my GPS had some issues.

Oh, Friday…. I had plans to run the 5K portion of the Giant Race Lou Seal Challenge but it was 110. Oh and the air conditioner in my house died. The Friday of the hottest weekend of the year. Oh crap.

Saturday, I was up and off to the beach for the 10K portion of the Lou Seal Challenge. I straight up ran away from the heat- we hit 117. I enjoyed lovely mild beach weather for all 6.2 miles. Yay! But more about that next post. Then it was back to heat.

Sunday, I meant to run the 5K. I mean it was the actual race day after all. However my beach run had left me with some nasty blisters. On both feet. The one on my right foot was the problem. I have never had a blister that big before. What the heck?? I wore the same shoes and socks I used for all my beach runs and never had a problem before- I even kept my feet dry until the very end. Boo. Staying in my house and being lazy wasn’t awesome- it was 93* in my house. My cats are miserable. The dog can be hosed off, they can’t. Every fan possible is running in this house.

So that brought my weekly mileage to just under 16. Not marvelous but massively better that the rest of the year. I’m not calling it a comeback yet. Will my motivation last once I return to work?

How was your week?

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.