Tag: water

Boundary Boardwalk

I’m socially awkward.

I wasn’t as a child. I was obnoxious, outgoing and a bit of a daredevil. I don’t know what happened to me. 😛

Crowds make me uncomfortable- sometimes running in public still freaks me out. I’ve mostly gotten over it in home town. Granted the bridge still stresses me out. For crying out loud, I still sprint across the damn thing. Last weeks long run saw the bridge mile clocking in at 9:14. Which doesn’t sound that speedy until you take into account my stupid shins and the fact that I walked part of that mile too.

Running in work town? Oh hell no. I do it very rarely. What if people see me? I don’t want customers to see me in a sweaty mess. And shorts? Forget it. If I run in work town, I wear capris, no matter what time of year. Throw in the fact that I only have only the one 4 mile route and I don’t run there very often. Too uncomfortable.

The week has been running around 105ish in hometown. Mid 70’s at 7 am. Yay. 😭😭 I ran in work town on Monday- tried to be invisible. Wednesday was my half day and I wanted to run but 100+ temps? Not so much. Whereas work town was a lovely 72. Decisions, decisions.

I stepped outside my comfort zone. I ran in work town. On a new path. In shorts. In the middle of the day. There were people around. It’s summer in a beach town- what was I thinking?

It freakin’ rocked.

Don’t get me wrong- those 4 miles kicked my ass. First I was cold then I was hot. The path I thought I was on turned out to be not what I thought. My shorts rode up every 5 steps and I spent most of the run trying to discreetly dig them out of my crotch and yanking them down. Cover those legs! My legs hurt, my shins ached. I was sinking in the sand. The pavement seemed too hard. I lost the cover to my new handheld Orange Mud and didn’t even notice for 1/2 a mile. How? I was breathing like I was sprinting but I so wasn’t. I walked more than I would have liked. People saw me.

But —

I ran through a tunnel of Cypress trees–

Found three stacks–

And a rock–

Like I said- this run rocked. Can’t wait to push my boundaries ( a little) again with a longer run. And maybe with different shorts. 😛

How do you push your boundaries?

2016 Surf City Recap

Race- Surf City 13.1

Location- Huntington Beach, CA

Saturday-

After the hotel snafu of Saturday and once I accepted that I would not have a nice, leisurely race morning- after my mother and I had mapped out a long, circuitous route to the race start- I realized the even bigger mistake I had made. I hadn’t packed any water. What? How?! I had a bottle of Gatorade and my Skratch Labs but no water outside of what I had drank on the drive down. Face palm. So after a yummy dinner at Red Robin- water, lettuce wrapped burger and a few fries for me- we stopped at a Walgreen’s. Where I bought 8 bottles of water. 🙂 Then it was back to the hotel for a little downtime before I headed to bed early. And proceeded to wake up every hour on the hour. Grrr.

Race day-

Luckily, I have my pre-race ritual down, so I don’t have to get up too early. As of right now, I am still racing on an empty stomach and it has been working out. The race had a 7:45 start but I wasn’t planning on being there super early, I knew it would be a while before my corral crossed the start line. My mom was able to drop me off a few blocks from the start line a little before 7:30. Another bonus about arriving “late”? No line at the port-a-potties. Except the damn thing almost blew over with me in it!

Ok, the corrals. Serious cluster-f***. What is the point of asking a participant their projected finish time if it’s not used for corral placement? More than a few people in my corral were in a similar position. I put down a projected 2:10 finish time. The 3:30 pacers were about 2000 people ahead of me. Seriously. I considering jumping corrals but at that point it was already so late. Grrrr. My corral crossed the start line around 8:15.

Miles 1-3 10:09, 10:14, 10:09

My plan was to treat this like a well supported long run and hopefully maintain around a 10:00 min pace. Mile 1 started out ok. My legs felt good and my pace felt good. Mile 2 required more dodging. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with people walking at races- however if you are walking 6 people across in the first 2 miles of a race- we have an issue! This happened more than once. Then the first water station was a crowded mess but I had learned from last year that this was the case and just avoided it all. I also a music snafu in mile 2. I had started my playlist in the starting corrals and paused it. When I pushed start around mile 2, Christmas music started playing. What?!

Miles 4-6 10:30, 10:54, 11:08

By my standards, this course is flat, the only real hill is in mile 4. I was excited to see it as I had an ankle ache that I needed to run out. And I did but I was starting to realize that I was having troubles catching my breath. I didn’t feel like I was pushing hard but I was starting to wheeze. I took a quick walk break to try and get things under control. It didn’t really help. There was a little down hill coming up and I was hoping to make up some speed but I just kept slowing down. My inhaler wasn’t helping either. Mile 6 is where I got real. This breathing issue is not new. I have been having troubles since I was sick in January. It’s more than my usual asthma, it comes with some odd chest pain, but I was hoping that denial would make it all go away. Because that works so well, right? Yeah no. I called my mom during mile 6 and let her know I was having some issues but was going to tough out. I didn’t need her getting the real time runner alerts and wondering what the hell was going on. 🙂

Miles 7-9 11:50, 11:35, 11:37

New game plan was a run/ walk plan. 4:30 of running and 1:00 of walking. The running was slow so I was hoping that these intervals would keep me moving but not gasping for breath. I changed my watch face to just show the interval times so I had no idea what my overall time was. This was a long section of out and back so I was able to see Ashley of RatherbeRunnin’ coming back on the other side of the highway looking strong. Luckily the course is scenic so I was able to enjoy the view. I also had time to people watch. PSA here, a fabric may be black but that does not mean that it is opaque! If I can see the moles on your butt- wear underwear!! Ok, PSA over.

Mile 10- 13:04

This was a struggle. Even 4:30 seemed like way too long to run. I was wheezing and the inhaler was useless. We ran through the Cliff shot zone in mile 10 and I grabbed a citrus and a mocha one. Both have caffeine and I was hoping for a Hail Mary pass and that one would help. I walked a lot. The finish line seemed so very far away.

Miles 11-13 12:17, 11:50, 11:36

I was beginning to think this was going to be my slowest half yet. And it was getting so hot. I had been drinking water at each station but now I was dumping it down my back too. The volunteers were also having troubles keeping up with the demand for water. There were some stations out of cups. I am hoping more were on the way as there were thousands of people behind me still. I was trying to stick to my intervals but the walking sections were getting longer. It was getting more crowded on the course as well. I accidentally smacked a guy in the crotch when he came up on my right. Oops!!! Sorry! I just kept moving towards the finish line, the increased crowd support was helping. I walked the beginning of mile 13 and then ran the rest in. I crossed the finish line gasping and wheezing and promptly burst into tears.

Finish- 2:28:24

Not my slowest!!! I collected my medal and avoided all the photographers. I heard my mom and thought I was losing it but then realized she was on the other side of the fence. I made my way through the recovery stations and then out of the chute into the crowd. I met with my mom and headed to a curb to sit. My legs felt good but I was so tired from fighting my lungs for so long. It gave me time to admire my medal though- it’s huge!!!! And was fought for. But it was also a lesson in something I should already know- you can’t ignore things and hope they go away. It doesn’t work like that. Was this race I wanted? No. But every rough race is a lesson learned, right? I still got to run with thousands of other crazies like me. 🙂 And for the record- I have a doctor’s appointment next week.

They were some things I didn’t like about the race this year but overall it is a good race. The weather is gorgeous- just bare in mind that temps hit the high 70’s. Perfect beach weather post race. 🙂

The day was finished out resting in the hotel watching the Super Bowl- yay Broncos!! I needed some time off my feet—I had big plans for Monday—-Disneyland!!!!! But I’ll save those adventures for next post. 🙂

Water and Gatorade, then go left

I said that a lot on Sunday!

First things though thanks for letting me know I’m not the only one! The comments on my last post were awesome, thanks guys! 🙂

I was still riding that runner’s high from Thursday when I went for a run on Saturday. While it was nowhere near the epicness of Thursday, it was still pretty good. My planned 3.8 turned into 4.5. Oops. 🙂 The weather started out overcast and chilly but I quickly warmed up. I’m still slower but I think I’ve finally, really accepted it. I just took my time and enjoyed my run. Going longer was only an oops because I had a meeting to go to with my mother. I ended up just throwing a sweater over my running gear. The only reason I felt ok doing this was because we were headed for a volunteer check in for the Harvest Marathon. I have wanted to run the half at this race for the last two years but it’s proximity to City to the Sea usually has me feeling burnt out. So instead I volunteer. My mother and her tennis teams have to work 2 stations so I hang out with them. The race has a 5K, half marathon and a full marathon. The half and the full are run on back roads through vineyards and orchards as well as farms and homes. Last year the teams were split between 2 water stations. This year we had one of the water stations from last year and a course monitor point at the 12ish mile turn around point. It was an early morning. Being up that early and not racing seemed like a crime. Have I mentioned that I love sleeping? However stopping for donuts along the way made everything better. Didn’t you know that donuts have magical healing powers? My boss said that the other day, I thought it was awesome. 🙂 We arrived at our aid station- mile 8.7 of the marathon- a little before sunrise. Fall has finally arrived, so it was damn cold, after setting up the station I jumped back in the car until it was almost time for the first runner. This is a small race put on by the high school and the funds go back into the high school athletic program. It is Boston certified but draws a smaller crowd. There were 97 finishers for for the full and 283 for the half. As for the Boston qualifying part- it has an elevation gain of 1600 feet. The aid station was at the top of a long slow climb followed by an immediate left and more climbing. I felt so bad every time a runner asked if this was the last hill. 😦All the runners were so nice. Most of them thanked the team for the water and for being up early on a Sunday. Our station had water and Gatorade which was an improvement over last year when we just had water. The port-a-potty was a huge hit too. Apparently one guy couldn’t handle the line of one and did his business behind the port-a-potty. Really?! There was no line! One runner did yell at me for the lack of race food provided and a woman from the orchard asked me if we were cleaning up after “the parade”. When I said yes, her response was that she wasn’t going to yell at me yet then. Ummm, thank you?On the whole, it was a good morning. It’s fun to cheer other runners on. Especially for a race that has no crowd support for the majority of the miles. The people who run this race rock. Now I am torn for next year- do I finally run it or do I keep volunteering? Getting teenagers to voluntarily get up at the crack of dawn is like pulling teeth so my mother will probably need help again. 🙂