this morning I did my alumni high school’s fundraiser run The Big Bear Run. I ran the 5k in 34:46, which is a new pr for me, but not entirely happy with it. I had wanted to do sub 30min, my PR is really slow as I always walk/run 5k’s with my little kiddos (they get mad if I do a 5k without them!). It was pretty warm out there and I discovered that apparently my forearm swells when I run because the cast started getting tight on my forearm. I took a couple walk breaks. I got several compliments on being so color coordinated even with my cast. It was a fun morning even though I didn’t hit my time goal, maybe another time when I don’t have the cast.

I didn't recognize a single person which was very odd feeling for me at the race. I did meet a woman headed to the start line on crutches with a bib and I told her she made me feel totally sane running with a cast :) she's a regular coastal runner and was at crystal springs (the shirt I was wearing) so after I finished I hung out ate more than my share of oranges, and then cheered her into the finish. It was a lot of fun. At packet pick up the gal said over 1,500 were registered :) I got 11th in my age group not sure out of how many but my group seems smallish because most were teenagers and their parents hehe. can't wait for results to be posted and find out what I really did overall.

Wow, I really don’t know what to say about yesterday’s race. I participated in Brazen Racing’s Mt Diablo half marathon. Temps there climbed up to 95 and the majority of it (about 12 miles) were completely exposed climbing mountains with 2700+ feet of elevation gain. I had my worst ever half marathon time (by a lot!) on 4/21 I did a 4:21 half marathon. I don’t do well in heat. I did finish with 11 people behind me, so at least I wasn’t last and only a couple 50k’s (who had a 1hr head start) beat me to the finish line. I drank 3L of fluids through out the race, so glad I brought my pack and didn’t rely on handhelds, and did more salt than I’ve ever done and still I had salt issues through out the rest of the day. I did have a wonderful time though, the other “runners” (really not much running being done, even the leaders were reduced to walking some of the climbs) were very talkative and we helped each other pass the time and made casual conversation, I’ve made a new friend who I spent many miles chatting away with. The other thing- for such a hot hot hot race I’ve never had so much wet! there were a good 8 stream crossings in the first 3 or so miles and then again on our way back. They were very nice for cooling off in towards the end. It was a very interesting challenging race, I’m glad I went and completed it. Quite an adventure! Hopefully next year will have better weather, last year it was a monsoon for this race where they were pulling runners for hypothermia and this year they had runners with heat exhaustion. When I got the 3rd aid station there was a mediflight landing for a down runner there. So I’m glad to have survived my date with the devil and managed to have some fun so I’m not stressing on the time at all, another day I’ll work on getting faster.

My garmin has my moving time at 3:44, I did stop for a long time at the 3rd aid station where the helicopter was landing as my mom was sitting at that station looking pretty beat up. She’s faster than me and I usually never see her till the end, but apparently she got dizzy and so sat there for a bit. She in no way wanted to drop though and after a bit we got on our way, my new friend who was with me is a RN and I’m about to graduate as an RN so we figured we’d keep an eye on her pulse and stuff if we needed to but my mom, when she sensed the downhills, took off and then I never saw her till the finish. Though it turns out she only beat me by 3 mins! If I hadn’t stopped for so long at the aid station I would have beat my mom for the first time in my life! But that would have been no way to do it, I hope to beat her some day fair and square! Also my garmin recorded the course as 13.95 miles, so it was a bit long I think some one mentioned that it was long afterwards but I was very confused when I hit 13.1 and knew I wasn’t that close to the finish yet as I had numerous streams left to cross. My garmin data: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/170638621

about to plow into one of the creek crossings:


with my mom at aid station 3:


so happy to see that arch and run under it:


chillin with hoover!


more pics in the my fb album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150759181277867.436486.535522866&type=1&l=2bbc119389

ok so I haven’t done a 10k in quite a while and I have been doing a few half marathons and walking 5ks with the kids so I wasn’t sure what to expect of this distance now. A while ago there was groupon for like 60% off this race and it runs across the golden gate bridge I figured it’d be a good training run for SF 1/2 marathon as the course is similar and would give me a feel for that so I signed up on a whim and then promptly forgot about it until friday when I got a packet pick up email. whoops. thankfully I hadn’t made other plans for this sunday so it was all on.

I got up this morning and got a premier parking spot, picked up my bib and hung out in the warm car for a bit. Saw a buddy of mine take off for the 10mi race a half an hour before mine, then hung out with another friend till our 10k start time. I’m used to being in the very back of the pack at trail races, I’m not fast never have been and am ok with my back of the pack station, so I line up accordingly. But that seemed to be a bit of a mistake, took a few minutes of crawling to get to the start line then it was a slow jog and we hit a hill quickly where the pace slowed down considerably. I tried to weave a bit but it was really tough with it being so crowded with slow runners. After a bit it sped up a little but still was very hard to pass any one as people were running with their friends and making large obstacles.

I decided to just be happy with the slow run pace and go along and not fight it, and turns out that I can run that pace for a lot longer than my “run” pace, and I ended up going a lot faster overall because I slow ran almost the entire race. I’ve never ran an entire 5k, I always get winded achy and tired and take walk breaks. So this was really cool. I did pick off some of the super slow runners though so it was fun passing some people. Also with crossing the golden gate bridge for 50% of the race we were stuck on the pedestrian sides and so 3 people side by side took up the entire running area. Also seems road runners don’t know how to run down stairs as there was a complete standstill at the couple stair groups.

the last mile was very hard I wanted to stop and walk it so bad, but I’d come so far with my jog and I wasn’t really in any pain just tired so I pushed through it and kept moving those feet and got it done! (besides it finished on crissy field which is where I did my 6hr endurance run on new years so very very very familiar ground as I did 21 laps there recently!) When I finally got to hit stop on my gps my personal clocked chip time is 1:08:58!!! I know most of you run much much faster than this but it is the first time I’ve actually ran (jogged) almost the entire race and it is a 21min PR from my best 10k time!! I’m so happy!! now I gotta get faster so I can do sub 1hr 10k hehehe.

garmin splits mile 1- 12:25 mile 2- 10:58 mile 3-11:34 mile 4- 11:01 mile 5- 9:28 mile 6- 10:28 .31 mile- 3:03 (9:47pace)
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/168472478

official time: 1:08:55 race place 1067/1667 gender place 622/1086 age group: 198/303

the home stretch just .2 more miles to go!! I was tired and wanted to stop but I was almost done (and I couldn’t let that guy behind me pass me lol)


in the finish chute after seeing my time whoohoo!

Kids and I set out for the Lagoon Valley 5k this morning. Start the race, a bit chilly but no rain some mud from the previous night’s rain. Fast forward 10mins- WOOSH it starts downpouring. The trails became soooo slick the hills were insane to try climbing I remember looking down at my garmin and seeing we were doing a 36min mile pace and just kinda rolled my eyes. It was very single track and very slippery there was no way to pass the people in front of us that were going slow so the kids and I just plodded along. By mile 2 the kids wanted to be home quite badly, and got many agreements from the runners (guess we were walkers at this point, ah well) around us. Finally we crossed the finish line. I’d have to consult my documents but I’m positive this was our worst 5k time ever at 1:06. The dead last finisher completed it in 2hours and 30mins! Both kids got first place age group medals :)

The medal very appropriately shows a creature from the black lagoon with a bib that says “never say die”. I was so amped to do the half marathon here but the kids wanted to do it so bad that I reluctantly promised them we’d do the 5k, I think the half here would have killed me in these conditions with it’s elevation, the hills were just so tough to climb as they were so so slippery.

Kids did pretty well the first mile, slowing down when it started raining 12:43, 2nd mile 18:05, then the third mile was miserable at 28:43.

After 2 weeks of rest, this morning I ran the Waterfront 5k in San Francisco (omg this city is abuzz with 49ers craze). I started out ok but by mile one the IT band issue was really flaring up in my right leg, which is weird because it’s been KILLING me in my left leg and while the right IT band wasn’t happy it wasn’t complaining like the left, but today the left was fine while the right one was PO’d. Maybe I’ve been working on foam rolling and all the left side with out doing the right side as much? at mile 1 I caught up with a friend who was having a head cold and wasn’t feeling the running thing either so the two of us walked the remaining 2 miles and had coffee talk, it was an enjoyable stroll.

my mile splits were: 1- 10:32, 2-15:09, 3-15:35
I have a half next weekend and I’m just not sure what to do. It’s a very mild trail half so I figure I can walk it if I want to but damn I want to break 3 hours for a half!! (I know there’s a lot of fast people here but I’m just not)

After driving all the way home from SF (like a 45min drive) I’d stiffened up and cooled off a lot and I figured I was in my running clothes anyways so I went for a run around my neighborhood (I just moved and I’ve been resting so it’s a totally new experience) One block ended up being a 1.5mile loop which I ran in 16:58 for a 11:36 pace, then I rolled out my IT bands :)

oh and what would a race report of mine be with out a photo?? Me and Tony (aka Endorphin Dude) post race, my buddy that I walked the last two miles with.
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Today I completed my 7th half marathon since the end of August. Today it was really hard for me to get going, it was the first race I contemplated DNSing. I just didn't want to get out of bed, I accidentally plugged in the address for packet pick up and went to the wrong place, finally got to the race with a good 7mins to spare! phew.

I'm moving and I haven't trained at all or done much of anything active since Big Sur half 4 weeks ago and felt totally under-prepared for this race. I knew there was a marathon going on though so I didn't worry too much about time I had as much time as I wanted. My mom did the 5miler and my dad did the marathon. The marathon and half started at the same time and the course is a half loop that the marathoners run twice. My dad is faster than me, usually by a lot. But he was tired today and so for the first couple miles we leapfrogged kinda cool. Then he pulled ahead but on several out and back sections I'd see him as he was only like 5-10 mins ahead of me (but he had to do a 2nd loop mwahahaha!)

I was tired that definitely showed my exhaustion from moving and everything, but I did 2 1/2 gu's through out the course and a FRS energy drink right before the race, so I fueled up way more than I usually do and managed to get through it. I set my watch to intervals 60/90 run/walk. First time I've ever used intervals through a race. I finished in 3:07:21 which is only 4 minutes slower than my PR! so I'm pretty happy with that.

My mom rocked her 5 miler and got 3rd in her age group! She is getting super speedy! Go momma!!!

I need to figure out winter clothing. It was 33 degrees when we started at 8am, and I was frozen!! I know many of you non Californians probably think me a whimp but buuur it was cold to me. And then it warmed up pretty fast and I had on way to many layers so I ended up ditching my sweaters for most of the race at an aid station I knew I'd hit again, but I hate running with stuff on my waist and I need to figure out this layers thing.... I wore sweatpants over my running pants that I ditched in my sweat check bag right before we started maybe I need to ditch more layers even though I feel cold with out them. *sigh* I can't imagine what you people do in snow races, or does it not really warm up too much to require shedding layers?

ok I've rambled on a long time! here's a photo my dad took of me as he started out on his 2nd lap as I was approaching the finish probably at about mile 12.5 or so.

Saturday I actually had a weekend day with no racing activities!! A friend Ed, Mad Hatter Fancy Pants, was running the silverton 6 day challenge and they had a web cam set up so I chilled and watched “Ed TV” and watched Ed lap constantly. He runs in a jester suit so it was extremely entertain. The guy is amazing!

Sunday I went out to the Marina Green 5k with DSE. Crissy field in San Francisco is such a smooth happy place to run! I didn’t bother looking at the course beforehand and just took off with the crowd. I don’t run if you haven’t gotten that yet I walk. But I was feeling good after chilling Saturday and for once the kids weren’t with me as there was a kids run later in the day so I ran. I listened to two songs and then I see people turning around. I couldn’t believe that I was at the turn around already, I was thinking this is so awesome after a half a 5k really is no big deal. then a bit after the turn around I saw the mile 1 marker. I was so bummed, I ran the first mile but then I was just exhausted I thought I was more than half way and I was only 1/3 of the way. It was a bummer then I lost my oomph. I’d been up with my son almost the whole night with his disease acting up so I was running on low fuel and so after that I just slowly walked the rest. When I came across the finish line it was 42:48, 30 seconds slower than my PR! ugh I should have just kept going, oh well hopefully I’ll make a new pr on the 5k distance soon though!

now we move on to Monday. Labor day Monday. I signed up to do the Zombie Runner Vasona Lake 5 miler. A friend “Ultra Woof” signed up to do the half marathon, the courses were the same for the first 5 miles, an out and back then the remainder of the half marathon went out and back from the finish line the opposite direction. We all took off at the same time so Woof and I hung out for the first 5 miles and had a blast, she didn’t want to go on and do the half when I finished so she was going to quit at 5 miles, and I couldn’t have that, so at the finish line I waved to the race director and told him I was doing the half marathon and off we went. Very unexpectedly I found my self doing my second half marathon a mere 9 days after my first. It was a very flat course for like 60% the rest was a mountain. We walked almost all of it and chatted and had fun, came in at 3hours and 56 mins! lol it was a blast. And now I’m a half fanatic! weee. I wore one pink and one purple calf sleeve in honor of Ed (see saturday) since he wears mis matched calf sleeves as part of his Jester outfit, and he finished his 6 day run just as we were starting our race.

ok that’s a ton of chatter so here’s a picture! (did I mention we had a lot of fun out on the course as demonstrated by this pic)

after my racing 10k debut at the Mermaid run my parents coerced me into joining the Cinderella trail run this Saturday. I was sore for about 4 days after the mermaid run and was seriously doubting my sanity for signing up for a hilly 10k as my 2nd official 10k. I knew I wouldn't be making a PR but I figured a lot of people I knew were going and to just have fun out there.

at 6:30am I arrived at my parents house and let the foot doctor, aka notthatlucas (aka daddy), tape my foot to help prevent blisters like last weekend.


Dad even had coordinating pink Kinesio Tex tape!


getting bibed up, I was bib #6, my first single digit bib. I was really tickled by the single digit for some odd reason.


Right off the bat we get to head up some hills. A lot of the hills were root and rock infested and careful footing was required. It was a challenge but it kept it interesting, and gave something to think about other than oh my god does this hill go on forever?!?!


we did have to cross Skyline road once headed out and once headed back, but thankfully I'm good at frogger and avoided the cars.


another example of the fabulous trails.


prior to starting the race the director warned us runners of a particularly nasty section of trail named "cinderella" which should really be re-named cinderella's nasty step mother, but that just doesn't flow. As I was out there I knew I was getting close to being done and I was on a really nasty section of downhill crazy rocky trail, but I knew cinderella was coming up so I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, after a bit the trail smoothed out and there was the finish, I'd never seen the trail sign, and I would have sworn it didn't exist as I'd been looking for it to warn me of the rough part, but I made it through with out any scrapes and as my father's picture shows there is indeed a post. It was really crazy to see the half marathon and marathoners running full fledged down this particular part of the course, I'm amazed at their grace and skill on such rough terrain!


Running for the camera into the finish. I did the 10k in 1:52:28, was 14/24 in my age group and 80/100 overall.

my pace per mile breakdown according to my phone's gps is the following:
mile 1- 16.11
mile 2- 14.26
mile 3- 16:06
mile 4- 15:10
mile 5- 25:30 (can we say go up the mountain?)
mile 6- 14:40

the 10k had an elevation gain of 1,090'

I really thought it would be all up and down, but it did level out in several places that helped make it more enjoyable than just climbing. Really it was a gorgeous course and I loved it all!


from left to right, Kerry (who I played leapfrog with on the course but ended up beating by 4mins, she'll get me next time), Anne, Erin (who placed 2nd in her age group, and was celebrating her birthday), ever chipper Marie (also 2nd in her age group), and me.
it's great to have friends at races, the camaraderie is fabulous.


Marie being fashionably warm, and showing what's left of her foot long sub.


Dad finishing the first half of the marathon posed for a picture, had some soup, changed his soaked shirt and took off for another round.


meanwhile we saw this odd sight, not quite sure what was going on, but it certainly looks interesting.


I also got to hang out for a bit with Tony, endorphine dude, who runs his marathons with a cape and endless style. He is attempting to do 52 marathons this year, but had to sit out today due to an injury. He has a fabulous furry sidekick Chewbacca who also made an appearance today. if you are curious about him his blog can be found here: http://www.endorphindude.com/


my mom who was doing the half came in around 6:02 and was very irritable. turns out she tackled an ultra half marathon adding a bonus 9 miles to her distance. Dad did his full in 7:53, but spent a lot of time using his handy map to point other racers in the right direction. Despite costal putting out lots of course marking ribbons unfortunately some vandal decided to take a majority of them down, causing the longer courses to have some issues.

Costal does not do mile markers but I had an idea because I knew aid station was 2.8miles out then you do a 1.8mile loop return to the aid station then have 1.7 miles back to the start. I was worried going into it that not having mile markers would make me uncertain and hurt my time, but I actually found it enjoyable not to stress on time and where I was as much and just enjoy the gorgeous scenic course (while not mauling myself on a rock or tree root). I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed my first race with Costal. 2nd 10k is done, next weekend I tackle Hellyer 10k with a child at my side.

First of all HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!!!

Today was Palo Alto GP series 2nd race of the year. The Running of the Bulls. Their was a 5k, and kids races. I had planned on doing the 5k, but hadn't signed up. I was still considering signing up day of but I'm fairly sore from yesterday's 10k, so I'm glad I hadn't signed up. I had signed the kids up for the running of the calves (the kids races) instead of having one kids race they have two races for each grade level, one for girls and one for boys. Riley participated in the 100meter prek dash, and Darci did the 200meter first grade dash.



Riley running, he was bib #808 and got 3rd in his race, he was very close to the 2nd place kid.


for 3rd place he got a medal and to pick out a toy which he got this fishing set. He promptly handed me the medal not caring about it in favor of the toy.


After the kinders it was the 1st grader's turn. Darci on the left and Meera, a little girl that shares Darci's birthday in her class that came out to the race. Meera got 3rd place in their race, and Darci came in last. Darci's got the stamina for the longer races, but just doesn't get the go fast it's short mentality and came in last for her race.


She did beat the bull though! and she did run the entire 200meters. She was very disappointed that she didn't get a medal and toy, like her brother and friend. The race director felt bad for her as she was obviously upset and gave her a medal even though she didn't officially place. She was happy to get the medal but felt bad that she hadn't "earned" it and so refused to wear it, but clutched it to her chest instead.

it was a fun event, but I think I need to start having the kids practice dashes along the drive way so Darci can practice going fast.

Today we experimented with how well Mermaids can run at Quarry Lakes in Fremont, CA. This is the same park that I did Western Pacific 5k with the family at. It is a very flat course gravel course that runs along the water. Me and my mom did the 10k today while Darci and Salma (grandma's neighbor) did the mini mermaid run which was 1.5miles.

The festivities kicked off Friday night at Sports Basement, where we picked up our stuff.


this is mine and Darci's goodies. I bought her a tank top from the $5 clearance bin, the mini mermaid didn't come with a shirt.


Mom and I love our new tech shirts (they even have hoods!)


the 10k was supposed to start at 8:30am but we didn't actually get going until 8:50am, more time for pre-race socialization!

here's the breakdown of my milage according to my phone app. the route was 6.52miles according to my gps, I forgot to turn it off right after the race so I had wandered for a couple minutes with it still running.
mile 1 - 11:11 when I saw the mile 1 marker I was shocked I couldn't believe I'd done a mile already, but then I slowed down so the next markers didn't come as fast.
mile 2 - 13.53 it was weird to pass the 5k turn around and keep going. There was a water cooler here but not much of an aid station
mile 3 - 14.35 an aid station with electrolyte drink and water and then later on the turnaround yippie!
mile 4 - 14:06 hit the same aid station again after having turned around
mile 5 - 14:12 at probably about 5.5miles there was an aid station with gu and water
mile 6 - 14:22 very glad to see this mile marker! just a short trot after this sign!

I did the course in 1:29:27 just under my goal of 1.5 hours, so I'm happy and I did walk 95% of the course. my first official 10k timed race.

I was overall #295/335 and #47/51 in my age group.

all in all no bathrooms on course that I saw, nice mile markers every mile, no course ribbons but lots of orange cones at every possible wrong turn plus there were lots of runners so it was pretty impossible to get lost, and 4 places to get water on the 10k.


the course for the 10k


Darci and Salma were anxious for their race to get started, my mom who did the course in 1:12 (go mom!) made it back before they took off.


Darci started strong but then pitered out. She did the 1.5mile in about 32minutes, they didn't have timing chips so this is grandpa's approximation.


I finished the 10k while the girls were out on their run, and was waiting at the finish to cheer my daughter along.


Darci coming across the finish line with another mini mermaid.


yes this photo is alarming. There was a long line for the post race food, and Riley is not great at waiting. He wandered off to a group of kids sitting in the grass, and I could see him from the line so I wasn't worried. But then a police officer came over and started talking to him, so I figured I should intervene lest my 4 year old got a squad ride. Apparently a woman thought he was lost and got the officer, but the officer said when he asked Riley if he knew where his mom was he pointed to the line, and I was already halfway to them. So apparently the gal that reported my son didn't bother to ask him and just assumed he was lost. But everything is ok even if my son had his first brush with the law.


the kids loved their chocolate chip pancakes!

after the kids were happy with food I wandered over to the other booths, and there was a massage booth and an injury recovery booth. I had this weird pain on the lower inside of my left knee that kinda came and went during the race, and was fairly persistent after the race was over. Apparently that's where most of your thigh muscles attach to bone, and the gal worked on it for a bit and that helped tremendously. I've never gone to the post race massage booths but that was nice! Even if I feel silly going to massage after a very slow pace race.


my finishers necklace (and my 13.1 mile good luck charm for training for my first half!) the back of the necklace says "finish strong"

a very enjoyable race day, even though I did end up with my first set of blisters. I've done 9 miles before and never gotten a blister, race day or training hikes/runs. But today right on the ball of my foot next to my big toe on each foot I got a big blister, owch. Guess it's a good thing I didn't sign up for that 5k I'd been thinking about for tomorrow.

a friend gave me this post race recovery bath recipe:
3 pints hydrogen peroxide
½ c. baking soda
½ c. sea salt
mix in essential oils
1 TBSP. ground ginger

I threw some stuff in the tub (forgot the baking soda and didn't do that much peroxide) and took a nice long soak, that helped a lot!