travels, races, and other musings

I had a serious PR today at Frosty's 5k. Now, admittedly, the course was pretty flat, however, I did have a bit of a headwind in a couple of places which slowed me down in those spots. Headwind aside, the flat course helped and I did it! I don't have the official chip time yet, but my watch says 29:56 (9:39/mi pace) which smashes my previous PR by over 4 minutes! (Edit: The chip time was 29:50, so a few seconds better than I thought.) My goal for the coming year in the 5k was going to be to get it under 30 minutes. Looks like I need to revise my future goals! Splits: Mile 1 9:28 Mile 2 9:51 Mile 3 9:38 last .1 :58 (9:37/mi pace) When I saw that I ran the first mile in under 10 minutes, I got really worried that I went out too fast but I was actually feeling pretty good so I just decided to keep the same pace. I slowed slightly for a small hill and headwind just after mile 1. When I passed mile 2 and realized I was still running at under a 10 minute mile, I figured I...

I'm not sure how, but I made it through the Turkey Trot 5 miler. The McMillan running calculator thinks I can do a 5 miler in 52:57 which I definitely think is doable. However, with my being sick and the tough course (whoa! hilly!) I ended up coming in at 55:21. I'll take it. While I was waiting in line for the port-a-potty, I saw Amy who asked me how I was feeling and I explained that I decided to go the cold medicine route. Running half asleep seemed more appealing than running with a fit of coughing and hacking. As soon as she walked off I realized I forgot to ask her how she was feeling since she also has the plague. Then I felt like a dork for being so rude as not to inquire and decided to chalk it up to the haze of cold medicine. I emerged from the port-a-potty (OMG, grossest port-a-potty ever, that includes the icky one outside RunTex) in time to hear the national anthem start. I was feeling grouchy and ignored the dirty looks from those standing tall and patriotic w...

A 10k PR I ran a race this morning. I hadn't really planned on it, but I knew there was going to be one and I went back and forth about doing it. Yesterday morning when I got up and saw 8 miles on my training plan, I assessed my body and it told me it didn't want to go 8 miles. So I decided 6.2 miles fast would even out to 8 slow so I headed down to Run Tex and registered for the race. We did a really short (5 miles) and easy bike ride yesterday to spin my legs out a bit. This morning I woke up several times: 4 AM, 5 AM, 6 AM, of course, going back to sleep at 6:15 so that my alarm could go off at 6:30. Luckily, with Daylight Saving Time ending, it was actually just about my regular time to get up. My stomach was feeling weird and I was a little concerned. I ate my normal pre-race breakfast (small bowl of Rice Krispies with a tiny bit of soy milk, half an apple with the peel removed, and a small glass of juice) and headed out. I arrived at the race site and did a warm up ...

The Happiest Race on Earth... I awoke at 4:00 in the morning. I took a quick shower to wake myself up. I was running a little behind and feeling a little sluggish. I was going to meet Dru at the hotel's continental breakfast (which they were running early for racers) 4:30, but I didn't head out the door until 4:35 or so. My feet weren't as sore as the day before, but I felt a little tight in my muscles and draggy. I couldn't eat. I didn't really want to eat anyway. I ate a few bites of an apple and we headed to the race site. We walked along with a lot of people on their way to the race. Once at the start area, there were people everywhere and there was a huge screen showing people walking about and a very loud announcer. I'm sure people in the nearby hotels that weren't running the race were not excited about this situation. We found a port a potty line and got that out of the way, then made our way out to our corral. There were five corrals (A throug...

Tuesday was a fairly lazy and uneventful day and my last day in California. We hung around and caught up with one another. We also took the bug out for a romp around the desert. Mimi has a 1965 VW bug. It has the top chopped off so it's a permanent "convertible." My dad drove and we checked out the extent of the fire damage. We also drove into the nearest town, Yucca Valley, and ran a couple of errands. Later in the day I went for a short run. I ran down Mimi's "street" (narrow dirt road). It was nice running in another setting for a change and I enjoyed taking in the desert scenery. I saw the two houses burned down on her street. Well, I saw one. The other had already been removed and the site was ready for rebuilding.

Monday morning we were a little bit sore, but nothing too bad. We hopped on a shuttle back to the Disney parks and did a little shopping in the Downtown Disney area. Dru bought a shirt and I got a Mickey pen for my niece. I bought myself a shirt at Disneyland the day before (it's a Jack Skellington Nightmare Before Christmas shirt). We left Downtown Disney and headed back to the hotel to get Roger's luggage and take him to the airport. After a couple of wrong turns, we dropped him off at the Orange County airport. We headed back to the hotel, picked up all the rest of our luggage and made the drive out to the desert. We made good time to Mimi's (that's what we call my grandmother). My dad and his wife Kip (her real name is Karen but she goes by Kip) were already there when we arrived. Dru dropped me off and then she and Dave headed for Desert Hot Springs for a relaxing evening in the springs. Recently, there had been a large wildfire in the vicinity of her home. H...

Saturday morning we left my mom's and boarded the Pacific Surfliner train in Oceanside and headed for Anaheim. Dru picked us up at the train station in Anaheim and we checked into our hotel. After checking in, Dru, Roger and I headed to the Disneyland Hotel so Dru and I could pick up our race packets. The race packet was fairly disappointing, but the race shirt was quite nice - a white long sleeve technical (moisture wicking, breathable, etc.) shirt with the Disneyland Half Marathon logo on the front. The walk to and from the Disneyland Hotel was much longer than I had anticipated and we were already feeling a little tired when we got back to drop off our stuff. Roger and I soaked our feet in a tub full of ice water before we grabbed Dru's boyfriend Dave and walked all the way back to the area to go to Disney's California Adventure theme park. We began with a little lunch. After lunch we rode some rides. I have to say that California Adventure was sort anti-climactic. The...

Our flight left Austin around 9:30 in the morning. With the time adjustment, that meant that we arrived into San Diego around 10:30. My mom and her husband Steve picked us up at the airport. We headed up to north San Diego county closer to mom's house to have lunch. We ate in the harbor in Oceanside and walked around a bit. We went back to mom and Steve's place and Roger and I took a short nap. After that, we went down to Carlsbad where I went for a short run (about a mile and a half) on a paved walkway along the beach. It was a beautiful run. I really enjoyed the cool weather, breeze and sound of the waves. I watched the surfers and the kids playing in the ocean as I did my last run before the race. That evening we ate dinner and celebrated my mom's birthday (Sept 17th). All in all, it was a pretty low key day. It was nice to spend some time with my mom. Click here for Day 2. 

I had a really good race yesterday at Jack's Generic Triathlon. I did quite well on the swim, had a super bike and a nice solid run. Roger also did well on his first triathlon. He had a bit of a difficult swim, but he did really well on the bike and the run. I think he's decided he's more of a duathlete (bike and run). Pre-Race Dru, Roger and I woke up super early (I guess I'm getting accustomed to it) and headed down to New Braunfels. We arrived and Roger and I set up our transition areas next to each other. We then went off to get body marked and pick up our timing chips. (They didn't mark our thighs in this race which I thought was strange.) We went back to transition and applied some sunscreen (I've learned the secrets of spray on sunscreen - it doesn't rub the numbers off). We then lined up to use the port-a-potties. According to the website they would be using pretty much the same courses as the Rogue Women's Triathlon. There were two differen...

Last year we ran the race in a very silly, non-serious (not race-like and untimed) manner. We stopped at the crazy stops (ice cream, etc.) and even took a break at Secret Oktober to hang out in the A/C and shop. This year we ran it for real. The course was different this year and had we done the silly, non-serious, not fast running, it wouldn't have been as fun as last year. However, the course was a lot more flat and much less challenging. It was fairly hilly last year. This year it was an out and back style course which was slightly downhill on the way out and slightly uphill on the way back.  Unfortunately, I really would have preferred downhill on the way back. I went out way too fast. I was also using a lot of energy trying to escape the throng of people and dodge all the walkers, strollers, kids and dogs that somehow decided they would start at the front. Usually they make those folks start at the back, but nobody was announcing that. It was sort of lame and irritating....