Marla Runyan Half Marathon

If you didn’t already know, I am a huge race promo code shopper! Some people clip coupons and I browse for discount races. It’s rare for me to pay full price for a race and often I’ll run a race just because I got it for a good price. This last race I ran was one of those! Earlier this month, I ran the Marla Runyan Half Marathon that benefited the Boys and Girls Club of Camarillo. Thanks to Groupon, I got this race for $30 when the regular price was over $60. An added bonus to running this race is that it is part of the Gold Coast Run Series, which puts me two races closer to receiving the jacket!

As per usual, I went into this race with the mentality that it would be a training race. I did just about everything wrong if I had planned on racing it. I didn’t taper until I realized halfway through the week that I was tired and tried a halfhearted taper (I’ve been hitting some high mileage). I went out with friends the night before the race and ran around a maize maze followed by gorging ourselves on Yogurtland (yum yogurt)! I slept terribly because my bro was having a going away party/thing (they didn’t consider it a party) that didn’t end up finishing until 3:30am. But none of that mattered, because I was just going to run it as a training run.

Maize mazes are cool... but creepy!

 I tried to talk Daddio out of going with me because I didn’t want him to lose a morning of sleep to wait for me to finish a training run, but he insisted on tagging along (my Dad is awesome). So we left the house a 5am to get down to Camarillo for the race. This race had the option of getting your packet race morning and I took advantage of that. So we got down there in the dark, I got my packet and we huddled in the warm car till race time.

About ten minutes from the race start, I followed a group of sleep deprived runners as we tried to find the starting line. We were soon directed by a voice from above (bullhorn?) and we found the starting balloon arch that was still being pumped up as it lay on the ground. Surprisingly, the race only started a few minutes late.

Ready for my training race!

We set out in the cold foggy morning and I set myself a decent pace. My goal for my last race of the year (Santa to the Sea Half Marathon) is to break the two hour barrier. So I started my pace around a nine minute per mile. I wanted to see how well I could hold it over the long distance (again, just a training race). It felt good! The morning was chilly and the other runners were quiet. All I heard in the beginning was a horde of feet hitting the ground, one of my favorite sounds.

Watched the sun rise as we ran

 For the first time in a while, I didn’t carry my own water, instead deciding to rely on the water stations. I rarely do this, but I needed the practice and once again, this race was just training. The volunteers were amazing and the police traffic control was wonderful. Everyone seemed so happy to be out there helping! There were plenty of aid stations and several even had gels! My only complaint, and it’s not really a complaint, just a suggestion, is don’t place the trash cans right by where the runners get cups, place them down the street about twenty feet. I hate throwing cups on the ground, so I stopped to drink each time I needed water (I know, I’m weirdly considerate like that). Also don’t use plastic cups, runners can’t fold those for quicker drinking as they run. Otherwise, awesome job!

This race was a very weaving out and back, so I got to see the lead runner as he passed. I cheered him on and he actually smiled and thanked me. Usually the person in the lead is so focused that they don’t acknowledge the cheers of others. That was a pretty cool moment.

Lead guy picture taken by Daddio at the beginning of the race.
Same mile markers as last month's race!

I was trying out some longer intervals during this race, running for fourteen minutes and walking for one. Even with this, I was holding a great pace around 9:10 per mile. I have to hit a 9:09 per mile to hit the two hour barrier. I was feeling so good around mile six and seven that I started picking up the pace, trying to get my pace where it needed to be. Slowly the pace starting dropping and by the time I got to mile ten it was around an average of 9:06. At this point, I was thinking “Wow, I can do this right now, why wait two months!” so I decided to hammer on.

Miles eleven and twelve were when things started to unravel. To that point, I felt like I was flying, everything was just cruising along and the pace was easy to hit. These two miles it turned into work! My feet started hurting due to a bad taping idea I was trying out that ended up causes massive blisters and my hips started to feel tight and sore. I just kept telling myself that I was almost there and tried to distract myself by talking to each runner I passed, because guess what, I was passing a lot of people (crazy, this doesn’t happen to me). Anywhere past eleven is where you start seeing people losing steam and slowing down. I like to dib it the zombie zone, this is the time in the race I get most chatty (got to love endorphins!). And this time I was gaining speed!

The last mile was brutal. I was now around an overall average pace of 9:04, so I knew I was going to make it unless I fell down dead. My Garmin had been right on at every mile marker, so I knew it was accurate. Each step was hard, but also exciting! I wanted to tell every person I passed what I was about to achieve! As the finish came into view, I passed the last person that was between me and my goal. Shortly after, I hit the thirteen mile marker and my Garmin was off by a tenth of a mile! I was about to have a heart attack! What if I didn’t make it that last tenth in time! What if I missed a sub two hour time by mere seconds! Thankfully what was left of my exhausted brain kicked in and reminded me that I could finish a tenth of a mile in less than two minutes. I decided to jog it in…. which lasted about a second before I heard Daddio yell “Now sprint!” so that’s what I did.

The finish line! It felt teasingly far away!

Final sprint!

 I crossed the finish at full sprint, stopped my watch and threw my hands up in the air. I’ll admit, I shed a tear or two and stumbled over to get my timing chip removed and to receive my medal. I kind of stumbled around trying to figure out what to do with myself next until a wonderful volunteer approached me and pointed me to the water and the after race goody tables.

What an after race spread! There was water, sports drinks, cookies, croissants and chocolate dipped strawberries to name a few. I reached the large plate of cookies and stared. The server asked me which type of cookie I wanted… I think I may have mumbled something incoherent, because even I didn’t know what I was saying at that point. I couldn’t figure out what kind of cookie I wanted! I finally just said “something from the middle”, since apparently I couldn’t say sugar cookie. It went just as smoothly when I was offered a croissant and I called it bread.

So excited that I took a picture!

Daddio took a paparazzi style picture of me stuffing croissant in my face before I spotted him. He congratulated me excitedly and pointed out that I had just shaved another four minutes off my half marathon PR. He pointed me to the beer area where the results were being posted on TV screens. I quickly weaved my way over to find out my official finish time of 1:58:33 and to my complete surprise I discovered that I finished third in my age group!

My Dad, the only paparazzi I have

Please ignore the boob sweet, this geek girl worked hard.
Note to self: never wear this shirt to a race again!

We hung out till the award announcements and I exuberantly ran up to receive my $20 gift card to Tri Running and my blue plastic cup. So once again, I proved that I’m terrible at just running these as “training runs”.

Marla Runyan Half marathon is an awesome race, but I might be slightly bias now!

My cup that proves I'm a winner... or something...

Feeling Fantastic!

I’ve been having a couple of really great running months lately and have been achieving a lot of new personal records. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you stay injury free for more than four months!

This last week, I finished my first thirty mile training week. It doesn’t sound like much, but that is huge to me. I’m always excited when I get back up into the 20’s and I’ve gotten extremely close to the 30’s before, finishing one week with 29 back in 2011, but have never made it till now! I’m probably in the best running shape of my life and have so much further I want to go! I'm just now starting to believe that another marathon may just be in my future!

I have made a lot of changes to my training this year and they seem to be paying off. I slowed my increases down to a painfully slow progression, but my body seems to be handling it much better. Some people may be able to follow the 10 percent rule (increase your weekly mileage by 10 percent from the previous week), but my body couldn’t handle it. Last year was dominated by injuries where this year I only experienced a few minor problems.

Another change that I have made was incorporating some treadmill runs into my schedule. I added these just over a year ago after recovering from a stress fracture. I’m not sure just how beneficial these runs have been, but the dramatic decrease in injuries speaks for itself. I also invested in a pair of Hokas. I never wanted to pay more than $100 on a pair of shoes, but these are well worth it! I bought these back in May when I was struggling with some pain in my left foot that disappeared as soon as I started doing all my high mileage in these shoes (I still run my shorter runs in Nike Vomeros). I've run 240 miles in these babies and they still feel fantastic!

The Doctor says it best!

Last month I started calorie counting and food tracking which I’ve never done while trying to increase my mileage. The first two weeks were rough, but these last two weeks have been fantastic! I’ve dropped more than six pounds and been having some awesome long runs. I’m an idiot when it comes to nutrition, so I’m always learning something new. I usually have a natural cycle of one awesome week of training followed by the next week of fatigued training. As of today I’m just entering my third week of energetic runs. It’s too early to tell if this is diet related, but I have high hopes!

If you are plagued by running injuries, switch things up, try something new. I have no doubt that you can be a runner, you just need to find what works for you.

Slacker Half Marathon

On June 22^nd while on vacation in Colorado visiting my brother and his wife, I decided to take on the most challenging race I have ever done, the Slacker Half Marathon. I knew this race would be a challenge, but I didn’t realize just how challenging it would be! This one had ended up on my wish list when my sister-in-law had mentioned it to me the year before. When organizing our visit, I tried to arrange the dates to coincide with the race and it worked out! Mom and Dad also got on board and signed up for the 4 mile race taking place at the same time.

So race morning, we got up bright and early, heading out from Denver and driving up the mountain to the town of Georgetown. What a beautiful little town that is! All around us was picturesque views! We picked up our race numbers and t-shirts by a little lake and parted ways for our different shuttles. My shuttle took me up to Loveland Ski Area which is at 10,660 ft, not exactly easy for a sea level running wimp like me!

The view from packet pickup!

The drive up gave me more views to admire, waterfalls, forest and snow! I was nervous about the spots of snow on the ground since I was in a tank top with arm warmers due to the predicted heat later in the day and I was more than a little chilly waiting for the race to start, but things warmed up pretty quickly.

Snow! This So Cal girl doesn't see that white stuff very often!

This race is advertised as the highest downhill half marathon in the country, but I didn’t let that fool me. I knew the altitude would be a big issue for me and I had looked at the elevation chart and had noted how rolling the course really was. This race was all about having fun and enjoying our vacation, so I didn’t even pretend to think I could PR this one.

The sign behind me says "Fast" and another further back said slow. I started in the slow section.

The first mile or so of the race was extremely dusty! We started out on trails and since we were still so closely grouped together, the dust was flying! I started at a conservative pace, surprised that I didn’t notice the altitude more. My breathing was a little heavier than usual, but other than that, I didn’t hardly notice it in the beginning. Last time I visited my brother and went for a run in Denver (where they live), I felt like I was sucking air like crazy, so this was a nice surprise.

I didn’t have any intervals planned, just went with the flow. I walked the hills and some of the flats and took lots of pictures. We ran on trails, roads and bike paths. We were surrounded by trees and beautiful mountain views. Every turn brought on new “Oh wow” moments. We were along a river for a while and more than once I slowed down to admire small waterfalls.

  There were a few aid stations, but not as many as I’m used to, not that it mattered since I had on my hydration pack. Only one aid station had port-a-potties and the line made it not even worth slowing down for. A lot of people were ducking off trail to take care of business. Thankfully, I never had to!

 

The race finished in Georgetown, but not before we got to run overlooking a railroad and then later getting to run under it. Kids and adults on the train cheered us on as we passed below. I ran through town feeling spent, but managed to muster enough energy to do my customary finish line sprint.

Right at the finish, they gave us little printouts of our finish time. That was a really nice feature! Daddio found me and we went and found Mom. It sounded like they had fun, but were pretty tired. We got free hotdogs, sodas, snacks and power bars! This race had more free stuff at the end then I think any race I’ve done previously has had.



Gorgeous!

Getting close to the finish!

While waiting in line for food, I suddenly got extremely dizzy and my vision started to tunnel. Dad had me sit down and I figured I hadn’t hydrated enough, so I worked on getting some water in me. As soon as things evened out, feeling self-conscious, I got back up and joined Dad in line. My brother and his wife joined us and we all piled into one car to head further up the mountain. The higher we got, the sicker and dizzier I felt. I grabbed an empty bag and started dry heaving into it. Dad pulled off the road and I got out, walking around, trying to get things back in balance. My head was pounding and I had no desire to get back in the car, so I sent them up the mountain and camped out on a rock with some water to wait for them. Not to get into too much detail, but I ended up throwing up several times and experienced the worse migraine of my life. I didn’t feel better till we got back down the mountain, which lead me to believe later that I was experiencing altitude sickness.

I didn’t even know what altitude sickness was at the time, but now I do and never want to experience it again! I guess I’ll have to be more careful when picking races in the future or get there a few days earlier, so I can adjust to the difference! Be careful when doing a race under conditions you aren’t used to!

Two of the three slackers. Man, I look tired!

Bling!

The race was fantastic and I highly recommend it! It was gorgeous and well worth the extra effort from being at that altitude!

Goleta Education Foundation 4 Miler 2013

This lazy bum hasn’t hardly run all week since the Ventura Beach Party Half Marathon. My legs have been pretty tired and my knees have been sore! I wasn’t sure if I was going to run the Goleta Education Foundation 4 Miler with it being so close to the half. I had a good run Friday, so I went to register online and discovered I was a day late! They had the option of registering in person on Saturday in the running store, but I was going to be out of town with a friend. So I printed out the forms, wrote a check and my awesome mom took it up for me and got me squared away.

I ran this race last year and enjoyed it, staying well after the race to enjoy the music and the raffle. This is a Grand Prix event and I am currently holding onto first place and I want to keep it that way, so any extra points would make me happy. Support the schools, get some Grand Prix points and exercise, sounds like a good morning to me.

I was so lazy, I didn’t even want to warm up. I wasn’t racing and I wasn’t aiming for a PR, so I sat in the warm car chatting with Daddio till he said with five minutes to go “if you are going to warm up, you need to do it now.” I jumped out of the car and did a half hearted lap around the neighborhood. This running geek girl was tired!

This just never gets old

We all lined up at the start and the excitement slowly seeped in. I don’t think I’ve ever lined up and not gotten excited! When they said “Go”, I took off with the crowd, getting pulled along at everyone else’s pace. The first half mile was tough! My legs felt like lead! To my surprise, before the first mile was even finished, I felt like I broke through a wall and things were suddenly easier. That happens sometimes, but not enough for me to expect it.

For the rest of the race I was on cruise control, feeling good, thanking volunteers and police officers, striking up conversations with random people in pace with me and just enjoying the race. I celebrated finishing mile three with a complete stranger that just happened to be next to me as we crossed the mile line. I caught a girl that I thought might be in my age group and only let one person get past me in the last two miles. I sped up on the last hill overtaking a few more people and debated with myself about flying down the final downhill to the finish or just taking it easy on my knees. I opted for flying and took off at top speed, soring into the finish line.

Official race finish and overall clock time

I finished with a time of 34:42, not too shabby. About ten minutes later while looking at the official times and seeing that I had placed fourth in my age group, it dawned on me that I’d just PRed! After that, I was giddy and smiling ear to ear. Back to back PRs are epic! Later when analyzing my Garmin data, I realized my heart rate had been in my max zone for the last two miles and I’d somehow done some serious negative splits. You never can tell how a race is going to go!

Ventura Beach (Birthday) Party Half Marathon

I gave myself a super cool birthday gift this year…. ok to be honest, I just used my birthday as an excuse. I ran the Ventura Beach Party Half marathon last weekend, the day after my 29^th birthday. I was extremely excited to hear about this new race and especially excited that it fell so close to my birthday (too bad they missed it by one day!). This race is also part of the Gold Coast Run Series which consists of 4 half marathons, but you only need to run three of them to receive a cool jacket at the end of the year. Santa to the Sea is part of that series this year and since I was already registered for Santa and this one, I went ahead and registered for the third race which will take place next month. I’m looking forward to getting my new jacket at the end of the year.

I’ve set my sights on Santa to the Sea as my goal PR race for the year, so the night before the Ventura Beach Party I was talking over my race goals for the next day with Daddio and we both agreed that I would just take it easy. Well that didn’t exactly end up happening, but I’ll get to that.

Packet pickup was pretty easy, showed up, grabbed my stuff and headed out for a birthday dinner. There was no expo on Friday when I picked up, but there was a small one on Saturday during pickup and on race day. There were a couple running booths, but most were crafts, so we didn’t miss much by going on Friday.

Ready to party

Race morning, my parents and I got there an hour early to snag one of the few free parking spots. We were actually surprised that the lot didn’t fill up faster. The race started at the Ventura Pier, went out past the Oxnard Harbor and back again. I’m not a big fan of out and backs, but this one was hard to pass up.

The atmosphere at the starting line was very enthusiastic. From my understanding, there were
a lot of first timers there, which always makes the experience more enjoyable. I started out at a comfortable pace, just staying with the people around me. For the first mile I didn’t turn my music on, just enjoying the sound of all our feet hitting the pavement and the smell of the ocean on the breeze. I was already on a runner’s high.

Let's do this!

I figured I’d ride out the high and slow down later. The pace I was at, was faster than I am usually comfortable with, but I was feeling so good, I just went with the flow. The weather was awesome for a half marathon! It was a comfortable mid 60’s with a marine layer and a pleasant breeze. It couldn’t have been a more perfect day!

Around mile five, I was still feeling awesome, but worried I’d run myself into the ground, so I started intervals of nine minutes of running and one minute of walking. I ended up gaining a little speed by switching it up. I felt comfortable, like I was on cruise control. At the half way point, I knew I could PR if I didn’t hit a wall, but needed to be careful. You never know when running high is going to suddenly disappear only to be replaced by a big fat wall of fatigue.

Race picture around mile nine. All smiles!

I was wearing a “Birthday Girl” t-shirt and spectators started yelling “Happy Birthday” as I passed them, giving me a little more bounce to my step. Around mile nine I went through a water stop and a little kid volunteer, probably no older than five yelled “Take the water!” I almost did just to make him happy, but I had on my hydration belt and didn’t need any. In fact, a lot of people had hydration gear, so the poor kid might have been holding out the cup for a while!

Look at that fog! It stuck around the whole race.

Between miles ten and eleven, my heart rate started to spike and a little fatigue started to creep in, but the clock was ticking and the PR was looking really good. I figured if I could just beat my old half marathon PR by just a few seconds, I would be on cloud nine. I’ve been craving a half marathon PR for almost two years now!

I finished the race with a sprint and a goofy grin, with a time of 2:03:19. I set a new PR, blowing my old one away by just over five minutes! I never even imagined that I was going that much faster! My parents greeted me with hugs and congratulations, my dad knowing instantly that I had PRed. A friend from college also showed up to cheer me in at the finish line and to tell me happy birthday. I’ll tell you something, if you ever want to make a runner’s day, show up at their race and cheer them on! That’s one of the many reasons my parents and my friends are so awesome!

Finishing strong

This race was a total thrill, although I am a little bias! The volunteers and race support was awesome! The after race food and snacks were plentiful and everything seemed to run smoothly. I only have one complaint and that was that there was no official photographer (as far as I’ve been able to determine). There was one person along the course that did take pictures and post them, but nothing official. Some finish line pictures have shown up, but nothing of me.

One happy birthday girl!

After the race, we went over to my Uncle’s house where we shared a birthday BBQ (his birthday being that day). I ate too much and enjoyed chocolate chocolate cake. Overall, great race and a day to remember!

A Colorful Experience

Earlier this month I got to run a super fun race called Run or Dye. Run or Dye is one of those color races that showed up a couple years ago. I’ve always eyed these races, but never wanted to travel just to run one. When I heard Run or Dye was coming to Santa Barbara, I signed up right away! To make things even better, I found a nice promo code that knocked the price down even further.

Before picture! Nice and clean!

My biggest complaint about this race is that it is advertised as a 5k when it was not. I get extremely nitpicky about races being the length advertised and get frustrated when they are not accurate. My Garmin Forerunner 410 had awesome connection that day and mapped the race at 2.7 (rounding up), putting the race almost a full half mile short. I saw people running as hard as they could and I hate to think someone paid for a 5k with the goal of PRing and being robbed of that chance. They do advertise it as a non-timed race, but I still don’t feel that that gives them the right to make it shorter then promised.

But complaint aside, it as a fun experience! A lot of my running friends came out to this race, so I got to see a lot of people I knew. To top it off, my best friend showed up and took pictures of me running it! My Dad dropped me off at the race since I was a little concerned about the parking situation, but when we got there, there was plenty of spots, so he got to hang out and check out the excitement for a little while.

Color zone right at the start

They sent us out in waves and right at the start was a color zone where we got covered in colored powder. The second they said go, I took off like a shot. About a quarter of a mile down the road, I slowed down, remembering that I had promised myself I wouldn’t race this one. There is no race clock for Run or Dye, it’s all about enjoying the experience and that’s what I had aimed to do.

There was something like four or five color zones along the race route. I would time it so that I was passing through these zones with only a small group of people to maximize the amount of powder that would be thrown on me. I had it down to a science by the end of the run.

Last color zone at the finish

After the race we were given a packet of colored powder which we could use if we wanted. I joined some friends by the stage where everyone was throwing powder into the air and rocking out. I was so colorful by the time I left that area, that I couldn’t even tell that my shorts had been purple when I had arrived.

My after picture before I even went near the stage

The greatest part of the whole experience was my run home. Since the race took place on a Saturday, which is usually a long run day for me, I decided to run the five miles home. I’m actually surprised I didn’t cause a car accident with how many cars were slowing down on the road to look at me. I received a high five from a biker and a couple greetings for other everyday runners.

Caught up with some of my old buddies

My white tank top is a goner. I’m trying to decide if I should go buy some bleach or just toss it. Everything else cleaned up fine, myself included after some serious scrubbing. Overall, I had a blast and complaints aside, it was a great experience! I think everyone should give a color run a chance at some point, they really are a ton of fun!

Color runs are awesome!

Super Busy!

I just wanted to post and say that I am still alive and running. I have run three races since my last post and I do plan on getting race reports up (two I've already started writing), but I have no idea when I'll have time to do them. I was on vacation for three weeks visiting my brothers in Colorado and Texas. I was home for a short time and then I was off at Comic con for almost a week. It's been a busy summer! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer and getting some good runs in!

Visiting my favorite little man in Texas

Racing in Colorado

Hitting tourist traps on the way home

Comic con! Course of the Force!

Partying like a geek at comic con with my bff