Tuesday, February 23, 2010

SRLA 18 Mile Friendship Run 2/21/2010

Here comes the race report!

Wow, today I spent most of the day laying on the couch snuggling with my dog...half the day passed out and the other half screaming in pain because EVERYTHING. HURTS. TODAY.

I made sure to start carbo loading on Friday night. Earlier on Friday I also went out and ran 6 miles, 3 of those miles I ran in the 8:40s to see if my legs could handle it. I'd had a couple of really slow runs the past week so I was unsure of how I'd be able to run on Sunday. I felt back to normal and the run put me in good spirits for the upcoming race.



Monday, February 15, 2010

Bay to Breakers 2010

OH AND I JUST REGISTERED TO RUN ING BAY TO BREAKERS IN S.F. THIS MAY!!!!
THIS HAS BEEN ONE OF MY DREAM RACES! I'M SO EXCITED TO RUN IT WITH FRIENDS TOO!!!

Past couple of weeks and coming up...

New post!
It's been a while. Nobody reads this yet anyway haha.

Anyway, the past couple of weeks have been weird. I had some pain on my right foot the week after my 20 miler so I took it easy that week, and then that next weekend I had all four of my wisdom teeth surgically removed so I didn't do any running for 5 days. Started to get back into it last Thursday.

This weekend I tried to go out for a 16 miler on Saturday and while the first 11 miles were great, I ran out of fuel on the 12th mile and only managed 14.5 and called it quits. I haven't felt that bad during a long run probably since my first 10 miler in december! The last couple of long runs I've done have been awesome and I've managed to always have a kick at the end. Not sure what went wrong but I'm not too worried about it (gasp!) ...I know that I have the mileage base to conquer a marathon at this point. I just think I didn't carboload enough the days before the run.

On Sunday I went out for a short recovery run because I've been skipping those during the last long runs and I know it's important to do them. So even though my legs felt like giant cinder blocks, I managed to put in a good 4.5 miles and my legs felt much better today. I didn't run today because I needed the rest but hopefully tomorrow I'll be good to go for another run.

And then next Sunday I have a race!!!!

It's an 18 mile race for Students Run LA. An organization I was part of in high school and to which I owe much of my love for long distance running!
I know I should just take it easy and run it like a training run but hey, I already know I'm going to use this as a test to see if I can hold up my desired marathon pace for LA.

Oh and this past friday I also met up with a group of my dailymile friends for the first time at a dinner party that Tracy hosted. It was the most fun I have had in a long time and I'm so inspired by each one of them. It's great to be surrounded by people that have the same passion for running :)

Monday, February 1, 2010

20 Mile Long Run

This is a belated post probably because I've been too exhausted to even write anything down.

Let's see. I knew I wanted to run a 20 miler this past weekend. I didn't run at all the week before last so I was worried I wouldn't be able to complete a long run.

Saturday morning I was also afraid I hadn't carbo-loaded enough, but nothing I could do then. I just had to go out there and try.

I got up at around 10 am. Ate a peanut butter sandwich with a little bit of nutella (I could not resist the brand new jar I had sitting on my counter). I packed 2 GU packets and a bag of sport beans into the small pocket on the back of my Nike running skirt.

I needed something to motivate me during this run so i decided to wear my LA marathon tech t-shirt from last year's race. I've never ever run 20 miles by myself so I really needed to remind myself that I could do it. I had to remind myself that I am mentally and physically strong enough to conquer those 20 miles.

So at a little before noon I headed out to conquer my longest training run ever. Took it really easy the first few miles. Did my usual loop on the grassy median up and down Chandler Blvd. The first 5 miles were ran at about 9:40 pace...just trying to ease into it. I've found that running that first mile slow really helps me settle into a nice pace afterwards.

So after I reached the North Hollywood park, I decided to take a detour from my usual route and explore some new running territory. I can't say that I liked the route I ended up doing. In fact, I kind of hated it and maybe that's why my splits ended up being faster than usual. The streets where just too busy with traffic and there were too many commercial establishments throughout it which equals a lot of different driveways and stupid drivers to avoid.

I felt like I was cursing ever couple of minutes. Calling some driver an idiot because they weren't watching where they were going. I had so many hard stops trying to avoid being hit. Ugh.

Anyway, miles 6 through 14 ticked away on my Garmin pretty effortlessly. I started feeling the pain beginning at mile 15 and I just knew the next 5 miles were not going to be easy. But it was just another 10k 'til i could get home and be able to relax. So at this point I knew I just needed to hang on and not quit.

I ran back into the North Hollywood park after my loop of NoHo, Toluca Lake, and Studio City. I started eating sport beans and drinking water after each half mile at the park. I decided to do 2 miles there and then head home and try to push the pace for the remaining 3 miles.

Everything was hurting at this point. At about mile 19, I was feeling pretty focused and trying to remain strong when the unthinkable happened...a bug went flying straight into my right eyeball! GAHHHHH! I screamed! And then I cried while bending over trying to get the damn thing out of my eye. I'm sure if I hadn't been in so much pain I would've felt humiliated at the thought that someone may be watching this go down but at the moment, I was just so frustrated...

After about a minute of this pathetic scene, I started running again. Just about a mile and half left so I pushed the pace as much as I could. My last mile was 8:20 and I was half sobbing...hahahah...

Finally, my Garmin hit 20 miles and I was so glad to be done. I still had a few blocks to get home so I walked those and like always, they were excruciating! I felt lame walking so slow but I had just run 20 MILES!

After I got home I iced a little bit, took a shower, tried to nap (and failed) for an hour, and finally got back up and got ready to go out with my friends for the evening. Danced the night away 'til 2 am. And spent the rest of the night with the boy.

All in all. Saturday was all kinds of fantastic and I'm proud of myself for accomplishing such a run and with a pretty consistent pace. I even had negative splits for the second half :)

Two days later, I'm still pretty sore and the toes on my right foot are killing me! I tripped and nearly fell flat on my face on mile 15 and my poor toes took a pretty big hit. Now they are swollen and it hurts to walk on them :(

I hope they feel better tomorrow.

Happy running.