Another Saturday run

Went out today on the usual Saturday morning run with the Inside track club. Brandy was there, along with a few others, and all of us planned to run ten miles. Some were tapering down while others were building up. Brandy and I are building up for the Santa to the Sea half marathon and are planning our assault on completing that run in under two hours. Yes, i have done a half in under two before but my goal is for both of us to finish it in under two hours. I think that we can do it by running together during the entire race, keeping a good pace throughout and adjusting a needed. I know that she can do it but she is not quite sure, so my job is to help her stop those thoughts enter her mind. So a-training we will go.

Today was a ten mile run, planned for an easy pace, about ten minutes per mile pace. Started off good and slow to warm up, going about 10:30. We picked it up a little bit in mile two but still a little more than ten minutes. Miles three to five were good and we got there in under 49 minutes. Stopped there to fuel up for the return journey and off we went on our merry ways. The return portion started off where we left off so we knew that it would be a negative split. Each mile got progressively faster, and we really noticed on mile 9 that we were going at a race pace. We actually did mile nine at under 9 minutes! We reminded ourselves to slow down, to think of a recovery pace for the last mile. This was good as it allowed me to complete the return journey without stopping. The return trip took under 48 minutes.

As if that was the only good thing to happen during the run, the others were waiting for us at the end. One group had finished about 8 minutes before and the other group finished about 5 minutes, so they decided to wait for us knowing we weren't that far behind. This made me feel good but even better was it made Brandy feel good. I think it helped her confidence tremendously knowing that the others weren't that far ahead of us. Granted everyone was doing an easy run, but so were we. Our easy runs are the medium speed runs from a couple of months ago. Ten minutes is now our recovery pace and we can consistently go a tad faster. I am not sure if I can maintain the pace we did today - I would have gone faster on my own and would end up walking. So the search for knowing my pace continues but if I can find a way to stay in Ventura on weekends, I will have my running partner who can rein me in while I pull her along at the same time. It's a delicate balance and it continues to be fun trying to find the equilibrium.

Keeping pace

Back on dry land once again after a few week cruise on board the mighty barge MATSS. Most of the days on board I would try to find at least fifteen minutes to walk around and get some exercise. Some days I would be able to get in thirty minutes of walking at a time and on a couple of occasions I walked an hour straight. Wasn't sure how many miles I did total, I just estimated that I kept a 3 mile/hour pace and that was that. Given the movement of the barge up and down, along with the many obstacles I had to avoid, that was a very conservative estimate. Maybe I went a little faster or slower, I think it all came out in the wash.

This led me to again try to figure out a way to run, be it during a training run or a race. Since my runs are usually defined by distance I know beforehand how long it should take me so I budget for that. Good rule of thumb has been ten minute miles - this still amazes me that I can do this. Not too long ago I was struggling to complete a few miles at a 12 minute pace and now I don't even worry about it.

But back to the topic: Usually when I run I start up at least one, if not two, apps on my iPhone. Nike+ and/or Runkeeper are on my iPhone and have kept me company on long runs. I don't use them to pace me during a run as I have been running without listening to the iPhone. I also keep track of my time on the chronograph function of my watch. If I am running "too fast" per mile I slow it down. I think this is important especially in the long and slow runs. They are supposed to be run at an easy pace to help with my recovery. Unfortunately this isn't the case, and I usually run at a faster pace.

My easy runs are supposed to be close to ten minute pace, according to my past results. If I am doing a speed workout then I need to pick up the pace. This is where my watch helps me out a bit, although there are times when I am feeling good with the pace I am running but deliberately slow myself down since I think I am going too fast. When I run with some in the running club and don't pay attention to my watch I know that I need to run a little slower than them since they are much faster than me. But I get caught up and run faster than I should, but it's not that bad. It does challenge me but I am not completely burned out at the end. Maybe I need to run some more on feel and not depend on my watch all the time. Time will tell ;)

To the top ...

... of Diamond Head, that is one of the runs I wanted to do since I got into this running thing. Oh yeah, it's also because I am blessed with a job that sends me to Oahu a couple of times a year. Any ways, I plotted it out last April when I was last on the island. From the hotel, a round trip would be about 7 miles and depending on which way I wanted to go, one of the legs was going to be a bit longer than the other since the entrance to Diamond Head was on the northern side. It seemed to make sense to go the longer route on the first leg since I will be fresher. In April I wasn't ready to undergo this run since I knew that I would need probably a Camelbak or something similar to stay properly hydrated. As much as I love the weather in Ventura and SoCal as it is very conducive for me to run longer distances, it doesn't help me run in a warm and muggy climate that is Hawaii. So wait for my next trip was the new plan.

Here we are in September and my next trip to Oahu. I was prepared this time with a good hydration backpack - it's a Costco model but it works and holds ample amount of water. I had just run a half two weeks ago so I am used to running a long distance. I took off from the hotel a little after 9, maybe later than I should have, but it wasn't too bad temp-wise. An added bonus was a good tradewind to cool me off on the first leg. I decided to go on the southern route, the longer, for the first leg. After a couple of miles of basically flat run it started to climb gradually. Had to take a couple of walk breaks on the way there but overall felt good about my run. Even was keeping a good pace when I was running. Maybe if I slowed down a bit I would have been able to run all the way. 4.5 miles after I started I got to the entrance from the main road to Diamond Head.

I took a good break, fueled up and decided that I would go up to the top of DH. I walked the first part as it was fairly steep and also went through a tunnel - didn't want to get run over by the cars going in and out. Walked most of the way to the top, sometimes slow as I waited for others and when it cleared picked up the pace. The round trip took me a little more than an hour and was well worth the added exercise. When I got back to the entance to DH I stopped again but not as long as the first time. Also didn't feel the need to fuel up as the second leg was downhill. Off I went back to the hotel and as luck would have it, DH was blocking whatever tradewinds there was and it got warmer and harder to run. I stopped running many times and took walk breaks but I continued on. The next 3 miles was done at a 12 minute pace but I got back to the hotel. Another run objective met, but I am sure that I would love to try this again the next time I am back on Oahu.

It's all about Disney

After a very long wait I finally participated in the Disneyland half marathon. This was the race that got me even slightly interested in running. Last year my friend Michelle invited me to walk the half marathon - I had been walking a few miles as part of my quest to lose weight and get in better shape/health. I figured that setting a race goal would help me to keep walking. So I signed up for the race. As luck would have it a work trip forced me to miss out on the race, but it was a trip to France so I was okay with it. Later on in September last year I signed up to walk the Wounded Warrior 5K, and I did that in a good time for walking, about 41 minutes. However, walking that fast was beginning to hurt so I decided that if I was to enter more races in the future it would be better to maybe jog a few hundred yards every mile. I was blessed that I was able to extend those few hundred yards to miles, and running them at a decent pace.

Fast forward to September 2011, Labor Day weekend, race weekend!!! It started out with a long fun day at the parks on Friday with my friend Michelle, the same friend who invited me participate in the race last year. Saturday had an early start to it with the Star Tours 5K, a fun race in which time is not kept. This freed us up to have pictures taken with characters or at cool locations. How often can one get a picture taken in front of the Mickey with no one else around, or Sleeping Beauty's castle just as empty? With the race theme being Star Tours, Mickey dressed up as a Jedi Knight and Minnie was Princess Leia. A good time was had by all and it was also a good warm up for the half to be held the next day. Here are some of the pictures from the 5K.



















This race was the biggest race in which I have participated, with over 15,000 runners and walkers registered. Luckily I was able to get a qualifying time fast enough to move me to the first starting corral. Knowing that there were gonna be many people who would be much faster than me I waded my way near the back of the corral. Here's a view of the starting line (near the video screen) from about 1800 runners back. The start of the race was 6 AM, and the weather behaved for the most part. It was in the mid 60s at the start, the sky was mostly cloud free and humidity wasn't high yet. It warmed up a little bit but not bad at all. Another wonderful thing about the race was some friends were also running it, although we were all spread out in different corrals. My friends Becky, Ron and Michelle from SB Search were there, along with Linda and Chuck from the running club.

The race started in Downtown Disney area and went through the parks the first couple of miles. It then went through the streets of Anaheim, including a view of the sun rising as we ran down Ball Road. A few turns here and there and there we were by the Honda Center. After a brief jaunt on the Santa Ana River Trail we ended up Angel Stadium, where we actually got to run inside the field. OK, it was on the warning track along the right field side and then the left field side. As we ran by the third base dugout a video camera caught the runners and displayed us on the big screen in left field. Way cool!!!

Well, I made it all the way to the finish line. My first half was a couple of minutes faster than the second half so not bad at all. I ended up taking a few walk breaks the last few miles but not slow enough to keep me from attaining a secondary goal. My first goal was always to participate in the race, finish and get that pretty cool medal. A second goal was to complete the 13.1 miles in under two hours. It helped that at every mile marker there was a clock to let me know how I was doing.




Finish the race, I did and it was an incredible feeling. I wish that I could have connected with my other friends right after the race. The different starting corrals, the different times it took us to complete the distance, and the huge number of people there which overwhelmed the cell phone capacity kept us from doing that. Still it was a great weekend, one which I would love to do again over and over.

New perspective on running

With the Disneyland half marathon approaching I had the opportunity to try something I hadn't done before. No more long runs before the race, no more crazy intervals, hill workouts, just one photo scavenger fun run with the track club. OK, I did 8 miles on Saturday but that was done with an easy pace as it should have been. Yesterday there was another local event put up by Compete Green (competegreen.com), the Half Marathon of the Harbors and the Ventura Harbor 5K. Brandy and I decided to volunteer and help out by handing waters to the runners. We were assigned the first (and last water station) of the races. It was at mile 1 of the half, near the turnaround of the 5K, and it was at about the mile 12 of the half marathon since it was an out and back course.

I think we were positioned at this station since the powers to be knew we could be trusted to be figure things out. All of the supplies were dropped off at the location, all we had to do was put up the table, lay out the water cups, fill them up with water and position the trash receptacles downstream of us. Brandy was able to lay out 8 rows of 20 cups of the table, and this looked quite impressive until we realized that it was less than a third of the number of runners. We knew that it could be challenging for us but Brandy came up with a plan that if things started getting busy, one of us could pass out the water while the other started laying out more cups and filling them with water. No better plan had ever been hatched up, in my opinion and we executed it perfectly ;)

The perspective of seeing runners in a race as I just stood there was amazing. The different styles of people, regardless of how fast they were, was striking. The winner of the half marathon ran so smoothly and so quiet not only in his motion but in the amount of actual noise as his feet landed. It was quite efficient no matter how you look at his movement. The leading woman was somewhat of a contradiction. Her lower bidy moved the way I expected but she swung her upper body from side to side, but you can't really say anything about it as she was the leading female.

As for the 5K it was easy to note the new 5K runners. Since we were near the turnaround spot for the race we were "only" 1.5 miles from the start. The lead runners didn't even think about taking water but the mid pack runners were happy to see us and gladly took water. I had never been thanked so much for such a small thing, never had I seen such grateful faces for a cup of water. Hopefully I am half as grateful and thankful to the volunteers in the races in which I am entered. It was a great experience and one I would love to have again in the future.

I'm baaacckkk!!!

OK, somehow I got lazy and just plain forgot to post new stuff or got too busy with work. Regardless I am back. It is now mid-August and lots have happened on the running front with me. Actually, it's basically I have done more running in races and have actually improved my time. I have been in a 10K race and a handful of 5Ks. The 10K was the Channel Islands 4th of July race at the Channel Islands harbor and I have run in the Salsa Dash 5K, the Ventura Tiki Run 5K, and in two of the Harbor Lights series of 5Ks.

All of these races were done locally and obviously in very flat and almost ideal conditions. The Channel Islands 10K was only my second one ever and I had high hopes of finishing this one under an hour - the Old Agoura 10K was hilly and I did that one in 1:01 - and I completed this in 53:40. I think I could have done it faster but I went out a little too fast in the beginning, getting to mile 1 in under 8:30. I was still just getting used to running fast, after I got "promoted" in the running club to run with the fast runners. Still I was happy with that race.

The next race was my first of two Harbor Lights 5K a couple of weeks later. I had read that for the short races like a 5K I should warm up properly beforehand, to go out and run almost as far as a 5K before the race itself. I went out to the mile 1 marker in a good pace, about 9 minutes and then jogged/walked back to the start. I then did a few strides right before the race to get my legs going. The race starts and I go at what felt like a comfortable pace. Mile 1 comes and I am at 8:05, too fast I think. Slowing down a bit for the second mile and I get there at about 8:30 but still I felt good. I was able to ramp it up a bit at the end as I was kept pace with and eventually passed others and I crossed the finish line in 25:17, a new PR! My previous fast time in an official race was 27:19, and about 26:50 on my own so this was awesome.

The next race was the Salsa Dash in downtown Oxnard, also a flat course. I didn't run the first mile of the course itself before the race but I did run around a few other blocks in the area to warm up, and then I did strides. Guess this worked well as I went out at and reached the mile 1 marker at 7:20, too fast but I noticed that it was about 0.1 miles too short. I slowed a bit but not too much as I felt pretty good. Mile 2 was at 16:05 which made me happy. Mile 3 I followed someone and I knew he was going for it. Saw the finish line and was able to kick it up a bit and crossed the finish line at 24:23, another PR! I'm really liking this warm up before a race, and of course the flat course on a cool overcast day doesn't hurt. Later this same day I ran the Ventura Tiki Run with Becky - two 5Ks on either end of the same day. I had no visions of running this fast, just to run alongside Becky as she put in some miles as part of her worko-up towards Disneyland half.

Was able to run in another of the Harbor lights race the following week and improved my time from the previous week in another sub-25 minute run, 24:52. Guess all of the track workouts are helping. Not sure how much more time I can take off but I know it can't be much on a 5K. I just can't see myself doing a sub-7 minute pace for a 5K. I don't think I want to hurt that much as part of my running.

This past Saturday I ran 10 miles easy. Michelle from Inside Track commented that I should have run with the fast runners who wanted to run with a 9 minute pace. I told her this was too fast for me for an easy run. She told me that I have to start changing the way I run, to lift up my legs a little more. I think this may mean a longer stride, or maybe even a quicker turnover. Told her no changes for me until after Disneyland, so I have a few weeks of this shuffling along for me. Kinda scared about the change as it will probably mean I can't go for longer runs or will tire out faster or whatever else I can think of because I am a wimp and hate change. Stand by to see what these changes in my stride are ...

O2O is done

Well, all I can say is that I showed up and I was able to go from the start of the race and made it all the way to the finish line. OK, there is a little more to it than that. After a couple of months of training for this the race finally was here. 6 am is way too early to start a race, but it's the same time the Disneyland half marathon will start in September. So this was good for me to figure out how early to get up for that one. With the start of the race near the Ventura Pier I was given a tip to park over across the freeway near Walden Surfboards, then just go on the overpass to the start line. Great tip and thanks Brandy. Walden Surfboards donated some old boards to be used as mile markers for this race, and the full marathon associated with it. Great way to reuse surfboards that could have gone to a landfill. Way to help out with the green theme of the event and its coordinator/producer Compete Green.

Because of some light rain late Saturday night, early Sunday morning the PA system to be used at the start wasn't working. Something about water and electricity not working well together. Some confusion reigned in the beginning but most of the racers understood the difficulty in setting up a race, and this being the first one, problems were bound to happen. Lack of a starting mat was very apparent to the racers but with a relatively small pack - less than 300, it seemed that people positioned themselves well enough according to their abilities. I figured that I would be about in the middle so I started in the middle. The bike/walkway was crowded but everybody behaved well enough and no one fell, at least I didn't see anyone fall.

By the time I got by the pier, less than a half mile into the race, the crowd was spreading out well enough. A mile into the race I saw a coworker sitting in his van as he was taking some time off before heading back out to the surf. He told me later that he loved having the racers ther as the parking lot was full, and it kept a lot of other surfers away from some choice waves that day. Because of construction still taking place near the river mouth the course was re-done at a fairly late time and I thought the turnaround was placed a little too early. My GPS verified this thought later.

I began to pick off some people and fear crossed my mind - was I going out too fast? I got to the mile 2 marker and my watch said that I just did the second mile in 6:35!! It didn't feel like I was going that fast but I slowed down abit. Then I figured out that the turnaround was too early, maybe two minutes early at my pace. By mile 4 more runners were picked off and this time I felt that most of them had gone out way too fast. I thought my pace was okay but my legs were feeling a little tired already. What was up with that? OK, what should I do?

I brought along some gummi bears as my fuel food for the race. Simple candy, lots of sugar for energy and it doesn't bug my stomach. What I didn't account for was how hard it is to chew and swallow those things while running. I chewed on some for almost a half mile when I came upon some bathrooms at mile 6. I decided to stop and use the facility and give myself time to chew the bears. Had a little extra burst of energy but that was due to stopping for about 45 seconds. Another two miles into it I stopped near mile 8 to fill up my water bottle and chug down some gatorade. I wasn't panicking but my legs were tired and I was really beginning to labor. Found some people that I had been passing and having them pass me during my stops, and I tried to follow them as best as I can.

There was a man who, from the start, was breathing hard and I thought couldn't make it to the end. I kept passing him with ease but he just kept a constant pace and would catch up with me during my stops. At mile 10 I started to walk a bit, about 30 seconds before running for a few minutes. He would catch me when I would walk and I would pass him when I ran. At mile 11 the group of people that were just slightly ahead of me started to pull away. By mile 11.5 the heavy breather passed me and I was never able to pass him again. I was spent. I had to figure out how I could finish this race. I couldn't run more than a half mile bfore my legs would just about give out. Walking fast helped me keep going. It was a struggle but I kept at it. Somehow the gap in front of me matched the gap behind me. It seemed as if I wasn't going to pass anyone else, no one else was gonna pass me unless I stopped. So forward I kept going.

I knew that there weren't many photographers in the course so I could get away with not having a picture of me walking. I know, vanity rules. Just about a quarter mile from the pier the photographer sat and waited and I made sure that I would take a little walk break just before that so he can catch me as I was running and then keep on running to the finish line. It was a struggle. I wasn't able to muster any energy for any kind of kick at the finish. It took all I had to cross the line and have a smile. I knew that I was going to do it in under two hours, a PR, and that was all I needed to know.

I did take some pictures during the race, none came out really well. The ones I took after the race came out pretty good so here are a few of them. I was able to finish a couple of minutes ahead of Brandy to catch her as she crossed the finish line. Luckily I was able to catch my breath, get something to munch and drink and compose myself in time for her moment in glory. She was able to complete the race within her goal time and set a new PR herself.

We stuck around long enough to cheer on other runners we knew. Most of them were in the half marathon but there were a couple that ran the full marathon. Here is Paul as he crossed the line. The half marathon is quite a distance and it makes the full fairly daunting. Not sure if and when I will be able to attempt it.

Here's me and Brandy with Tom, the coach of the Inside Track Running Club and co-owner of Compete Green. This is the first marathon/half marathon race that Compete Green set out to do and I think it went as well to be expected. There were some problems. The half marathon course was about a hlaf mile too short but it was due to the problems caused by the construction at the end of the promenade. I am sure next year's race will be better. Definitely planning on running it again next year.

Ahhh, the knowledge that I had finished a race. No, a half marathon. With my medal around my neck and completing the race in under two hours, regardless of the fact that it was a half mile short, was just a good feeling. Runner's high, so natural, so good.