America’s Finest City Half Marathon
This Sunday Wife and will run 12 miles, our longest training run, and then shorten things a bit until the big race. This means that we are only two weeks away from running in America's Finest City Half Marathon, our third half marathon of the year.
If you are usually up early on weekend mornings, then you should come cheer us on. The race starts at 7 a.m. at the Cabrillo National Monument and if all goes well we should be crossing the finish line in Balboa Park sometime around 9 a.m. You can find more information and maps here.
We would love to see you there.
La Jolla Half Marathon, Check!
In my Yuri's Night post I told you about Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, and showed my new Yuri Gagarin temporary tattoo. Over two weeks, many showers, and many training runs later, the tattoo still adorned my huge bicep (and by huge, I mean muscle-less).
This past Sunday, Wife and I ran the La Jolla Half Marathon and Yuri came with us. So because he came with us, I now declare that the Yuri Gagarin temporary tattoo (as shown in the picture above) the first Yuri Gagarin temporary tattoo to run the La Jolla Half Marathon.
The morning of the race, we arrived at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, the starting point, an hour early (around 6:30 am), stretched, and hung out trying to stay warm. A few minutes after 7:30 am the horn finally sounded and we began to run. At first we ran through neighborhoods with narrow roads which meant we could not pass as many people as we would of liked to. However, this predicament changed when we came to Torrey Pines State Reserve.
The infamous hill in the reserve forced many runners to become walkers. Luckily (and much to Wife's chagrin) we had worked a lot of hills into our training runs and so we ran the entire hill (about 1.5 miles straight up) and passed a lot of people! Unfortunately it slowed us down and our dreams of running the half marathon in under 2 hours ran away.
After the grueling hill, my mother met us at mile 8 and handed us fresh water bottles to help us finish the run and cheered us on.
With the uphill comes a downhill and a large downhill is was, just as steep as the uphill but slightly shorter. The downhill sped us up but the planners of the race knew this and thwarted our haste.
For the last mile the planners once again forced us to run uphill again and after 12 miles I just wanted to lie down and sleep. Many more people fell to the hill's angular power but Wife kept nagging me and we ran it. Then came the last steep downhill to the finish line and we sprinted just to end it.
We officially crossed the finish line with a time of 2:04:53, about 8 minutes faster than our Carlsbad time. I placed 1467 place in the men's division and Wife placed in 823 in the women's.
With the race now over, we would like to thank my mother, for the fresh water bottles and for coming to cheer us on (especially since this race had about 5 people on the sidelines to clap, come on La Jolla!), and Vanessa and (her best-friend-stealing-to-another-country-boyfriend) Mark for greeting us at the finish line.
While not our favorite run due to the massive hills, and the lack of space, cheers, and a decent t-shirt, we are now two thirds of the way to the Triple Crown and have the America's Finest City Half Marathon in August. So we will take the week off, start training again, and see you all in August!
Running Diary Part Deux – Weeks 3, 4 & 5
Back in January, Wife and I ran the Carlsbad Half Marathon, my first half marathon. Those 13.1 miles were the first in a series of three half marathons, making up the Triple Crown. We are now training for the La Jolla Half Marathon on April 26th, 2009. This is week 1 and 2 of that half marathon training program.
Wow, so it has been three weeks since I last updated the running diary. So I will try and keep this relatively short since I have a lot to cover.
Tuesday - 3 miles - 27:04 (Husband)
This is the first time since we started training back in November that Wife and I ran separately. Wife ran on a treadmill because the weather was a little to cold in Seattle for her to run outside. I ran our normal 3 mile loop. I ran my fastest while wife ran a little slower, however, she set the treadmill to change inclines on her so she would get the hills in.
Friday - 5 miles - 47:43
Just the standard 5 mile loop around the neighborhood that gives us some hills to run up.
Sunday - 6 miles - 59:23
We wanted to get away from the neighborhood so we drove down to Balboa Park. The Friends of Balboa Park have mapped out and marked some great running trails. You can download the map of the trails here. The fourth route was a little short so we knew we would have to add on .6 miles. The best part of the route was not only the sites of Balboa Park you never see but the hills. During the route you run down through the cactus garden, up Pershing (a mile plus long incline), down into Florida Canyon, up Florida canyon at about 45 degrees (this hill is killer), and then up some more to the finish line. We should be able to take Torrey Pines!
Tuesday - 3 miles - 28:00
Another fun run around the neighborhood.
Friday - 5 miles - 47:05
Our fastest 5 miles yet. And we are able to talk throughout most of the run. Funny part is I was not feeling that well.
Sunday - 7 miles - 1:07:45
Still not feeling well, I did not want to miss a run. This time we headed up to the end of Adams Ave to take a look around University Heights. Mostly it is because wife likes to do house shopping. Even while sick Wife still managed to drag me to an under 10 minute mile.
Tuesday - 3 miles - 28:58
We ran this one at night because I could not run in the morning. As you can see not our best time but a decent time nonetheless.
Friday - 5 miles - 49:51
Another quick jaunt around the ol' neighborhood.
Sunday - 8+ miles - 1:15:00ish
We were under a tight deadline and had to be home by 11:30 (Wife had to work), so that meant our plans to run in La Jolla were dashed. Instead we decided to run the Balboa Park loop with some additional mileage added on. Unfortunately our GPS watched died (I forgot to charge it) at about mile 1 so you can see that our time and length is a guesstimate. According to mapmyrun.com we ran over 8 miles (I underestimated the distance added). That made us feel good because that was an 8+ mile run with the same big hills (Pershing and Florida Canyon).
Only four more weeks until La Jolla. So far we are feeling good and ready!
Running Diary Part Deux – Weeks 1 & 2
Back in January, Wife and I ran the Carlsbad Half Marathon, my first half marathon. Those 13.1 miles were the first in a series of three half marathons, making up the Triple Crown. We are now training for the La Jolla Half Marathon on April 26th, 2009. This is week 1 and 2 of that half marathon training program.
After a nice long break the time came to restart our running regime. We are using almost the exact same program that we created for the Carlsbad Half Marathon. However, from the start we will only be running 3 times a week as opposed to 4. We will also try to run faster. When we trained last time we averaged an 11 minute mile and ran a 10 minute mile during the half marathon. This time our goal is to shave off a minute from our miles during training and hopefully run a 9 minute mile during the next race. So now I will also include our times to help us stay on track!
Wednesday - 2 miles - 20:02
A nice short run and a great way to restart the training. We knew we could go farther but we wanted to take it easy on ourselves in order to prevent old injuries from coming back. We felt good and made record time.
Friday - 3 miles - 28:00
We followed our normal route around East Mountain View. We like it because it is a big loop and we end a block or two away from the condo, depending on how well the GPS tracks us. As you can see from our time we booked it (at least by our standards). A conversation was hard to have but we ran fast and felt good at the end.
Sunday - 3 miles - 27:48
Our same route and even faster then on Friday. The conversation died at about mile 2 but we kept on our good pace!
Tuesday - 3 miles - 28:16
Not as fast as Sunday but still a respectable time. We just ran around the ol' loop just to keep things simple on this early morning run.
Thursday - 4 miles - 39:19
We have been told their are two killer hills (one is really bad) during the La Jolla Half Marathon. So we have changed our route to include more hills. They may not be big, but at least they have an incline. So we obviously slowed our mile time a bit but hey, we made it down and up the hills in under 40 minutes!
Saturday - 5 miles - 47:35
At this point we don't even bother talking to each other (we still do but it is labored) because of how fast we are trying to go and the newly added hills. We ran almost the same route as the 4 mile run but added on another block and ran back to the big hill doing it twice. It felt great because we averaged around 55 minutes during our last training program and now we are down under 50 minutes.
We still have a long way to go until the April run but we are feeling better about it. Once you have done it, the second time is easier. We just need to incorporate more hills so that we do not die in the hot April sun. With two weeks behind us we look forward to our third and also something we have not done in a very long time!
Running Diary Final Week…
Wife and I are training for the Carlsbad Half Marathon in January. Wife has already run both a marathon and a half marathon so luckily she has already created a training plan. This is the final week... of that half marathon training program.
This was the final week of our training program. Time to lower our running distance and rest up for the big race.
Wednesday - 3 miles
We took the dog just around the neighborhood and the run was a little rough on our bodies. Wife's knees felt achey and I did not feel good until we hit that third mile. Just goes to show that our training now makes the first three miles tough, but it gets a lot easier once we find our rhythm.
Friday - 3 miles
Our training program wanted us to run 5 miles but Wife's knees really ached so we reduced it to 3 miles in the middle of the run. This also made the evening much more relaxed and less painful.
Sunday - 13.1 miles
Back in 1996 while nerding it up and talking about Star Trek, I met a young gentleman by the name of Tom. 13 years have now passed and luckily I still talk to this now older gentleman because he lives in Carlsbad. The Carlsbad Half Marathon started and ended at the Westfield Plaza Camino Real mall and Tom lived about 1.5 miles away. That meant we did not have to get up at 4 in the morning (like my parents did) to make it by race time at 7:30 am. However, this did lull us into complacency because we took a little longer getting out the door than we planned for.
We left Tom's place at 6:50 am and arrived a little after 7 am at the mall. We applied body glide (a godsend that must be used by every runner) and our water fanny packs and headed to the race's starting line. On our way Wife needed to use the restroom and the starting time was drawing nearer. Feeling rushed we started to run to the bathroom area and needed to get around a planter in the parking lot. I hopped through a nice break in the bush and Wife followed suit. Unfortunately, that went very wrong. Wife's foot caught the edge of the curb and she went straight down. Since I was in front of her I just heard the thump as she hit the ground and my heart sank.
I turned around to see Wife sprawled on the asphalt as her water bottle rolled past my feet. I quickly helped her up to see if she was okay. Her knees (the part that ached during the week's earlier runs) were scratched up along with her left shoulder. She held her left wrist in pain with her half marathon dreams now passing before her eyes. Someone picked up the water bottle and handed it to us as we headed toward the bathrooms discussing whether or not she wanted to run. Wife said her knees felt okay but her wrist really hurt. She used the restroom and came back out barely holding back her tears but you could see her resolve. She later shared she was trying not to cry because she was worried she wouldn't be able to breathe when the run started from all the snot! She had trained 8 weeks for this day and she wanted to run the race.
By now the race had started realeasing the waves of people. We were in wave 5 so we had a little bit of time. We headed toward our group and realized we had not yet stretched due to the incident. I tried my best but only had a few minutes and Wife did nothing as she tried to focus on anything but her wrist. Our wave moved up to the front and we went with it. The emcee picked up the bull horn and sounded the start of the race. We shuffled to the starting line, bruised (we hoped) wrist and all.
The first few miles of course were a little rough getting our bodies into a rhythm. Wife started feeling better and we started picking up a little speed. Just before mile 3 we had a little pick me up: my parents anxiously waited on the sidewalk to cheer us on. My dad tried to film us but we were just too fast even for the simple-to-use Flip camera. Soon we came out next to the ocean running in the perfect weather. Just after mile 6 we had a big hill but we ran up it and felt good. At mile 7 we passed the pace runner holding the 2:20 sign which meant we were running faster than we had expected (we thought our time would be 2:30). At mile 8.5 my parents shouted encouragements again while comfortable in their bright purple Saints jackets (it made them easy to spot).
With that extra boost we headed into the final stretch of the race with less than 5 miles to go (Wife had thought we only had 3 miles left for some reason-ah delirium). Our bodies felt great, injuries and all and we really began to push ourselves as we passed the power plant (a good visual landmark) and headed back into downtown Carlsbad. Past mile 11 we met up with Terry, Wife's parent's neighbor, but unfortunately he had just entered the walking part of his running (you run real fast, then walk, then repeat). We left him behind and then mile 12 came and we picked it up thanks to the downhill to the finish line. At mile 13 we began sprinting with only .1 miles left to go. During that last .1 miles, Wife's friend Vanessa caught us and cheered us on and in the last 100 feet, Terry's wife Ann saw us and yelled encouragements at us. We crossed the finish line tired and elated because the clock showed a time of 2:23, much better than we anticipated.
Volunteers handed us our medal for completion and we walked as best we could over to wait in front of the Sears for my parents, Tom, and Vanessa. After a bit of talking we drove back to Tom's house, conveniently located, for a shower and then off to The Broken Yolk for a well deserved breakfast. After breakfast and a nap we took Wife to the doctor to find out about her wrist. Luckily, it was only sprained and should heal just fine. After arriving back home from the doctors we checked for our time and became elated when we saw it was 2:12:05, a time of 10:05 per mile, a full minute faster than we anticipated. What a way to end the day.
Now I wrote "Final Week..." because while this race is behind us two more, La Jolla Half Marathon and the America's Finest City Half Marathon, are ahead in order to finish the Triple Crown. We will take a week off to heal the bodies but then we start into a holding pattern of running before kicking up our mileage again for the April run.
We could not have done this without encouragement from our family and friends. We would especially like to thank Tom for housing us, helping us load up on carbohydrates, and coming to support us during the race (his brother and sister-in-law raced, too), Vanessa for coming to see us and some of her friends run, and my parents for waking up early and making the trek up to cheer us on. We hope to see you all at our next run in La Jolla.
Check out our video and pictures of the race:
