Race Report: Oakland Twilight 5000m 2024

Why did I sign up to run this race? 

No joke, I have been trying to get a track race in since 2017! I tried twice that summer to run a track 5K and both times had to pull up short with a sudden calf strain. Since then I'd mostly been focused on other things, but a few years back, Tracksmith started their Twilight 5000 summer series, in which the company hosts a series of multi-heat 5000m track races around the country. When you sign up, you enter an estimated finish time, and then based on those times, they organize everyone into heats of ~40 people or so. (Estimated finish times range from 45:00 to sub-15:00 and there's also a kids' 500m heat, so definitely a heat for juuuuust about everyone who cares to run.)

Last year (2023), I signed up to run the San Francisco edition, but then--no joke--strained a calf muscle during a track workout a week before. 🤬 It had improved somewhat by race day but not even close enough to consider racing, so instead I cheered on my teammates and took photos. Having missed out, this year I signed up (as did many others) for both the Oakland and San Francisco iterations.

A couple of shots from SF Twilight 2023 last July

And then what happened?

Race Report: Impala Stampede 5K 2024

Why did I sign up to run this race? 

This race has I think been a Pacific Association race & part of the Road Short Course Grand Prix since its inception. Up until this year it had been called the Stow Lake Stampede, but with the renaming of Stow Lake (for very good reasons), the race needed a new moniker as well. Since "Blue Heron Lake Stampede" doesn't quite roll off the tongue in the same way, the race ended up taking the name of its sponsoring team. Because it's a PA race and starts literally three miles from my house, I signed up for it a long time ago because it's an easy way to help meet my team obligation of running eight PA races per year.

And then what happened?

Race Report: Mile of Truth 2024

Why did I sign up to run this race? 

This race has often been a Pacific Association race & part of the Road Short Course Grand Prix. (This year it was also the USATF Masters Road Mile Championship, which means some REALLY FAST masters were out there competing for an individual national title.) I ran it last year more as a warm body than anything else because we needed three masters women and no one else was available. 

To refresh your memory, I had a rough spring of running & racing in 2023. I'd been fighting with various injuries on and off for months and because of that really struggling to run more than 6-7 miles at a stretch, let alone get in anything resembling a workout. I ran an absolute dumpster fire of a 10-miler in early April, then had a bunch of travel over the next two weeks that culminated in getting Covid about a week and a half before the Masters 10K National Team Championships in Dedham, Massachusetts. There were only three of us going at all, and it was really a race against time in terms of testing negative so I could get on the plane in good conscience. (If you've never raced a 10K the week after having Covid, I do not recommend it!) The Mile of Truth was just six days later and I was really, really hoping someone else would end up available, but a couple days out it became clear it was just my two teammates and me.

Because there was no one else, I showed up, definitely not fully recovered from Covid and definitely DEFINITELY not recovered from racing a hilly 10K in the rain while *barely* not sick with Covid. I told the ladies I would do it but just, it would be a gd miracle if I managed to run even *one* sub-seven mile. They said all I had to do was show up and do my best, so that's what I did.

Mile of Truth 2023. My official time was 6:58, so. Who delivers for you, babe? 

Now. I am not nor have I ever *really* been a miler, so I wasn't personally invested in my time in this race at all. Though I have sometimes been curious about what kind of time I could run in an all-out mile if I really trained for it and had a good day. A funny thing happened after running this race in 2023, though, which was that I suddenly became really really curious about that, especially given that I knew circumstances were so especially bad for me on THAT day. I resolved there and then to run the race again in 2024 and to be in at least better-than-passable shape for it, even if I didn't specifically train for the mile.

And then what happened?

Race Report: Eugene Half Marathon 2024

Why did I sign up to run this race? 

The truth is, I got peer pressured by teammates. 🤣 I had a few shorter races on the schedule for the year but nothing that felt "big-ish," so when a group was planning to make a trip to Eugene with various members running the half or full, I decided to jump in for the half.

And then what happened?

I had a pretty solid February and March, but April was a bit catch-as-catch-can with all my various work and personal travel. By the end of the month I was feeling a bit run-down and struggling to recover super well from hard runs, but I was still excited for the trip to Eugene and to see how all my work over the spring would translate into the race.

Pre-race:

Eugene Half Taper Pt 2 (Eugene Half Week 8 of 8) Apr 22-28

OMG you guys. Work and life. They've been absurd lately. YES I am still out here running and racing but have not had the spare time or bandwidth to write about it. 😂 So here is the *final* installment of my Eugene Half training cycle and maybe one of these weeks I'll actually get the race report published too.

In case you missed it:

Eugene Half Week 1
Eugene Half Week 2
Eugene Half Week 3
Eugene Half Week 4
Eugene Half Week 5
Eugene Half Week 6
Eugene Half Week 7

 ~*~*~ 🦆🦆 Eugene Half Marathon Week 8 of 8 🦆🦆 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 33.07 miles

Blue = daily strain, red/yellow/green = daily recovery

Eugene Half Taper Pt 1 (Eugene Half Week 7 of 8) Apr 15-21

ICYMI, on April 13, I made an arguably (smart? stupid?) choice to spend one of my days in Philadelphia driving 2+ hours to a local community 15K so I could get one more race experience in before Eugene. (Originally I was going to run the Prospect Park 10 Mile in Brooklyn on Sunday April 14, but my conference talk got moved and when I knew I wouldn't be able to make it back in time, I had to shift to a Saturday race.)

While the race itself was generally a good experience, the drive back was not kind to my knee. By the time I finished running, it was a bit stiff and achey, and then after three hours sitting in the car driving back, it was a bit swollen and not too happy with me putting weight on it. I had planned to run seven easy miles that Sunday the day after the race, but when I got up that morning I knew it was absolutely NOT happening.

Thus, the theme of week 7 became, "For the love of god, Angela, don't wreck your knee again." Thankfully, being just two weeks out from the race, all the work was already done, and as we recently learned, extra rest is almost always only going to help you.

In case you missed it:

Eugene Half Week 1
Eugene Half Week 2
Eugene Half Week 3
Eugene Half Week 4
Eugene Half Week 5
Eugene Half Week 6

 ~*~*~ 🦆🦆 Eugene Half Marathon Week 7 of 8 🦆🦆 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 16 miles

🐌 Easy: 12.25 miles
🐎 Fast: 3.75 miles

⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 76.6% vs. 23.4%. 

Blue = daily strain, red/yellow/green = daily recovery

Race Report: Ninja 15K (Apr 13 2024)

Why did I sign up to run this race? 

I wanted to run one more race before Eugene, ideally something longer than 10K (so I could treat it as kind of a Eugene dress rehearsal/long tempo) but less than another half marathon (because I didn't want to risk getting over-excited and blowing Eugene by all-out racing two weeks before). 

One of the main reasons I wanted to do this was because back when I ran NorCal Redding 10-miler in March, I did not run a good race tactically. I knew I'd had a rough week and was not fully recovered and epically misjudged my initial effort level, and when that happened and I suddenly started to feel really really bad, I sort of had a little mini-panic attack. I spent the whole race really unhappy and desperate to quit and also watching my pace creep up and up and up no matter what I tried to do. It got a little better in the last two miles but I *really* wanted another chance to practice the mental & strategic side of things, and bonus if it was a day when circumstances are not 100% perfect (as is usually the case, if we're honest).

Originally I was going to do this 10-miler in Brooklyn on Sunday since my talk was scheduled for Saturday, but then just a few days before the talk got moved to Sunday and there was absolutely no way I was going to make it back in time. So, I poked around a bit and found this little community race about two hours from Philly put on by this group offering a 1-mile, 5K, 10K, 15K, and half marathon (!) and signed up for the 15K (which is ~9.3 of The King's miles for those keeping score at home).

And then what happened?