Gears for Days + Race Week!

Sorry for the delay, things have been so busy in the last couple of weeks! When I've had the time to update the blog I haven't been able to find the energy, and when I've had the energy somehow I just couldn't find the time. But I am home recovering from a routine medical procedure today & taking the opportunity to get a couple of new posts up!

My Giant Race 10K race report is up! My race was not great and also the race *itself* was not great, so if you want to go read about all the hilarious reasons why, be my guest!

In the mean time, let us review my last training week before that race and how it went down.

Race Report: The Giant Race 10K 2022

Why did I sign up for this race?

The Giant Race is a mainstay of the San Francisco road racing scene, historically offering a pretty flat & fast (not to mention scenic!) 5K, 10K, and half over two days (though this year there was no half), but for one reason or another I've never run it. Actually I know one reason I've never run it and that's because of the price. The 10K cost me $90 and the 5K was $75, and those were the early bird prices before service fees, optional bib mailing, if you want the swank VIP package, etc. 💸💸💸

Especially when I first moved to SF 14 years ago, that was farrrr to rich for my blood. This year I was willing to swing it for a few reasons:

• I wanted to get in a mid-distance race this summer but my dates were pretty constrained due to dumb amount of travel over the summer & early fall & a bunch of weekends already booked up with stuff, so my options for local races, especially in the 10K range, were pretty sparse.
  
• The start/finish is a very quick and easy BART ride or a very reasonable 3-mile warm-up jog from my house. No driving or getting up butt early required!
• Related, no hotel needed, making this one actually *cheaper* than two of the four races I ran this past spring. (These two reasons alone pretty much clinched it for me.)
  
• The course has historically been pretty flat & fast.
• In terms of favorable August weather conditions, SF is about as dependable as it gets.

 

And then what happened?

Road Warrior Kitchen: Tacos Edition + One Week to Giant Race!

Just one more week until The Giant Race 10K!

This week was once again a little odd because we spend the weekend camping with a *different* group of friends. Why? Frankly, because we both love camping and are really terrible at actually planning it, so our strategy is mostly to sidle up to other friends we know like camping and are better at planning, talk about how much we like camping, and then glom on to the group camping trips that *they* plan. It's working out pretty well tbh, so I've got no real plans to do anything differently.

Each couple/family on this particular trip took on one meal to prepare for the group, so we made build-your-own tacos for Saturday night. We made everything except the guac at home in advance so that the only thing we had to do at the campsite was heat up the ingredients & set them out.

Too busy having fun to take photos during the camping trip it so please enjoy this documentation of me crushing an entire head of garlic to make carnitas for Saturday night camp dinner

Camping in Big Sur + I'm not really into goal setting, BUUUUUUTTT........

Hello! I am just back from a lovely weekend camping with friends in Big Sur, which I solidly recommend. Ask me anything about how to do it.

Enough frivolous joy & natural beauty, on to running stuff.

My strength coach (who is not a runner, but very knowledgeable about strength training in general, and has been very enthusiastic in learning more about running and coaching runners' strength work) occasionally asks me about what my goals are for upcoming races. 

And back in the day I used to get super into that stuff, setting "A" goals and "B" goals and so on down the alphabet, investing each with certain levels of meaning and import and in some sense kind of judging the whole endeavor by how far up the alphabet I managed to pull off on one random morning. 

But to be honest I've kind of been dodging that question every time he asks, tossing out noncommittal responses like, "Oh, you never know what will happen, I'm just going to try to run my best," or "It doesn't really matter, I just want to feel like I ran an honest race." 

Which isn't untrue; I've definitely accepted the reality that there are a LOT of things on race day that you can't control, and you can definitely work hard and do everything "right" and still not have the day you want.

I'm also more apt now to think in terms of process goals rather than outcome goals; you may not be able to control every variable on race day, but you CAN set process goals that you have a lot more control over. Time goals for me have really been out the window since before the pandemic, but I have been all over some serious process goals in the last say year or so, including but not limited to:

Home Again, Home Again + Dissociating is Underrated

Friends, I am here today to preach the good news of completely dissociating while running. Okay, maybe not completely dissociating. But largely. And not 100% of the time but, y'know, a lot of the time.

People will be like, "You gotta be fully engaged in the run! You gotta FEEL IT in ur BODY, get ur MIND all INTO IT!" And you know what, if that works for you, great. Get it. Feel your body or whatever. Some of us, though, only have so much mental "in-it-ness" or whatever you want to call it, and we have to be careful about where we spend it. 

I've always had a sense that, at least for me, running "hard" (whether that's racing, speed work, tempo runs, or some other workout where you're trying to hit a particular pace) doesn't only take physical effort; it's mentally taxing as well, in the same way that playing a complex and stressful game or taking a timed and detail-oriented entrance exam can be. (Think Chess tournaments, LSAT/MCAT/bar exam, etc.) In addition to being physically rested and recovered, you also need a certain "mental freshness" to do it well. I wasn't sure whether this was just me or a real thing until I read something Shalane Flanagan said about racing marathons:

Spain Photo Dump + 4 Weeks to Giant Race 10K!

Hello, all! I'm back from my conference in Spain & catching up on training logs such as they are. Not a ton of running got done over these 12 days, but it wasn't zero running, and on the plus side, I took some cool photos.

*~*~The Giant Race 10K Week 4 of 9~*~*~

Grand Total: 22 miles

* 20 easy
* 2 speed

Monday 7/11: Rest

Tuesday 7/12: 1 hour strength + 8 easy errand run. My trainer was out so no strength on Tuesday, just a very draining "easy" eight miles that I tried to use to run some errands (mostly grocery shopping) because I had too much to do & not enough time to do it. 🙈 GODDD I was tired!

Wednesday 7/13: 2 warm up, 10 x 1:00 hill repeats/recovery jogs, 2 cool down = 8 total. I have no good hills for this sort of thing even remotely close to home. Sigh.

Thursday 7/14: 6 easy. I was kind of nuts getting ready to leave & just couldn't make this one happen.

Friday 7/15: On a plane! No running.

Saturday 7/16: 6 easy if jet-lagged miles around Parque El Retiro in Madrid. Madrid was triple digits the entire time I was there but the nice thing about jet-lag is that you're usually wide-awake by 5am. Okay 7am. In any case by 9:30 I was out the door and it was still relatively pleasant out, so I used the opportunity to jog around the park and stop for photos. The heat didn't get too bad but MAN I got so thirsty and spent so much of this run looking for water fountains & sprinklers to drink out of and/or run through.

Back to Spain + 7 Weeks to Giant Race!

Howdy partners! Week 3 of Giant Race 10K is in the books and it was a pretty good one, though I definitely had some moments of fatigue as I stacked two 40+ weeks together for the first time in a while. 

Iberia is once again calling my name, so I'll be flying back to Spain this coming Thursday for about 12 days or so. Actually it is a work conference that is calling my name. But if you have to go to a work conference, Spain is not the worst destination I can think of.

I am hoping to get in as much regular training while I'm there as possible; Coach has given me some dialed-back workouts and easy runs for most of the trip, so I'm planning to just do what I can, whenever I can. I do love combination running/sightseeing but considering it will be triple-digit highs, we'll have to see how feasible that is. 

40+ miles & feeling good + 8 Weeks to Giant Race!

Week 2 is in the books!

As I mentioned last week, the Road Warrior got back to #roadwarrioring this week with a five-day work trip to inland Southern California where it was 112F in the shade, BOOOO. 

In the past when I've been down there for this project I haven't usually pushed myself to complete workouts necessarily & mostly just tried to fit in whatever miles I could on the hotel treadmill. I have a lot of travel this summer, though, so I wanted to try my best to try to do the workouts as/when assigned. I know it can be done, it just takes a little more planning than I've sometimes had the bandwidth for in the past.

The Road Warrior is Back + 9 weeks to Giant Race 10K!

 ...And weekly training journals are back!

I returned from vacation in the middle of the week so in addition to Week 1 of Giant Race training, I'm also including a **bonus** Week 0 training journal AT NO ADDITIONAL COST so that you know you're not missing A SINGLE MOMENT of my 9 (& a half) week journey to The Giant 10K. See how mama takes care of you.

Now friends, I'm sure you all know the struggle of returning to Regular Life after a long-ish vacation. I'm not gonna lie; those first few days were a bit rough. It's not that we were completely sedentary on our trip; we actually did quite a lot of walking, and even some pretty vertical hiking. That said, it was a specifically wine-and-food focused trip, and there was still a good deal of sitting on various planes, trains, and automobiles, and unlike on November's Portugal trip, I did not go running even once.

The day after we got home, I put on running clothes & went out for a nice, slow, easy, four-mile amble, just to flush out the legs and gently reintroduce to them the idea of moving at a pace faster than a brisk walk. We made it through okay but I'm not joking when I tell you I was actually sore the next day!

Not too sore to get in another four easy miles, though. I thought Coach would ease me back into training pretty gently, and, wellll sort of??? But not that gently! 🤣🤣

~*~*~ The Giant Race 10K Week 0 of 9 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 25 miles

* 22 easy
* 3.5 speed
* 5 tempo/threshold

Wednesday 6/15: 4 easy. Just easing back into things with a little jet lagged jog!

Thursday 6/16: 4 more easy.

Friday 6/17: Coach said "Alright enough of this, 7 easy, get after it!"

Saturday 6/18: Rest. OMG you guys. I had the option of three easy miles this day but I was legit sore from *all that running* after three weeks of vacay. So rest. I regret nothing.

Sunday 6/19: Coach said "Alright enough resting, 10-12 miles including 5 x 3 min baby tempo intervals with 2 min jog recoveries." I did 10 and that was PLENTY. It was hot AF and not gonna lie, I was still kind of sore. BUT BUT BUT! I can still run mid-to-low 7:xx's without too much trouble, which, after vacation, feels like a win.

~*~*~ The Giant Race 10K Week 1 of 9 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 38 miles

* 17.6 easy
* 3.4 speed
* 5 tempo/threshold
* 12 long

Monday 6/20: Rest

Tuesday 6/21: 1 hour strength + 6 easy in the shockingly hot sun 🥵. Friends I am not used to it being ninety-frickin-three in San Francisco at 11:00am. Just rude.

Wednesday 6/22: 3 warm up, 3 x (4 x 200m/200m)/2:00 min jog, 3 cool down 8 mile progression run. The track was closed for a soccer game (it's that time of year again!) so I improvised by switching today's workout with Friday's. I have to say I was pretty shocked at how comfortable low 8:xx/high 7:xx was feeling, which is not always the case! I finished miles 6 & 7 in the 7:30s and when I think back to how devastatingly impossible that pace felt in late 2020/early 2021, it makes me so grateful for how good I am feeling these days when I try to run fast (y'know, for me).

Thursday 6/23: Massage + 3 easy Post-vacation my right hip/lower back definitely needed some attention!

Friday 6/24: Chiro session + 3 warm up, 3 x (4 x 200m/200m)/2:00 min jog, 2.6 cool down = 9 total. Definitely not feeling the lightness pop in my legs that one likes to feel on track day, but Og didn't give a shit. My left hamstring was feeling a bit tight so Og was like, "Just not hammer so hard, focus on leg speed & turnover, interval times not matter so much." As usual, Og, you are completely correct. (For the record, the times were completely respectable, especially for not hammering them particularly hard and coming off of three weeks of no running.)

Saturday 6/25: Rest

Sunday 6/26: 12 long. The Road Warrior is officially #roadwarrioring again -- I had to catch a flight to Palm Springs in the early afternoon, which meant getting up a bit early Sunday to get my long run in before finishing up my packing and heading to the airport. The last time I ran 12 miles was May 8, and I could definitely feel it in my legs! Also my body is just really not a fan of hopping right out of bed and out the door and I started off feeling like I'd already run 15 miles. 😱 I honestly was not sure how I was going to get through twelve entire miles but just kept grinding away at one more mile until the thing was done.

~ * ~ * ~

I'm going to attempt to train through all my various upcoming work travel to the extent that I can, but we'll see how it goes. I have three runs to do over the next four days of work travel, so fingers crossed that I'll be able to balance it all with the work stuff. 🤞🤞🤞

Summer Planzzzzzz....

 Hello friends!

I'm back from an amazing Iberian vacation (photos coming soon) and ready to run-ble (see what I did there? Sorry not sorry). Also please enjoy this photo I got from Stow Lake Stampede:

I have some I don't want to say *big* plans in the works, but let's just say, big-ger plans than I've been willing to entertain in a while. Why?

Race Report: Hellyer 5K

If you caught this post, you know I've been feeling overwhelmed at work and also a bit burned out on running and especially hard training lately, so I've been giving myself a little break from the pressure of sticking to a training plan. I decided not to run Stowe Lake since I am now in terrible (or at least far from great) shape and had not actually registered for it yet. However, since I'd paid for this race and it was just a low-key community 5K, I decided to go ahead and do it.

Originally this was supposed to be an all-out race pace effort, sort of a dress rehearsal for Stowe Lake in two weeks. But given the burnout situation I told myself that the point was now just to have fun and enjoy running (remember how you LIKE running and it's actually FUN when you don't put tons of pressure on yourself???). All I had to do was show up, run whatever pace felt good, and if it was slow and bad, oh well, at least I got out of the house & got a workout in and an Alice in Wonderland medal & had fun.

(Now, here is some honest talk that I don't know how I feel about. I think I've always placed in my age group at Brazen 10Ks and sometimes been top three overall, but I took a peek at last year's Hellyer 5K results and, based on the times, saw that if I ran it with any amount of speed, even way off my recent 5K times, I actually had a shot at winning overall. And I would be lying a little bit if I didn't think to myself, "You know, San Jose is a long way to go for a 5K, but if you have a chance at actually winning..."

Race Report: San Jose Shamrock Run 10K

Long time, no post!

To be honest I've been a bit down about running lately & didn't even bother running the March 3 5K I was signed up for a couple of weeks back because it was stressing me out so much. I have more to say about that, but the tl;dr of it is that (thanks in part to bt), I WAS able to psyche myself up for a local 10K over St. Patrick's Day weekend and it went relatively well, so for now, let's all just enjoy a relatively positive race report!

I found this race when I was just going through lists of races that could work with my schedule. There were a few different Bay Area options for a St. Patrick's Day race, but this one was the closest & looked to have the best course and was also put on by Represent Running, a reputable Bay Area race company, so it made it to the long list and then the short list of spring options.

It was the first one I was really supposed to RACE-race, but given how spotty my training has been lately, it was hard to get too excited about that. I did not feel like I was in great shape and it's hard to get psyched for an all-out effort when you're pretty sure you're only going to end up with a mediocre result. Sure, I could just go and do it as a workout (or even just an easy run), but I never find that very satisfying, and if I'm just going to do a workout or easy run, let's be real, I'd rather not get up at ass-o-clock in the morning and drive for an hour.

"Race" Report: Kaiser Permanente 10K 2019

So, first, a little background. I ran this half marathon in 2010 and the 5K in 2011, and registered for the half on two other occasions where I was unable to run because of an injury. Last year while training for Boston I signed up for the half *again*, super excited to run it when I felt like I was in pretty good shape, but alas a couple of weeks beforehand I did something terrible to my hip and couldn't run for a week. It was on the upswing so I decided I'd go ahead and start but fully expected it would still hurt too much to run 13 miles when I'd only gotten back to running 2-3 easy miles at a stretch, and sure enough, I had to drop out at mile 4. Feeling like I had unfinished business, I immediately took advantage of the cheap "re-run" registration.

Then Boston happened, and Big Sur, and a two-month break from running, and deciding to target Wharf-to-Wharf six-miler in summer 2019 as my next big A race. So when Kaiser announced that they would now be adding a 10K distance, I jumped at the chance to practice running sixish miles in my backyard.

Imagine my confusion when I got TWO different-colored bibs in the mail! I completely forgot that I'd registered for the half already when I registered for the 10K, kind of a bummer since I probably could have just dropped down in distance for free. Ah well!

Oops

2019 Races: January through April

Friends, can you believe the calendar's about to flip again?? What the heck?

I am wrapping up work stuff & packing today & tonight, & then tomorrow we jet off to Eastern Washington to spend Christmas week with Don's parents. Then it's back home for one day, & on to another plane for Mexico for New Year's week to celebrate a good friend's 40th. (Did you know Ensenada is Mexico's wine country? Did you know Mexico HAD wine country?? Me either! #TIL. I'm so pumped.)

I am waiting on race pictures to post my last race report of the year (Silicon Valley Sant Run 5K), so in the meantime, please enjoy some musings about what I might do race-wise in the first half (or so) of 2019.

When I started running again last August post-Boston, I was feeling unmotivated & in need of another big-hairy-audacious goal to chase. Eventually I settled on the Wharf-to-Wharf six-miler at the end of July and finishing in the top 100. Seven months is really too long to be one training cycle, though (at least for me), so my plan is to split January through July into two 3-3.5 month chunks with a little break in the middle, which I've started referring to as "Season 1" & "Season 2".

I think I want to run maybe 3-4 races in each season (all in the 5-10K range), with a target race at the end of each. For season 2 obviously my 'A' race will be Wharf to Wharf, and for season 1 I'm leaning toward Stow Lake Stampede 5K in Golden Gate Park. I've nailed down a few things but still need to fill some slots.

What do YOU think I should run? Here are the candidates:

Race Report: Race to the End of Summer 10K 2018

And #fallspeedfest2018 is off and running!

Race to the End of Summer was my first race since Big Sur Marathon over 4 months ago and it felt good to pin on a bib. I'd run this race twice before, in both 2016 and 2017; it's a solid local event, small and low-key but well organized, so it had been on my calendar since last year. I ran it in 2016 as my first tune up for CIM & shocked myself by running just 17 seconds off my PR & snagging 2nd overall & 1st in my age group (it's a small race) after just a few weeks of training (mostly lots of easy jogging) & only three speed workouts. Then last year (during the Bay Area's record-setting heatwave, after two days of moving & a night of basically no sleep) I completely fell apart & ran by far the worst 10K of my life. Clearly I had unfinished business with this race!

This year, as in 2016, I was only a few weeks back into running, almost all slow easy miles, & just three workouts (& oh yeah those eight weeks I took completely off from running after Boston 2 Big Sur). In a way, this took some of the pressure off--this was just my first race of an 18 week #fallspeedfest season, so all I really wanted to do was go in as fresh as possible, run hard, and not wimp out in order to get a baseline for the rest of the fall.

Race Discount Code! (And, Building a Race Season)

I was thinking about it the other day and realized that since I started running marathons in December 2011, there's been extremely little time when I haven't had one on the calendar *somewhere*. After CIM 2011, I waited maybe 6-8 months to sign up for CIM 2012. I signed up for Mountains 2 Beach 2013 before CIM 2012, and then after M2B I had a gap of about three months before I signed up for the 2014 Napa Valley Marathon (which I deferred a year because of a stress fracture). But other than those two gaps, at least as well as I can remember, I have always had a marathon somewhere on my race calendar, even if it was a nearly year and a half out.

It's pretty safe to say that I'm feeling satisfied on that front, for now; after so many marathons where something went wrong, I spent a long time feeling like I had unfinished business with the whole thing and just wanted one good, solid 26.2 where my training went well and I didn't get sick or injured and the weather cooperated. I feel like I finally got that at CIM 2016, but of course after that there was no question but that I was then going to run Boston (and Big Sur!) since I had the opportunity and might never get it again.

Discount Code: Race to the End of Summer!

Hi Bay Area friends,

Just a quick reminder about one of my new favorite local races as you begin to think about your fall race schedule. In both 2016 and 2017 I ran the Race to the End of Summer 10K in San Jose, and had a great time! There's also a 5K as well as a half marathon option. AND, I have a sweet $7 discount code (AK2018) for you to use for any distance.

The race is Sunday, September 2, & takes place near the Coyote Creek trail in San Jose. It's not a super pricey event, BUT the first increase is coming up on March 15, so if you register soon and use the code, that's $18 for the 5K, $23 for the 10K, or $43 for the half. Not a bad deal!

Race Report: Rock N Roll San Jose Half Marathon (& 5K/10K)

***Update: You guys, I just realized that this was my 20th half marathon!!! I'll just be sitting at home awaiting my extra-special bonus medal that I assume someone somewhere will put in the mail to me, since there is apparently one of those for every possible running accomplishment imaginable.***

I've had a super tough time lately getting back to this little corner of the internet, but last week I did manage to post a pre-race update on The Instagrams:

My friends are the best.

ICYMI I had one of the worst races of my life a month ago (Race to the End of Summer 10K), which felt extra-special bad since last year in that same race I was 2nd overall, 1st in my age group, and came within spitting distance of felling a four-year-old PR. My training had been better this year and I thought for sure I'd at least beat last year's time and maybe even PR.

But you know what they say: Never tell the universe your plans!

Even before that, though, 2017 had been one awful race after another in spite of the fact that my training has been going reasonably well. So, there is definitely a part of me that was trying to a) brace myself for an awful RNRSJ and b) figure out what the heck I was going to do with myself emotionally if it happened.

And you know what? That's exhausting.

Race Report: Race to the End of Summer 10K

Every now and then, you have a race that leaves you staring breathlessly at your watch going, "Holy f***ing shit!! How the hell did THAT happen?"

Well, I had one of those races on Sunday. Except not in the way that you generally hope for.

I ran this race last year as an early tune-up for CIM. It was cheap and reasonably close to home and looked fairly flat and fast, except for maybe the fact that it's in San Jose during the summer and thus likely to be hot. Let me also say that I didn't have the highest of expectations last year because after running possibly my slowest marathon ever (or pretty close, anyway) at the end of April, I took May more or less off, spent most of June consuming LOTS of dairy, whisky, & other not-particularly-healthy things & getting basically zero physical activity, and returned at the end of the month pretty darn out of shape and unable to fit comfortably into most of my clothes.

Knowing I had just two months to prep for a 10K and five for CIM, I got straight to work running 40+ easy miles a week & lifting three times a week. I didn't have much hope that I'd get very far in eight weeks (including only three not-that-intense speed workouts), so I was utterly stunned to run 44:38, just 17 seconds off my PR, and come in 1st in my age group and 2nd overall. I think I spent a solid five minutes staring at the official results going "HOW?????" But hey, I'll take it! And when the race organizers sent out a $25 re-run offer for next year, I figured, why not?

So, here we are, next year. I'm certainly no longer in the shape I was in for CIM, but for the last few months my mileage has been in the 40+ range and pretty darn consistent, including reasonably intense speed and tempo/threshold workouts twice weekly. I haven't been in the gym three days a week without fail, but I've been making it twice a week pretty regularly (and I can squat and deadlift a LOT more than I could last summer, which should at least theoretically translate into power). So part of me felt like, "Surely I should be in the same ballpark as last year, and maybe even faster."

On the other hand, I've mentioned many times lately just how exhausted these 40+ weeks have left me, which seems silly. I can't ever remember feeling so worn out, even running 50+ miles a week. My speed workouts have been fine but my last two threshold workouts were the worst I can ever remember in terms of just plain not being able to run the target paces, by more than a little. So another part of me has not felt that confident about this 10K at all.

Race Report: Victory 10K

Alternative title: There's Always Room for More Navel Gazing!

This post will be mostly about Victory 10K but, full disclosure, it's also a lot of me having an existential running crisis, because these are the times we live in & it's semi-semi-semi-relevant. You've been warned.

(Also: Apparently there were no photos taken of me running so please enjoy the many, many incredibly thoughtful animated gifs with which I have accented this post. #yourewelcome)

(UPDATE: Turns out you get one real photo. Enjoy!)