Womp Womp (Kaiser Half Week 13 of 13)

The big story of this week was definitely the weather. We've been in the path of an atmospheric river here in the Bay Area this week, with one pretty bad storm Wednesday night and another forecasted for--you guessed it! Sunday morning.

Starting around midweek, the group chat was full of discussions about what to wear based on how conditions shook out and the logistics of getting in a warm-up and cool-down but also not dying of hypothermia.

Then Friday afternoon, we got the news that race organizers were changing the course due to concerns from SF Parks & Rec around the possibility of falling tree branches in the Panhandle and Golden Gate Park. Instead all three distances (5K, 10K, half) would start together & run laps up and down the Great Highway.

Obviously this was disappointing, but falling tree branches in big storms have killed and maimed enough people since I've lived here that I completely understand the decision. (Back at cross country team nationals in December 2022, a big branch fell on the course during the race, prompting race organizers to move the race to the Polo Fields. Having witnessed that I'd definitely like to NOT witness something similar again.)

And That's (Mostly) A Wrap! (Kaiser Half Week 12 of 13)

And here we are, just one week to go, all over but the tapering. This month has been a little bit of zero to ninety in some ways, and though it's gone really well and I feel fitter than I have in *quite* some time, I am also very, very tired and SUPER excited for a week of mostly four-mileish runs with non-easy work limited to some short strides here & there. It's that feeling of all the miles starting to pile up, being able to execute longer harder workouts pretty well but then feeling *suuuuuper* super fatigued at most other moments. The overall mileage and workout load of the last few weeks is definitely starting to accumulate and I am feeling it. 😂 

Most of the time when my assignment for the day has a range (ie 4-6 easy or 6-8 easy or 12-14 long), I will opt for the higher number because why not. But when I feel the way I have this week, I am instead doing  e v e r y t h i n g  I can to make easy days as easy as they can possibly be, no shame whatsoever. This week on easy days I have been doing the minimum mileage, and taking things as comfortably as I feel like, regardless of what that means for pace. Because on the big workout / long run days, I want to be able to fully execute and get the full benefit, and if I am out here adding extra easy miles when I'm already tired and pushing the pace because I'm self-conscious about what shows up on Strava, then I might not be able to do that.

On easy days towards the end of a cycle, yes, yes I do

People are always saying "Don't leave your race in a workout" but something people do not say often enough in my opinion is "Don't leave your workouts in easy days." I want to be able to run truly hard on hard days, and the only way I can do that (especially as I round the corner towards 43!) is to take the easy days truly super duper easy.

 ~*~*~ 🎡 🎡 Kaiser Permanente Half Week 12 of 13 🎡 🎡 ~*~*~

Rain, Soup, & Another 40+ Mile Week (Kaiser Half Week 11 of 13)

It's been a wet one here in the Bay Area! On the other hand the temperature has remained solidly in the mid-50s, so we really cannot complain too much considering what a lot of the rest of the country is going though.

We've also been big into soup-making over the last couple of weeks, which will maybe prompt me to resurrect Road Warrior Kitchen sometime soon. This week's soups of interest included chicken mushroom farro; smoky miso chicken; sausage white bean & spinach; and turkey chili with ayacote morados. There is nothing like making a warm, cozy soup on a rainy day.

I am feeling incredibly grateful to get another 40+ mile week in the books while still feeling pretty good. I know those fitness graphs in Strava aren't everything but I am still pretty happy to see mine trending consistently upward rather than kind of bouncing around all over the place like it did for most of last year.

For reference, the highest number I've ever seen on this little doohicky is like 54 (at CIM 2016). But 26 is the highest I've seen since May 2022, so let's lean into that.

Just two weeks to go!

 ~*~*~ 🎡 🎡 Kaiser Permanente Half Week 11 of 13 🎡 🎡 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 43 miles

🐌 Easy: 37 miles
🏃🏻‍♀️ Moderate: 5 miles
🐎 Fast: 1 mile

⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 86% vs. 14%. 

So far so good + an achievement unlocked (Kaiser Half Week 10 of 13)

Three weeks to go until Kaiser SF Half! Honestly when I signed up for this race I'd been of the mindset that it would be kind of a rust-buster, just a way to start the year off with some motivation to do some for-real training. But other than the few weeks in December when I was out of commission, I've been pleasantly surprised at the quality and quantity of training I've been able to put in and am honesty feeling pretty curious and excited to see what the race brings. 

As a reminder I ran 1:53:57 at Clarksburg in November, which is a pretty low bar in terms of showing some progress. I think sub-1:50 is extremely realistic unless I have a really bad day or bad pre-race week and around 1:45ish is not unreasonable. Can I beat Clarksburg by a full ten minutes? That would be awesome but who can say! And really anything faster than that would be absolute gravy.

(But also, I am trying not to get *overly* optimistic--all I can do is continue to train smart, then show up and do my best on the day, and if I do those things, then whatever happens will be good enough.)

(But then, at the same time, I have to remind myself that I ran 1:56:05 at Kaiser in 2022, knowing that I was in not-great shape and mostly just trying to finish, and then six weeks later ran 1:40:57 at Oakland Half freaking out of the blue. So hey, sometimes magic happens, folks.)

In other exciting news this week, a multi-year dream was accomplished with the installation of this sweet shoe rack in the garage:

#Levelingup

This is mainly important because it gets stinky running shoes (at least those in the regular daily rotation) out of our indoor living space. 😂 So now I go in and out of the garage for running, and the shoes never have to come inside at all. Living the dream, amirite.

 ~*~*~ 🎡 🎡 Kaiser Permanente Half Week 10 of 13 🎡 🎡 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 42.3 miles

🐌 Easy: 28 miles
🏃🏻‍♀️ Moderate: 9.8 miles
🐎 Fast: 4.5 miles

⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 66.2% vs. 33.8%. Definitely an unusually big week for quality miles!

One last (kinda) normal(ish) week... (Kaiser Half Week 4 of 13)

Since I'm off to Southern California today and then to Dubai on Friday, this will be my last kind of "normal-ish" week of training for a while. I'm still planning (hoping?) to continue doing whatever following-of-the-training plan I can while I'm on the road, but one just never knows how things are going to work out during travel (particularly to somewhere you've never been before).

Here's how this week went down:

 ~*~*~ 🎡 🎡 Kaiser Permanente Half Week 4 of 13 🎡 🎡 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 36 miles

🐌 Easy: 28.2 miles
🏃🏻‍♀️ Moderate: 3 miles
🐎 Speed: 4.8 miles

⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 78% vs. 22%

Getting It Done in SoCal (Kaiser Half Week 2 of 13)

Just toodling along last week. One harder workout but otherwise this was a pretty chill training week with lots of easy miles, a work trip, and a bit of race spectating thrown in for good measure.

 ~*~*~ 🎡 🎡 Kaiser Permanente Half Week 2 of 13 🎡 🎡 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 32.5 miles

🐌 Easy: 29 easy
🏃🏻‍♀️ Moderate: 3.5 miles
⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 89% vs. 11%

Tempting Fate... (Kaiser Half Week 1 of 13)

God I'm terrified to start posting training logs again. It seems there is no better way to attract the universe's attention (in a bad way). 😅

Anyway, now that I have a half marathon mark on the board, it's time to count down to the next one--that old Golden Gate Park classic, Kaiser Permanente (which is actually officially called The San Francisco Half Marathon but that gets easily confused with the San Francisco Marathon First and Second Half Marathons, so pretty much everyone I know just calls it Kaiser Half after the headline sponsor). It's reasonably priced, super close to home, has a reliable and good-enough course, and we always have a good contingent from the team running. (Also one of my teammates is one of the race directors so it's nice to support her.)

I'll have 13 weeks to prepare myself, though a big chunk of those weeks will involve work and holiday travel, which tends to disrupt organized for-real training. Still planning to do whatever I can do, though, with a very loose goal of dipping under 1:50 in the worst case and under 1:45 in the best case.

 ~*~*~ 🎡 🎡 Kaiser Permanente Half Week 1 of 13 🎡 🎡 ~*~*~

Grand Total:  37.5 miles

🐌 Easy:  21.8 easy
🐎 Speed:  2.5 miles
🏅 Race: 13.2 miles

Race Report: Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon 2022

Huzzah! The Kaiser Curse is broken! 🎉🎉🎉 After something like a decade of attempting and failing to both start and finish one of my favorite local races for the second time (the first time was in 2010), I finally managed it this past Sunday and it feels amazing.

Not only did I break the Kaiser Curse, I also brought my more general half marathon dry spell to an end--Sunday's race was my first half marathon *race* since October 2018 and my first 13.1+ mile run of *any* kind since July 2019. Also feels good!

Why did I sign up for this race?

The Kaiser race is super local for me (less than three miles away) and since I do a lot of runs in Golden Gate Park and surrounding SF, I know the course really well. I'd run the half once before, the 10K twice, and the 5K once (not to mention DNFing the half once and signing up & not being able to run it so many times I've lost count, hence the curse). The course is (mostly) nice and relatively fast, the weather is usually pretty good (usually), and with the exception of the bag check pickup in 2020 (it was 2+ hours before they found my bag!), it's always been very smooth and well-run.

I signed up for the half last summer when registration first opened and there was a chance they'd have to significantly limit the field due to COVID. I'd just started training again in earnest, SF case numbers were at an all-time low, and in a burst of optimism about the world that I hadn't experienced in quite a while, I signed up for this and a couple other half marathons, excited to spend the next few months getting back in shape, throw down in Golden Gate Park, and just see what happened.

And then what happened?

1 Week Until Kaiser Half!

Sweet Jesus, friends, we are now just ONE WEEK (less, technically) out from Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon and SOMEHOW all my parts are feeling PRETTY WELL intact, all hail Beyoncé our lord and savior.

It’s probably been a while since I’ve mentioned it but I am cursed by this race. It was my second-ever half marathon back in 2010, then in 2011 I ran the 5K (which was actually 3.2 miles, like, officially), and after that, ONLY CURSES. In 2014 I had a stress fracture. In 2015, I hurt my foot the week before the race. In 2016, I was still working my way back to running from stress fracture #2. In 2018 I attempted the half as I was recovering from a similar issue in my right hip as I have now but had to quit at mile 4 because it still hurt too much. In 2019 and 2020 I was able to run the 10K (officially 6 miles in 2020, wtf), but I am still pretty excited to return to the half.

Kaiser Permanente 5K 2012!

I’d been hoping to be in shape to really race this race, but it was not to be. Too many ill-timed injuries and of course running away to Europe for 3 weeks, which yes, technically, is my own fault, BUT STILL! The timing, she has not been my friend.

So earlier this month, I turned my focus towards just building up from 3-4 miles (the most I’d run at once since early December, thanks to a calf strain) to a 13.1-mile long run and being able to solidly finish the race.

Was I totally sure this was feasible in 4-5 weeks? NO!

Do I advise the progression below as a half marathon training plan? ALSO NO!

Mid-Jan Kaiser Half Update

Hello friends. I hope you are still safe and healthy as we all ride out this stupid omicron wave. Not much happening lately that's super photo worthy so please enjoy this shot from last August when I went to Seattle for work and took the opportunity to bust out 10 carefree miles around Lake Union.

I am over here getting a GREAT start on 2022 Injury Bingo. Just two weeks into the year (not even!) and I've already been struck down by tendonitis in my left foot/ankle. As man know if it isn't one thing then it's something else.

Of course, this has meant scaling back on running just as I was starting to get into the swing of it again. Several great-feeling 3-5 mile runs during the first week of the year! Then, waking up Saturday morning 1/8 unable to put weight on my left foot. It felt a little better Sunday morning so I gave my scheduled seven-mile run a shot and knew two miles in it wasn't happening. So, four it was, and the tendonitis a little bit worse as a nice bonus. (The next time you hear someone say, "It can't hurt to try!," punch them in the neck for me.)

I took Monday 1/10 through Wednesday 1/12 off running but did my Monday morning weight training as usual. Thursday 1/13 it was feeling much better so I decided to test it out by running to the gym (about 1.25 miles), thinking worst case I could just walk. While it's clearly not 100%, it felt MUCH better, just a little discomfort still. All in all I ran to the gym plus a bit more, then back home after for a total of three miles. The next day (Friday 1/14) I ran another 3 miles; I had a tiny bit of discomfort after but was totally pain-free the next morning (Saturday 1/15) so I went for 5 miles. And, success!

PRESENTS + Kaiser Permanente Half Update

Hello friends! I hope you and your loved ones are having a joyous, fulfilling holiday season and staying covid-free.

Just a quick update on my goal to complete the Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon at literally any pace. I had been starting to build back up after getting back from vacation at the end of November in hopes that my right hip/hamstring would cooperate. And, woo-hoo, it really had been! I slowly worked my way up to ~5 or so days a week of short runs and a "long" run of 6 miles. And then one day, 3.5 miles into a six-miler, my left calf seized up to the point of cramping. I tried walking it off and seeing if I could jog a block here and there (seeing as I was now 2.5 miles from home) but it only got worse. I tried again after a full week off, but I didn't even make it two miles before my calf was seizing up again.

A visit to my sports chiro revealed some weakness in my lower legs and ankles on both sides, which isn't a smoking gun exactly (it seems to me there rarely is), but it certainly isn't helping, so I've been diligently doing my calf/ankle/foot strengthening exercises over the the holiday break. And in each of the past two days, friends, I have been rewarded with a painless three-mile run through my neighborhood! (Well; three one-mile loops so as to never have to walk back more than half a mile should something feel off.)

Announcing: Goals, MF

It always feels a bit scary to put a goal out there when you are still in the midst of a comeback and not entire sure it's going to take, but what is the point of having a blog (er, sort of?) if you aren't going to share what you're doing and what's on your mind.

So, what is on my mind, you might ask? Nothing earth-shattering; just the Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon, one of the big local SF races that takes place every Superbowl Sunday (Sunday, February 6 this year).

KP was my second-ever half-marathon & typically features a half marathon, 10K, and 5K. I've run all three distances at least once at one time or another, but for the last few years I've most often signed up for the 10K because "I won't be ready to run a half yet," or signed up for the half and then dropped down to the 10K a few days or weeks out because "I'm not ready to run a half yet."

And by "I'm not ready to run a half yet," what I meant was "I'm not ready to run a half in a time I find acceptable," where "acceptable" was probably somewhere in the 1:37-1:43 range. I've never had much interest in running races at an easy pace just to finish, except in situations where I thought it would be helpful to do a supported long run or long tempo workout. Plus, if you looked at a heat map of my long runs, you'd see probably 90% overlap with the KP half marathon course, and paying money to run a casual long run on the same route I'd probably run anyway just felt kind of....not worth it.

The last fast half marathon, 1:41:07 - October 2017. A wonderful day that I did not appreciate nearly enough at the time.

Race Report: Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon

I'm probably doing all this in the wrong order, posting-wise, but oh well! You get a post! And a post is better than no post. Right? Let's go with that.

Kaiser Permanente Half is one of the iconic San Francisco races, right up there with SFM and Bay 2 Breakers. In fact, in spite of the fact that SFM and B2B are flashier & marketed way more heavily, I would probably still consider Kaiser Half my "hometown" race over either of those, for a few reasons.

1) There are a lot of fun, well-done races in San Francisco that offer their own unique experiences, but most of them also tend to be a bit of a spectacle and cater more to tourists and fun runners looking for an "event" or "experience" than local runners just looking for a good, fast race.

2) If you're hoping for a half PR, Kaiser is 100% your best bet in SF. The course is 90%+ flat or downhill, doesn't have too many turns, and takes place in early February where the biggest weather risk is heavy rain or wind (and a light breeze and/or drizzle is much more likely).

3) $$$. The first time I ran KP half, I think it cost less than $50. It was up to $60 when I registered at the early bird price in July (plus transaction fee, bah), but that's still over $100 less (!) than some other half marathons in the city that offer a different experience.