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Feb 21

Rockin’ through Pasadena: Part II

I figured I’d be out incredibly quick on Saturday night. I’d worked an 11.5 day before and fell fast asleep on Friday only to have to wake up early to get ready for Sam to pick me up. I stayed awake for the trip. I can’t exactly sleep on the road.

And I had a headache by the time I went to bed. So I took an Ibuprofen hoping I wouldn’t wake up with a nasty one the next morning.

That wouldn’t be the problem. No. I couldn’t even get to sleep.

When I finally opened my eyes for real at 4:53 a.m. I knew that it wasn’t going to the best day for running. My whole body was dragging.

Too much work and no sleep kind of does that. But we got dressed and ventured out.

We made our way to the Rose Bowl and only got stuck behind about 10-minutes worth of traffic getting into the parking lot. It wasn’t a bad parking situation actually. We made our way quickly from the car to the staging area. The portable toilets were plenty. I’m not kidding, there were enough toilets that it didn’t seem like there were any people waiting.

Nice. That was good because my stomach was turning knots. One after another. My stomach was killing me.

I’m not even going to pretend to do a recap. Every mile was painful. Every mile was hard.

And this is what it looked like:

OK. I didn’t hit the 13-minute average range. But still. This was a bad run. I did a Gu on mile four and mile eight.

That propelled me through a little bit. But it wasn’t enough. I just never picked up pace. At mile 10, though, I felt as if I could run awhile longer. I did. Then my butt started hurting, as if I pulled a muscle or something.

Then I slowed again.

Along the way were beautiful sites, including the Colorado Blvd. bridge, and Old Pasadena.

There was a ton of cheering. This was my second Rock ‘n’ Roll event, and I have to say I enjoyed it just as much as the first in terms of fun, but my heart just wasn’t in it. I was tired.

Too tired.

And by the time I reached the end at 2:48:19 I knew I’d given it all I could.

I pushed myself a little farther, passed the finish line and was handed my medal by a nice volunteer who gave me some strong encouragement.

I snapped this photo as I saw a member of the Half Fanatics group as for a second medal for his sister, he said. And, more shocking, the volunteer actually gave him one. Really? Wow.

I loved the medal. I actually held it nearly the entire way home because it’s so awesome and I really felt like I’d earned it for the five or six times I felt like quitting during this one.

When I got to the finish, I waited for Sam as they tried to kick me multiple times out of the area. I actually stood in one place for about 10 minutes before being asked to move. And yet a lot of people were around that weren’t being asked to move. I think I was just annoyed, which made this all feel so much worse.

Ugh. Double ugh. Triple ugh.

Then Sam crossed the finish line:

She’s somewhere in all that. She grabbed her medal and we headed off into the rest of the finisher’s area, which wasn’t nearly as packed as it was in San Jose during the October event.

I grabbed a Gatorade and some water. A volunteer gave me a heatsheet, even though it seemed a little warm and, by then, I’d already put on long-sleeve shirt.

And I was done.

The one good thing about this half was that the band that played at the end was Sugar Ray. I was really looking forward to seeing them, especially since I should have been finishing around the time they started playing.

By the time we finally got to the finish, after picking up our bags from bag check and getting some food, Sugar Ray was in the last half hour of the concert.

But they rocked.

I have some great video of Mark McGrath rocking the cowbell which I’ll post another time. Overall it was an excellent concert. When it was over, we headed to the merchandise tent where I picked up the gray shirt photographed above. And we headed to the car. It was a quick ride back to the hotel room where we cleaned up and packed within an hour.

And then, it was back on the road, our whirlwind trip to Pasadena ending.

Four and a half hours after we hit the road, we were home. I was tired. I fell asleep quickly on Sunday night, which was great because of the Monday holiday.

And now, as I reflect on it, I think part of me knows it was the result of fatigue. But I also know I’ve gained some weight recently that hasn’t helped.

I run the Oakland Half in a month or so. I want to be more prepared for it than I was for this. I thought I was prepared for this. Nope.

Now I’m taking a look at my diet and training plan to see where I went wrong. I know bad runs happen, but they also make a runner reflect on what he or she did wrong and right. That’s where I am right now.

So did I really rock through Pasadena? No. Was it still a good time? Of course. And I’m glad I did it, despite the pain and discomfort of all 13.22 miles.

Feb 20

Rockin’ through Pasadena: Part I

My car breaking down on Thursday should have been the first indication that things for our quick overnight trip to Pasadena weren’t going to go as planned.

At 70 miles per hour, my throttle body went out. I drove it to the dealership. The damage? $1,650. Even worse, I don’t get it back until sometime Wednesday or Thursday of this week because of the long holiday.

I’m hoping this doesn’t turn into a repeat of last year when it was gone for two weeks. Still crossing my fingers on that one.

In any case, our plans for me to drive changed fairly quickly. Sam, last year, mentioned wanting to do more of the Rock ‘n’ Roll runs because they reward runners with some awesome swag if you do more than one. (Heavy medals anyone?)

So we signed up for Pasadena, the first California Rock ‘n’ Roll Half during 2012. It was also an inaugural event for the series.

We knew it was going to be a quick trip, basically there and back all within a less than 48-hour period. But it turned out to be a bit more strange than we were anticipating.

We left at 9:30 a.m. from Tracy and headed down Interstate 5 toward Pasadena. The trip was, basically, uneventful. Except there were a lot of idiots who didn’t feel the need to move over when they weren’t going the speed limit in the fast lane. Of note: I was tired. I ended up working an 11.5 hour day because my car broke down and I needed to take it to the dealership Friday morning. More on that later.

We stopped and ate in Buttonwillow, about 20 minutes from the beginning of the Grapevine, the stretch of Interstate 5 that weaves into the Los Angeles basin.

There was never a point where we weren’t going to make it before 5 p.m. but I think we kind of rushed down hoping for an expo to the degree of the San Jose one last October. That wasn’t what we came to.

The front of the pickup line was empty.

Sam and I had little trouble walking up to get our numbers. Next came the shirt booth.

The shirts for this half were actually fitted. Much better than last time in San Jose when Sam and I both got medium sized shirts only to have them basically be dresses on both of us. I opted for a Brooks large, which gives me a little extra room. This shirt has a nice back/front design. The front is above.

This is the back:

We also got our swag bags which serve as gear-check bags too. The Rock ‘n’ Roll series and the San Francisco Marathon, where I did the second half last year, are the only other races that I’ve been given a gear-check bag that’s actually a decent reusable bag. Nike gave me a heavy plastic bag, but not the same quality.

It’s good because I didn’t bring something for bag check and we ended up actually using it since we were there alone, without anyone picking us up.

We made our way through the Brooks area where they sale merchandise. I ended up buying a shirt.

Then we checked out the booths. There weren’t many. We did get some awesome samples of organic cake. That was a plus. We got some Snicker Marathon bar samples too.

It was a beautiful day outside the expo.

And inside we got to see the beautiful medal we’d be getting after finishing.

But there wasn’t much there. We did get $15 off for signing up for the Oct. 7 Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose half marathon. We also got a free shirt for the inaugural Pasadena event since they didn’t have any San Jose shirts. Had I of know we’d be scoring those awesome shirts, I probably wouldn’t have bought another one. A day later and I’m wearing the teal-colored T-shirt at home.

After only 45 minutes, we were done. I don’t even think I spent that little time at my first half marathon expo.

We did score a pair each of CEP compression sleeves. Sam opted for black for her first pair ever. I went a little wild with pink.

They look at little something like this:

I actually wore them during the race and they were incredibly comfortable. And I love the color.

So we headed to our hotel, which was a Travelodge on a main street through Pasadena. It was quaint, and OK for the price we paid. But we had a problem: We had about five hours to kill and nothing to do.

Sam started looking at places we could potentially go. We ended up heading to the Citadel Outlets in Los Angeles. Sam needed a water bottle. Despite our best efforts, we didn’t find out. We did find shoes. Lots of shoes. Well, only one pair for me, but lots of shoes for her.

She ended up with four pairs on an amazing sale. And then we decided we needed food. I had a bit of a headache. We opted for a restaurant literally right down the street from the place we were staying. We should have tried something else.

To say it was the worst experience I’ve had eating out might be an understatement. We waited nearly an hour between the time we sat down and the time we ate.

I didn’t tip. The waiter refused to even acknowledge us most the night. (Did I mention we had some crazy experienced on the 110 freeway in Pasadena? Wow, it was nuts. We saw two nearly overturned cars in two places this weekend. Seriously, it was amazing.)

We then headed back to the hotel to settle down. Sam seemed to fall asleep immediately. Not me.

About an hour after I went to bed and I still wasn’t asleep someone checked into the room above us. It must have been a group with girls. They laughed for hours until they went to bed. I couldn’t sleep. I turned on the fan on the window cooler for white noise. Still no sleep.

I finally got t sleep only to awake twice in the night.

I knew when I finally woke up for good at 4:53 a.m. that I hadn’t gotten enough sleep. We had to be at the Rose Bowl before 6:30 to be assured a parking space (which we paid $10 for). It was dark. We looked for a Walgreens too. Nothing.

When we finally made our way to the Rose Bowl it actually wasn’t a bad parking arrangement. We got in and out of the car pretty quickly.

And we had an hour or so to go before race time. Good thing, too, because my stomach was feeling a little bad.

I should have known that was a sign of something bad. But I didn’t realize my run would be one of my worst yet.

Feb 19

A (half) marathon trip

We left at 9:30 a.m. Saturday morning. We ran at 7:30 a.m. Sunday. We hit the road for home at 1 p.m. after the race.

It was a whirlwind trip from Tracy to Pasadena and back.

I finished the half marathon, an inaugural Rock ‘n’ Roll event, in 2:48:19.

It was definitely not a day for me to be racing. I was tired. Too much work in the past week, mixed in with a long drive and only about four hours of sleep because of noisy hotel neighbors made for a fairly lame race.

I was tired.

I’m planning a full recap tomorrow, since it’s a holiday and I have some time. But despite the fact that it wasn’t my best race ever, I had a good time away from home for a night.

I’m so tired now. So very tired.

Feb 7

Hitting the trails?

I’ve made no secret about my love of trail 10Ks on this blog before. I find them challenging. And the 10K is that distance that I just can’t get comfortable in. I start warming up at mile four. And I just want to keep going.

And I can keep going. My fastest 10K is a nice 1:02:52.

I love trail 10Ks because those races offer a bit of a challenge. Rolling hills? Yep. Rough terrain? Oh yeah.

And let’s face it, the views are often breathtaking. The picture above is from the Coyote Hills 10K I ran the last weekend in January. I only shaved a couple seconds off my time, but I still finished faster than the previous year. Even though I bonked during and after (seriously, the ride home found me nearly delusional and wanting to throw up), I loved the run.

My husband also likes taking me to these ones because he basically gets to explore. He enjoys it and, sometimes, I think he hopes I will take a little longer so he can hang around more.

I decided, though, after the run, that maybe I should invest in some trail running shoes. I’ve been running all my races in the same pair of Nike Equalon 4+’s for the past two-plus years. It’s time I seriously invested in better shoes.

What’s nice is that I didn’t have to invest a tremendous amount of money.

Over the weekend, I got a RoadRunner VIP coupon. I could get 25-percent off my purchase. Add on my already awesome VIP discount and free shipping and I literally only spent $75 on a pair of new shoes.

And these are them:

Yep, I decided to go minimalist. On the way to my house is a pair of Brooks PureProject PureGrit.

I’m more than excited to try them out when I finally get them.

And I’m considering my next trail run. Brazen Racing, my favorite race company, has a challenging 10K in Livermore, which is literally 20 minutes away. It’s the first time Brazen has been thisclose to me. So I figured I should take advantage.

The run is called Badger Cove.

The elevation is a little scary:

I think I can tackle that. I hope, at least. I’m planning on signing up by the end of the week.

The run is also a week before the Oakland Half Marathon, which was my first half marathon last year. It will be my ninth this year. So I’m expecting Badger Cove to serve as a good warm-up for the half.

I’m going to take trail running a step at a time, literally. But I’m hoping my new Brooks PureGrit shoes will be the beginning of many more happy race endings and a continued obsession with the trail 10K.