All not according to plan, Part 2

And now for Part 2:

Firstly, we flew down to California (again!) on Saturday for my final dental appointment (and of course to see family!) We needed to get 8 miles in sometime over the weekend, and I wanted to get it over with on Saturday, since we had a Birthday Party to go to on Sunday. (Birthday parties are important when you’re 4 and 6!) I was just planning on having us run along the beach, like we did the last time we were down here, but J wanted to try something new. So he talked his friend into driving us down to South Orange County (Aliso/Laguna area) to try out a trail. Not the best choice.

J thought the trail would start with an uphill climb, then level off when we got to the “top”. The trail started out friendly looking enough, but that didn’t last very long. It definitely took off with a very brutal climb. We didn’t run this first section. (I’m pretty sure I would have tripped and died, if we had.) So we waited for the summit, but it never came… Eventually we started running, but after 1 mile of climbing straight upward, we called it quits, and made our way back to the parking lot. I was kind of upset. I really wanted to get a quality 8 mile run in this week, since last week was such an utter failure. So we decided to wait and try again on Sunday.

After the party on Sunday (about 5pm), we finally headed out for our run. I was a little nervous to start so late in the day, especially down here. (It’s hot for us!) But it actually turned out pretty well! We took off straight from my mother-in-laws house, and made our way to the the mighty Santa Ana River (lol). There is a dirt/rock path that runs alongside the “river” with beautiful views of a playground, a plant nursery, and a sewage treatment plant! We even got to wind our way over to Costco, and run under the 405 freeway. What beautiful scenery! (Sense any sarcasm? We are definitely blessed in the NW!) The first half of the run was kind of rough with the sun on our backs, very little breeze, and minimal distractions in the form of scenery. But, when we turned around, the run got much better! There was a heavier (and very welcome) breeze that cooled us off immediately. We were also able to refuel with Espresso Love Gu. (Better than Mint Chocolate!) We somehow lost J’s Gu, either along the way, or in the house, so we ended up sharing. I definitely want to try other refueling sources during our next several long runs. I’m still not completely sold on Gu.

We made our way back feeling pretty good and very accomplished. We ran 8 miles today! That’s farther than we’ve ever run before! Here are our splits:

Mile 1: 9:55
Mile 2: 10:27
Mile 3: 10:23
Mile 4: 10:11
Mile 5: 10:14
Mile 6: 10:01
Mile 7: 10:15
Mile 8: 9:46

Maybe not our most consistent run ever, but we were still able to negative split it! (Thank you wonderful breeze!)

Sunday:
8 miles (10:09 avg pace)

I’ll leave you with some pics of our failed run on Saturday:

The very beginning of the trail, with nice shady trees and a flat path (this section was quite short):
Stupid Hill:
Pretty view:
More view:
J, after we quit, on the stupid hill:
Bunny:
Later that night

We fly back up to Portland on Tuesday. Here’s a rough schedule for our week:

Monday:
Rest Day in Cali

Tuesday:
Track (probably)

Wednesday:
Easy 3 miles

Thursday:
First Thursday

Friday:
Rest Day

Saturday:
Work :( / BBQ

Sunday:
10 miles (Double Digits!)

All not according to plan, Part 1

I started this week by shifting some runs around early on, but really, the whole week was one big mish-mash, which is kind of disappointing, since we had a not so great finish to last week’s plan.

J really wanted to do a track workout on Tuesday, with some of the people we had met the previous weekend when we were volunteering. I had wanted to add in some speedwork this week anyway, so I acquiesced. This meant, however, that we would be running 3 days in a row (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday) which would be our first time ever doing that. I was a little nervous about how my legs would handle 3 days in a row (the first day being a “long run” and the third being a track workout), but they performed beautifully.

Monday:
3 miles (10:07 avg pace)

Tuesday: (Track Workout)
This was planned as a 5 mile run, with some speedwork added into the mix. We decided to join a group at the track. This was our workout:

11x600’s with 20-25 sec rest at T pace

Here’s where it gets really good. J had checked out the sheet that was supposed to list our T pace for 600’s, based upon our 5k PR. It is clear that we are faster than our current 5k PR at this point, so we had used McMillan’s calculator to convert our 10k PR into a more “accurate” 5k time (27:01). J saw that we were supposed to finish each 600 in 2:56. Now, I am a Garmin newbie. I could not figure out at the right time, which buttons were supposed to be pushed when. Luckily, J had our “back-up” watch, and was keeping track of our splits, with which we were dead on. (I always held a very consistent pace when I was swimming; I think it’s rolling over into running, too!) The one time I think I had the Garmin doing what I wanted it to, it told me we were running at 8:00 avg pace.

Hmm… “J [heavy breathing] I think we’re going too fast… [heavy breathing]… aren’t we supposed to be holding 9’s…?” “No, we’re doing great!” Well, we later found out that the chart must have had a wee bit of a typo in it… Like, it told us to do each 600 in 2:56, when what it probably actually meant was 3:56. OOPS! So, that means were were holding 7:49 avg pace, which is probably why I kept telling J how much I hated him during each rest break… Truth be told, I didn’t know I could run that fast, so that’s exciting! And I was able to hold the same pace the whole way through; 4.1 miles! Looks like I’m going to have to push a bit harder in these 5k/10k races!

Summary:
1.71 mile warm-up
4.1 mile tempo @ 7:49
0.25 cool down (I’m thinking this should be more, next time)
Total: 6.06 miles (That’s longer than last week’s “Long Run”! :)

Wednesday:
Rest Day

Thursday:
GOTR 5k (Oh boy…)

So, it’s not that I didn’t have fun, but it’s not exactly what I had hoped for. I showed up on time and met my girl with plenty of time to spare. She was very hyper and energetic as we were waiting for the 5k to start. She was a bit clingy, which was a little weird, but J has 6 nieces and nephews, so it’s not my first time around the block. Soon enough, we all headed over to the “starting line”. My girl wanted to line up at the front, which I am always hesitant about, because I never start up there, and she didn’t seem to be in the best of shape… Well, I couldn’t deny her, since the leaders were telling everyone to move in. Before you knew it, we’d started. We started running, hand-in-hand. I was surprised; she was holding a decent pace, not sprinting with all her life (like some of the other girls). I heard my name called from behind me, just after the start, and it was Alisa. I wish we could have chatted, but my girl was still charging ahead, so I waved instead. Soon, we were at the hill, and that was when the running stopped…

My girl had a side cramp. I told her my tried and true solution for this (smell the roses, blow out the candles), and soon her cramp was gone. We were walking at a nice relaxed pace, made it up the hill; “water!” Our first water stop of the day, 1/2-way through the first of 8 3/4 laps. We continued walking and finally finished the first full loop. “How many more do we have to go?” “Only 7 and a little bit.” “7!!!!!?????????? We can’t do that!” [Insert super bubbly and motivational Marya] During the second lap, she had a calf cramp, but she was able to walk it off. The next few laps go by without much of a difference. More walking; slow walking. During the 5th lap (and the remaining laps) we have to take a standing rest break on the hill. Since we were at least 45 minutes into this thing, my motivational pep talks were needing their own motivational pep talks, and we were only halfway through!

Eventually, other volunteers jumped in (Hallelujah!) and tried to inspire her. We got nothing. She continually told us that she wanted to quit, but I kept telling her, “No way! We can do this! We’re gonna keep going until we’re finished!) Well, as we were nearing the finish line along the loop, and had but 1 lap to go, one of her coaches ran up and said “This is it! You’re almost done!!” I slyly replied, “We still have another lap to go.” You could see the defeat in the coaches eyes. “Well the van is leaving, so this has to be it.” So we finished our less-than-5k. Yes, we were the last to finish, but J says we were probably only 1 lap behind the next to last finisher.

Well, chances are I won’t have to worry about being physically drained the week before our Half. Emotionally? I hope we can finish the Starlight Run 5k! I was sad that my girl’s family wasn’t there, like some of the other girls’ families, but from what she told me about them, I’m not surprised. I would be surprised if they showed up at the Starlight Run… I guess that’s why she’s in this program!

It was a good experience, and I’m sure I’ll try to do it again next year. We’ll see what the Starlight brings!

Summary:
3-ish miles of walking (I’m counting it! I was definitely on my feet, emotionally drained, and I certainly wasn’t going to run after that!)

Friday:
Happy Hour :)

I’ll recap the weekend in a separate post, since this one is already so long (and the weekend is not yet over!)

SoCal Vacation, Part 1

Before I get into our trip, here’s a recap of the week, so far:

Monday:
3 miles (avg. pace 10:22)
This run took place around the city, i.e. around tall buildings. Therefore, I’m taking Garmin’s avg. pace with a grain of salt. Either way, I felt really good on this run, and it was fun taking a random path through town.

Tuesday:
Rest Day, and I mean it!

Wednesday:
3 miles (11:07)
We joined a running group for the Easter Fulton Pub Run. There were probably at least 50 people there, and I think everyone had a good time. J and I apparently are not very good at finding Easter eggs (we only found 1 each, and by “we” I mean J let me have one of his…), but we still managed to have fun! The first 1.5 miles were along a thin trail, and we were following a group in the back of the pack. We didn’t want to pass them for fear of getting lost, so our pace was a little slower than usual (12:13 and 10:57 for the first 2 miles). After we made it to the turn around for the second half of the loop, we picked it back up and brought it in at 9:48. All in all, we had a great time, and I hope we can join in for one of these group runs again sometime!

Thursday:
3 miles (9:35 avg. pace)
I’ll recap this run later on.

Friday:
Rest Day/Vacation Day!

Ok, now onto the vacation:

Obviously, we made it safe and sound! We started our voyage by waking up at 3am! Look how chipper we are waiting for the Max to take us to the airport:

We made it through all the various airport lines, got ourselves some coffee and breakfast snacks (mmm…coffee cake!), and finally made it on the plane.

We flew JetBlue, so I got to catch up on some trashy reality shows. This trip included America’s Next Top Model (reruns) and Sober House; good quality stuff!

We landed in Long Beach 30 minutes early to beautiful blue skies:

We made it to J’s mother’s house by 9:30am. Good Morning! We were fading fast. Nap time? Nah. Let’s just go for our scheduled run! I brought my Garmin and we took off in random directions, around various neighborhoods, for 3 total miles. J totally picked up the pace for the last mile, and we clocked in at 8:59. I didn’t even notice how quickly we were going! Here’s some pics we got along the way:

I like how this picture is all distorted from the combined movements of J an I running:

Self portrait:

Thumbs Up?

Later that day, I had a dentist appointment (our secret reason for coming down here). I’ve been going to this dentist for more than a year and a half for the same problem, but after yesterday, I only have 1 trip back in May, and I’ll be done! It has been nice to have a reason to come down and visit J’s family, so we’ll take it!

Today is reserved for relaxing and spending time with J’s family. Tomorrow, we will complete our long run (6 miles!) sometime around watching the nieces and nephews hunt for eggs. Sunday is reserved for family time! Happy Easter!

I hope everyone has a good weekend, and a good Easter! See you next week!

Week 7: Run 3

Run 9 minutes
Walk 1 minutes
Repeat 3 times
30 minute "run"

Run stats:
Distance: 2.64 miles
Pace: 11:22/mile

Run Review: I felt pretty good. I felt like I picked up the pace, too. (J agreed, but that might be because his run didn't feel that great.) I'm a little bit nervous about upping our running time to 13 minutes next week. It just seems like such a big jump from running only 9 minutes at a time, but I'm sure it will be ok!

This week was definitely an adventure weather-wise for us. Rain, sure, we're ready for it. But freezing temperatures? Without the wind-chill of Monday, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it might be. We were able to avoid the treadmill, anyway. Go us! Next week it should be back to regular old rain. (I kinda like running in the rain!)

Week 5: Run 1 (of the "new plan")

Run 8 minutes
Walk 2 minutes
Repeat 3 times
30 minute "run"

Run stats:
Distance: 2.56 miles
Pace: 11:44/mile

Run Review: I felt good last night. I felt like I picked up the pace. (Which is not my focus at this point, since I'm starting this "adventure" by upping the amount of time I run first; but I just felt good.) The weather was pretty nice. It was about 50° and NOT raining, which is unusual for the Pacific Northwest this time of year :) There were a lot of runners out last night too, which helps keep me motivated. During last Friday's run, runners were scarce. I'm not sure whether that was due to the weather, or the fact that it was Friday night. Either way, it was good to see so many people out there.

**I'll post about my "new plan" in a separate post. I'm a sucker for organization (OCD?)