What ever it takes!

I need to make this quick cause I'm late for work,  Not exactly the report I wanted to give but I'm happy I went and did this race, totally last minute decision, thought it would be fun to run a sea level course while I'm in So. Cal.  The hotel I'm staying at is having a NAMM convention, can't remember what that stands for but it's basically a conference for a bunch of musicians.  AKA rockers, needless to say, there were parties in the halls and rooms around me until 4:00, luckily I went to bed at 8:00 and got 4 hours of sleep before the parties started.

I convinced my co-worker friends to wake up at 5:00am and drive me to LA and watch the race, that's why I love my job so much.  How many people work with people that would do that.

Got to the race way to early, so I checked in, hit the portapotty as many times as I could and jogged probably 3 miles total, I'm saying 2 just to be safe as a warm up.  Then went to the start line.

Race started right on time with perfect conditions,  about 50 degrees with a nice sea breeze.  I knew the 1st half was slightly uphill, and then at mile 7 it turned around came back down the same road (Venice Blvd) with a avg downhill grade, plan was to go out in 5:30 - 5:40, hang on to sub 6:00 as long as I could and then negative split the last 6.  Plan went well, I hit the 1/2 way point on target going up, but the slight uphill took a little more out of my legs than I had anticipated, once my body got into that 6ish range I couldn't seem to push any harder,  believe me I tried but just couldn't do it, kind of strange, I didn't feel overly tired and the legs didn't hurt, they just didn't want to go any faster.  At mile 10 when I saw that my goal was un-attainable mentally I kind of shut down and just wanted to be done.  I kept pushing through but never got my speed back up,  going down the home stretch I heard the announcer say that he could see the female winner coming, I didn't look back but that was enough motivation to push a little bit for the last .1.  :)

I don't really have a great excuse why I couldn't do it in 1:16 as planned, after my run on Monday I really thought I could do it.  I felt good going into it, feel fine now.  I think I just need a little more race experience, and learn to not mentally give up when the going gets tough.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace	Incline	Avg HR	Max HR
1	5:40	5:40	9'
2	5:50	5:50	-12'
3	5:49	5:49	28'
4	5:57	5:57	43'
5	5:55	5:55	-14'
6	6:11	6:11	38'
7	6:05	6:05	7'
8	6:06	6:06	19'
9	5:59	5:59	-17'
10	6:10	6:10	-22'
11	6:08	6:08	-17'
12	6:22	6:22	-30'
13	6:31	6:31	-28'
13.1	:52	6:21	0
Total	1:19:42	6:04	-5'

Today is my first official day of following my Ogden Marathon training schedule,  I already didn't follow it since I was suppose to do 9 miles with a 4 mile Tempo run.  I figure my race yesterday more than makes up for a 4 mile tempo run :).  I am feeling really good today despite running a race just yesterday, I think those downhill Utah races really beat up your legs compared to a flat course.  I felt a little bit depleted today and just did a nice recovery run but all and all feel pretty good and am excited to start following a program again.

I officially retired my first pair of Nike Free's today, I am totally amazed by those shoes,  over 1,000 miles on them never had an insole in them other than the original and they are still as comfortable now as the day I bought them.  When I first got them I would only run 1 - 2 easy runs per week in them and only on the treadmill, but right after Top of Utah, (which I wore them in) I switched over to them exclusively and now I only train in Nike Free's and truly attribute getting over all of my leg injuries because of it.  (I should get a sponser from Nike for that, Right?)

I'm staying at the Anaheim Hilton right across the street from Disney Land for the next 2 weeks, back 4 years ago when I started running I remember I used to love to come here cause I would love the loop from the hotel through Downtown Disney and back,  I thought it was at least 4 miles cause I remember it was about all I could manage, and going up the (uphill) to downtown Disney I always had to walk cause the hill was to big,  well turns out the loop is only 2 miles and the uphill would for all intents and purposes be considered flat, so I ran the loop once today and ran into my co-worker who was nice enough to go with me at 5:00am yesterday to the race, he was running the opposite direction as me, so I ran an easy 10 min/mil pace mile with him and when we got to the infamous (uphill) he told me to go without him so I left and ran the loop 2 more times. 

As you can probably tell, I'm a little bit excited this morning, happy to be in perfect weather for running, and excited to really pick it up and make this year of running spectacular. 

Distance	Time	Avg Pace	Incline	Avg HR	Max HR
1	7:12	7:12
2	7:20	7:20
3	8:56	8:56
4	6:53	6:53
5	7:08	7:08
6	7:18	7:18
7	6:57	6:57
Total	51:46	7:24

Feeling the race in my legs a bit this morning, woke up with really sore calves and hamstrings.  The last time I was here in Anaheim I found a great bike commute trail that seems to go on forever, it starts off of Katella Ave. near the Honda Stadium were the Ducks play and goes for ever in both directions.  Last time I did it I drove to the trail, today I woke up at 4:30 am and decided to run there instead.  It was a bit further than I had thought about 3 miles from the hotel to the trail and then I ran the trail 3 miles out and back and then back to the hotel for a total of 12.  Pretty dark once I got to the trail, the only thing lighting the way was the really cool full orange moon,  it was pretty neat.  There were little bunny rabbits that kept running out in front of me scaring me to death.  The only thing that scares be worse than fuzzy little bunny rabbits is thinking about what ever must be there to eat the bunny rabbits.  Luckily I didn't run into any of them.

I ran a bit faster than I had planned, (6:45) felt pretty good once I got the legs moving.  Still a little bit depleted from the race but I'm sure after a recovery run tomorrow I'll be fine. I forgot my HR monitor and didn't want to come back up to my room to get it.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace	Incline	Avg HR	Max HR
1	6:41	6:41
2	6:48	6:48
3	6:39	6:39
4	6:45	6:45
5	6:42	6:42
6	6:44	6:44
7	6:26	6:26
8	6:31	6:31
9	6:34	6:34
10	6:38	6:38
11	6:55	6:55
12	6:33	6:33
Total	1:19:57	6:40

Nice easy recovery run today,  I did the extended Down Town Disney loop twice with a bunch of running back and forth at the end to make it an even 6.  My second time around I decided it would be fun to go run through the Disney Land Hotel gardens, I used to love it there as a kid, but when I got there it was all walled off for renovation.  Bummer, Oh Well, another perfect morning for running.

Now off to a busy busy work day.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace	Incline	Avg HR	Max HR
1	8:03	8:03		129	153
2	7:48	7:48		134	141
3	7:32	7:32		132	138
4	7:45	7:45		135	139
5	7:53	7:53		138	150
6	7:24	7:24		139	147
Total	46:28	7:44		134	150

 

Was awakened this morning at 4:00 am by the sound of banging and crashing outside my hotel window, went to see what was going on and patio furniture was being blown all over the place slamming into the sides of the hotel.  I thought, well that doesn't look fun to run in.    Tried to get back to sleep but never could so I got out of bed around 4:30 and decided to use the hotel gym today instead.  Found out it didn't open until 5:30 so I stretched a bit, layed down with my HR monitor to find my resting HR,  it went all the way down to 34bpm,  pretty excited about that, and then decided to go run the Downtown Disney loop and test how bad the wind really was.  Set out, did the 2 mile loop and decided it was tolerable and ran up Katella to the "fuzzy bunny trail" headwind the whole way, ran the trail for 2 miles out and 2 back and then back to the hotel.  Had a wicked tail wind coming back which was a lot of fun.  You know it's really windy when your running a 6:00min pace and can still feel the wind pushing you.

Good run, not nearly as nice as all the other days since I've been here.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace	Incline	Avg HR	Max HR
1	7:18	7:18		158	172
2	7:07	7:07		145	148
3	7:24	7:24		144	151
4	7:07	7:07		150	159
5	6:57	6:57		153	159
6	6:42	6:42		156	162
7	6:31	6:31		157	160
8	6:24	6:24		155	164
9	6:49	6:49		153	163
10	7:02	7:02		154	160
Total	1:09:32	6:57		152	164

5:00 am, Glad today was an easy recovery run, need to get an early start at work today.  All that wind yesterday must have brought in the cold today, it was downright chilly this morning.  Nice extended loop around Disney twice, avg pace a little faster than it should have been but I needed to get moving to warm up.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace	Incline	Avg HR	Max HR
1	7:34	7:34		159	173
2	7:23	7:23		136	145
3	7:03	7:03		139	145
4	7:17	7:17		141	148
5	7:06	7:06		148	159
6	7:06	7:06		145	149
Total	43:21	7:15		145	159

 

Awesome morning for a long run, cool temperatures, and an almost full moon lighting the way.  I was a bit nervous for this mornings run, first "long" run since TOU. I'm sure in a few weeks I'll be looking back on the "good ol' days" of 17 mile Saturday runs.

I left the hotel at 5:00am ran 3 miles up to the bunny trail out the trail 5.5 miles turned around at the 8.5 mile mark and ran the same route back to the hotel.  I was feeling great the whole way, kept looking down and my watch thinking I was going way to fast for a long run but I never really felt tired until the last mile.

Got back, showered and off to work,  still beat all my co-workers to work by 1 hour.

Just looked at my Garmin profile and can see why it was so fast the second 1/2, looks like it's slightly uphill all the way out and downhill all the way back.  It seems completely flat when your running it in the dark.

http://connect.garmin.com/player/64555149

Distance	Time	Avg Pace
1	6:57	6:57
2	6:59	6:59
3	6:49	6:49
4	6:42	6:42
5	6:44	6:44
6	6:41	6:41
7	6:43	6:43
8	6:47	6:47
9	6:30	6:30
10	6:19	6:19
11	6:14	6:14
12	6:16	6:16
13	6:22	6:22
14	6:21	6:21
15	6:18	6:18
16	6:30	6:30
17	6:24	6:24
Total	1:51:47	6:34