RoadBunner

Monday Mario

2012-02-13T13:21:00.000-08:00

Let sleeping rabbits lie.

Week 9; All Shoes Go To Heaven

2012-02-11T00:33:00.000-08:00

I have been using this running log since 2006. For the first time ever, I wore a pair (now up to two pairs) of shoes past the 500 mile mark. Previously my favorite pair of shoes was the only one that ever came close. When I entered the run that brought my Sauconys to 500+ I saw the above red number and laughed out loud. I've known this running log for 6 years and the red colored number felt like a special surprise from an old friend.

Sunday: 17.1 miles with the middle 13.26 miles @ 8:28 pace... 8:28 pace!; Since I hit 8:46 pace for a 14 mile pick-up during a long run a few weeks ago, I thought I'd get a teensy more aggressive for this spec test. I have thus far been approaching my training runs with 8:40 pace being my goal marathon pace. I was hoping to run in the 8:30's. With 8:35 pace being a bit of a goal. I'm so happy with how this run went. I'm not going to say it was always easy, but it wasn't always hard and I think that is just the right effort for a marathon pace. I also earned myself a 7 minute half PR of 1:52. To take 7 minutes off my half time and to not even be racing seems so unreal to me.

Monday: Bikram Yoga

Tuesday: 7 miles @ 9:37 pace; I could tell there was a little residual fatigue from Sunday's run.

Wednesday: 11 miles @ 8:59 pace; The middle 6 miles of this run were supposed to be run at a "moderate" pace. I struggled a bit about what this was. Figured 5K = very hard, 10K = hard, half = moderate-hard, full = moderate. So I told myself to go out at MP effort and see what I got. Half mile splits started at 9:19 pace and ended at 8:01. Average 8:27 pace overall for the pick-up.

Thursday: Bikram Yoga; This class was so hot and humid. While I was lying there trying not to die I decided that this Bikram yoga class was more challenging than the half marathon I had just run. I detest these hard classes while they are happening, but there is something to be said about developing mental strength through hot yoga. I wanted to skip poses but rallied and got them all done.

Friday: 22 miles @ 9:36 pace; I had two days less recovery than I should have had from my last long run and I could tell my legs were tired. But my pace was pretty good for an easy long run. Monster long runs coming up the next month, but I think I'm ready for them.

Another week in the books. I'm at that point in the training plan where I'm trying to take in one week at a time and not think too far ahead. I'm feeling good about how things are shaping up and am excited to see how much more work I can get done in the next month. I bought sour cream the other day at the grocery store and the expiration date was March 18. That's race day. It must be coming up.

A note on shoes: I wore my Brooks Ravennas today and brought their total up to 517 miles. I've had some niggling left knee issues which I've decided may be Ravenna-related so am definitely retiring those. My Sauconys, however, still feel awesome. I've always had 500 miles as an arbitrary number above which running shoes must die but I'm debating wearing them for shorter runs for a bit longer. At first I took the red-colored number in my running log as a sign that I should just cut my losses and replace them, but I may see if I can get a few more miles out of them. Bad idea? I do have 4 pairs of new running shoes stockpiled and ready to go.

Monday Mario

2012-02-06T12:44:00.000-08:00

Introducing the latest in Mario's Wonderful World of Culinary Make-up....

The Carrot Manicure!

Not the best shot, but he's got two Carrot Manicures going on as well as Carrot Mouth

Week 8; Recovery

2012-02-03T18:08:00.000-08:00

Can I get a rest day?

Saturday: Easy run, 5.1 miles @ 9:25 pace & 6x hill sprints; Tried out some new kicks today. This model is the updated version of my current favorite shoe. I have two pairs of shoes fast approaching 500 miles each so wanted to start breaking in a new pair before those two are taken out of rotation. These have a lower heel-to-tow-drop than its predecessor and is more lightweight; Bikram Yoga

Sunday: Fartlek run, 10 miles @ 9:05 pace with 8x 3:00 pick-ups, 2:00 recovery (8:19, 7:43, 7:32, 7:46, 7:44, 7:33, 7:43, 7:32); Feeling pretty meh about how the pick-ups went.

Monday: Easy run, 12 miles @ 9:42; My legs are tired. I imagine doing this longer easy run every week is to learn to run on tired legs. Mission accomplished.

Tuesday: REST; I did some workout switcharoos to give myself a day off. I'm trying to stay in tune with what is going on with my body and definitely needed this.

Wednesday: 9 miles @ 9:22 pace, 10x 30 sec pick-ups (avg. 7:13 pace); 8x hill sprints

Thursday: 5 miles @ 9:57 pace; Boyfriend joined me for a pre-work run; Bikram Yoga

Friday: 4 miles @ 9:15 pace, 6x 30 sec pick-ups (avg. 7:01 pace); Bikram Yoga

After being so pleased about my legs bouncing back quickly last week, this week was about doing some damage control to get back on track. I had a slight taper at the end of this week. My training plan called for a 13.1 mile specific test this week where I need to pull off 13.1 miles at marathon pace. There is a local half in my backyard this weekend so that worked out perfectly. So my long run this week will take place on Sunday. When I started this training plan I was pretty nervous about running 13.1 miles @ 8:40 pace. But a few weeks ago I ran 14 miles @ 8:46 in the middle of an 18 mile run. I ran that portion a bit faster than planned, but what I essentially did was get that spec test done a little early. I may get a little more aggressive with the pacing this Sunday but I am in no way racing this half marathon. I'm excited to see how it goes and barring any catastrophe, should earn myself a new half marathon PR.

Monday Mario

2012-01-30T14:26:00.000-08:00

I've talked about my obsession with Mario as a baby bunny in the past.

Saw this YouTube video the other day and SQUEEE! Baby Mario look-a-like!

Week 7; Got Recovery?

2012-01-27T17:45:00.000-08:00

Landed in Chicago last Friday during a snowstorm. I hadn't seen snow since 2007.

Sunday: Icebreaker Indoor Marathon; 26.2 miles @ 9:38 pace

Monday: Bikram Yoga

Tuesday: 4 miles @ 9:26 pace; Easy, systems-check run. Was still a little sore from the marathon but legs felt pretty good during the run and my pace was fairly quick for a short recovery effort.

Wednesday: 10 miles @ 8:58 pace, including 3x 10 min @ 8:10, 7:58, 7:45 pace with 3:00 recovery; My legs felt surprisingly good. I was sure there would be some deep-seated tiredness from the race but I hit all the pick-ups with more flare than expected. This is definitely the shortest time frame after a marathon that I've asked my body to do speed work and it was in the middle of a double-digit run as well.

Thursday: Bikram Yoga

Friday: 14 miles @ 9:30 pace; Legs were dragging a bit at the end but my pace didn't suffer for it. I received some Sports Beans at a runner holiday party and tried them out for the first time today. My stomach is pretty iron-clad when it comes to runner fuel and I can go a fair distance on nothing but water. So I can't speak to the fueling abilities of the beans, but I will say they are a ton of fun to eat. They have the same texture as regular jelly beans and I felt like a kid waiting for the time to eat them. I may throw them into my fuel rotation.

All in all a very successful training week. Body, I love you for being a great sport this week and bouncing back so quickly. In just a few days I'll be able to say that my goal race is *gulp* next month already! Wow.

I've been doing some ruminating on Icebreaker. I was a little sad I didn't try to race it what with all the babying the aid station gives you. I am not entirely sure I could pace myself well on that set-up with only quarter mile feedback. I'm used to staring at my Garmin's lap pace when I'm racing. Interestingly, the race director once said that the totally flat course generally yields slower race times for people since you're using the same muscles. I'm not sure if that is a reflection of the way people approach a race like this (as a fun event or in conjunction with the half the day before). But eyes on the prize in Modesto so I won't think too hard on this.

As an aside, I had originally planned on running the half marathon on Saturday and the full on Sunday (just like the Goofy Challenge). I wrote to Shirley to ask if she would recommend this, and she felt that a lot of the novelty would wear off doing it two days in a row. In hindsight I think I agree with that assessment. I won't say I wouldn't try to do that challenge, but I think the set-up of Goofy at Disney is definitely more appealing. Icebreaker used to be a Boston qualifier but they reniged that designation this year. A part of me wants to go back and race the event but I'm sort of hoping the next time that happens I'll be in BQ territory which would make the whole thing a moot point. So we'll have to see when/how I participate down the road.

Icebreaker Indoor Marathon

2012-01-26T16:11:00.000-08:00

The Mario Recap, Marathon #31:

SO. MUCH. FUN!

The Full Recap, Marathon #31:

When I started telling people I had signed up for an indoor marathon, I was genuinely shocked by the responses I got. Most people seemed horrified at the idea of running 26.2 miles around an indoor track. I first heard about indoor marathons from Shirley and I wrote to her a bit over a year ago to narrow my choice down to Icebreaker. The race director of this marathon also did a couple of podcast interviews and the whole thing sounded amazing. I suppose with all the positive influences about this race, the potentially negative aspects never crossed my mind.

To cut to the chase, after Disney (which is near and dear to my heart) this is the most fun marathon I have ever run. And for sure I rank it in the top 4 races of the marathons I have done (which is 24 unique marathon venues).

I love, love, loved every minute of this race.

Race location: Pettit National Ice Center; and SNOW!!! (Humor me, I grew up in Hawaii and have been in CA for 4+ years)

First off, to set the stage, things that were awesome:

You don't have to worry about the weather. No sunblock needed. Wind? Nada. Rain? Nada. Temperature? Absolutely perfect.
There were 96 aid stations and 192 portapotty stops.
Bringing a spectator along? You'll see them 96 times which is probably 92 times more than the typical marathon. It is always such a pick-up to see Boyfriend at any point in a race and he was there almost every single lap to cheer me on. He did disappear for a bit when he went to get a pretzel and hot cocoa, but I must have seen him at least 89 times. Which brings up another point -- ultimate spectating luxury -- food, seats, and real bathrooms at your disposal.

All in all, the above things made for a zero stress situation. I never realized how not having the above things makes a marathon so stressful. What shouldn't I eat the night before? No biggie, there are 192 portapotty stops if something goes wrong. How much fuel should I carry? Who cares? You can pick it up at one of the 96 aid stations. I knew they were handing out Gu. Sometimes the gel stations don't coincide with the miles you want to consume them. No worries about that at this race. I am not sure I can ever run a traditional road race again with all those unknown variables.

The track was pretty big and with the ice hockey rink on the inside you couldn't see around the entire track at once -- a good thing, I suppose.

The track had two lanes. They designated the inner lane the passing/faster runner lane. This is one bummer of the race. Unless you are super speedy you are definitely not going to get the inner lane the whole race and will therefore add a bit of distance to your day. It took me a couple of laps to get a strategy, but I hugged the outer side of the dividing line the first half+ of the race to minimize swerving. I did have to step into the inner lane to pass people, but I'd immediately move back to that position so faster people could easily pass me. Around mile 17 or so the crowd thinned and I started hugging the inner side of the dividing line to try to save myself some distance. It wasn't until the very end of the race when few people were passing that I ran squarely in the center of the inner lane and only during my very last lap did I take the thing for myself.

Runners heading to the start line.

Let's talk about that one aid station you pass 96 times. There were tables set up by your number and you could leave a water bottle and fuel there and pick it up/drop it off as you liked. These tables were manned by volunteers who stuck with a certain number group. So basically they were your personal pit crew. There were also self-serve unmanned tables you could drop stuff off at but I never used those. I saw some TV tables set up by people around the track that I suppose they used as their personal table. There was enough room that I could have brought my roll-on luggage and left it track-side to pick through as I pleased.

My two volunteers were awesome. I'd tell them my number and what I wanted and they'd have it ready for me the next lap. "Refill water, please!" "Bottle, please!" "Gel, please!" I hate the time I lose on courses refilling my own bottles or tangoing with gel wrappers. I'd drop my bottle off one lap, pick up a gel another and have two hands free to mess with the thing.

And the freedom of knowing what you want is right there is amazing. If you don't get it right another 2.5 minutes and you're right there again. Same with the portapotties. I had to use the bathroom for a bit and on a normal course since you never know when the next one will appear, I would have stopped. But I knew one was never much more than a minute away and subsequently I never bothered stopping.

And besides being your lifeline, those volunteers cheered their little hearts out for you. They were amazing. They took bottle orders and were the best cheerleaders. I think volunteering at this race would be such an awesome experience.

So stating the obvious, Garfield wouldn't have worked in an indoor track. As such, I left him at home and ran with a regular digital watch for the first time in a race since 2008. With auto-lap on the Garmin I haven't had to hit a watch button at a race in years, so that took some getting used to at first.

They had two screens up. The first showed your name and your lap count. The second would post your name and lap time as soon as you crossed the timers. It took me many laps to figure this out. At first I thought the lap count screen was supposed to know you were coming and show you your lap count. But I realized it was just randomly scrolling through the names (which was sort of nice because you would have to go around again to see if your name would be up if it wasn't the the first time you looked). If you wanted you could also ask for a lap count but I never did this since my watch showed me what lap I was on (I did occasionally check it against the official screen since I sometimes wasn't sure if I had pushed the button on my watch correctly).

When you registered for the race, they asked for two song requests. I was a little sad when my songs played less than a mile into the race back to back. On top of this the announcer thanked everyone involved with the race while my second song was playing. So I hardly got to hear the second song and had nothing to look forward to the rest of the run. But the music choices other people made weren't bad at all, either.

There was a moment in the high teens of lap numbers where I realized that 96 laps was a looong way off. But shortly after that, I stopped thinking about it and just kept running. Every lap went by so quickly. First off it is only a little over a quarter mile. Second, you are constantly thinking about whether someone needs to get around you or if you need to pass someone else. Third, they are playing music the entire time. I pretty much always train with music but never race with it. Whenever I hear music on course it comes in short bursts as you pass bands or speakers. But it was going on constantly at this race. Fourth, you pass a hearty bunch of spectators every minute.

The lap sort of broke down to this: Cross the timers, hit watch button, look at lap time, on pace, pass spectators in stands (one guy had a dry erase board and changed the message every single lap -- he even had knock knock jokes and hangman games -- and other spectators had multiple signs), ride the spectator high around the corner, start thinking about whether or not you want to drop off a bottle or pick up something at volunteer table, let me pass this guy, let me make sure that lady has room to pass me, there's the volunteer table, smile back as they cheer, cross the timers...repeat.

It sounds repetitive but it was awesome.

I was looking forward to lap 61-62 because I had figured out that I would run my 10,000th lifetime mile at that point in the race. My mileage count from the early days is a bit estimated at times but the tracking is good enough for me.

My training log stats pre-Icebreaker

My training log stats post-Icebreaker

I got a little misty thinking of all those miles and who would have thought I'd ever run so far. Boyfriend told the announcer about my 10,000 and the announcer gave me a little shout-out. Here's to the next 10,000.

The race venue is an Olympic Training ice rink and the speed skaters were out for part of the race. I have never seen speed skaters up close and man alive are they fast!

Wish I could put on skates and slide on the ice during this race, too.

Olympians in the house!

Quite frankly most of the race is a blur. I could sort of figure out what mile I was at based on time, but generally I had no clue what mile I was at. This led to an amazing phenomena. It may have just been a really good day for me, but I was not nearly as spent at the end of this race as I normally am during marathons. I recall a moment when I did some mental gymnastics and realized I was over 20 miles into the race. Really? Over twenty?! Wow! It doesn't feel like 20! And then I just forgot about what mile I was at and kept running. I didn't have that awful countdown of the last few miles which always seem to go by so slowly. I thought it would be disconcerting to not know my exact mileage, but it was so freeing. The time on the track flew by so quickly.

Before I knew it, I was at lap 90 and started counting down. With two laps to go I started to pick up the pace and when I crossed the timers after lap 95 I heard the announcer call my name, saying I had one lap to go. I put on the jets and took up the inner lane. I felt genuinely sad that it was my last time running around the track. I didn't want it to end. I passed my pit crew and told them it was my last time around and they cheered really loudly for me. I crossed the timers in 4:12 and change, and the announcer said I was a finisher. Finisher. Such a sweet word.

AWESOME post race snacks. I may or may not have brought my own bag of goldfish crackers to nosh on post-race but was happy to eat some of the race supplied fishies.

I went back and thanked my bottle station volunteers and gave them each a big hug. They were awesome and were still at it with bottle hand-offs for the remaining runners. I'm sure the time goes by quickly for them since they are always thinking, but it is a high responsibility, quick-paced job for sure.

I actually like the shirt, but unisex small. Bleh. If I was a medium-sized man I would never have to buy any running clothes.

My foot behaved for the race and has not been worse for wear since the marathon. I gave it three days off before the race. I generally don't train on pain killers/anti-inflammatories but for races will renege that ideal. So I Alleve'd up the two days before the race and ran under the influence of Extra Strength Tylenol. I haven't taken any meds since the race and haven' t had any issues. Can't really explain it, but I won't question it, either.

I'm really happy with my time. For the effort level a 4:12 finish is pretty good for me (4th fastest marathon). I've never approached a time like this in the past without being in PR-mode. I think normally an "easy" race I would have done some walking through the aid stations, but with the personal pit crew I didn't walk at all this race. As I mentioned, I finished feeling very fresh and I've been able to get right back into training which was the goal of using this as a training run. It is a little hairy traveling to the Wisonsin area this time of year but I hope to return one day and run this race again.

Really, really cool.

Week 6; Wherefore I Disown My Left Foot

2012-01-20T00:54:00.000-08:00

This photo has nothing to do with this week. I shot this when we were in Half Moon Bay. No idea who that runner is, but I'm sure he's having a great run.

Saturday: Bikram Yoga; I ended up skipping a 5 mile run this day because I had some toe issues on my Friday long run the day before (see below).

Sunday: 10 miles @ 9:24 pace; Joined Aron on her final run in her 20s which was tons of fun. I was supposed to do speed work this day, but flipped the easy run to Sunday so I could enjoy the group atmosphere and did the speed demon stuff the following day. I was only planning to do 9, but what's another mile?

Monday: 10.1 miles @ 8:41 pace, including 6 miles @ 8:12 pace, Bikram Yoga; Did almost 1.5 miles at a sub-8:00 pace at the end of the tempo portion. Yee-haw!

Tuesday: Bikram Yoga, 4 miles @ 10:26, 5x hill sprints; Audrey joined me for 3 of the miles. She hadn't run at all since a Turkey Trot in November so we took it easy.

Wednesday: 10.1 miles @ 9:13 pace, middle 7 miles done 2 min fast (8:01, 7:40, 7:59, 7:47, 7:56, 7:43, 7:39, 8:29) every 5 min; My legs felt decent this morning but I just couldn't muster a great pace for the pick-ups. I felt sort of deflated that my pick-up paces were sometimes slower than my 6 mi tempo pace earlier in the week. But I figured I was getting the effort in and didn't stress too much about the whole thing.

Thursday: Bikram Yoga

Friday: Rest; I was going to run a few miles before hopping on a plane, but with my foot issues (see below) I'm playing it safe. If planning to run a marathon on a bum foot is ever safe.

A note about my foot: So early last week in the middle of a 5 mile easy run, my "pointer" toe of my left foot started to feel sore. It had a bruise-like pain with every push-off. Once I got home it went away pretty quickly. The remainder of the runs last week it flared up a little after 6 or so miles but always went away fairly quickly once I got home. Then on last Friday's 18 miler, it started to get sore at mile 10ish and remained sore the rest of the run. With the higher mileage, it was still a little angry on Saturday which is why I skipped the run. Sunday I could *just* feel it at the end of the 10 miles, and ever since then it has been fine.

On Monday's run, the arch of my foot was a little tender the beginning of the run but it went away after a couple of miles. I was rolling my left foot on a tennis ball like a mad woman because I found some tender areas and thought maybe that was what was pulling on my toe. I figured maybe I had over-rolled and now my arch was angry.

Tuesday's run: No foot issues. Phew.

Wednesday's run was going great, until maybe mile 4 or 5. The rear part of the arch started to feel sore like a bruise and it persisted the rest of the run. It was actually pretty bad during the recovery periods and when I picked the pace back up would improve a little. That area is still tender to the touch now and I've been rolling it out to see if it helps.

So I'm thinking I have some sort of moving plantar fascia issue. I'm happy that the pain is moving around -- that has to be a good thing, right? But at the same time it is pretty annoying. I'm a little troubled because I have a marathon this weekend. I'm scheduled to do 20 easy miles on Friday so instead I'll be doing the marathon at an easy pace. So not so much pressure in the sense that I can take it easy or walk it out if I have to, but I don't want to set myself back in such a way that I can't get back into training next week.

Originally I was thinking I might finish just sub-4:20 running at an easy pace. I'd love to do that, but will have to see what my foot decides to do on Sunday. I'm running an indoor marathon this weekend. I've been wanting to do one for a while now and am really excited about the experience. People think it is totally crazy to run 26.2 miles around a 442.8767 meter track, but I think it is going to be an amazing, unique experience. When you're up to 30+ of these, you've got to keep it fresh, right?

Monday Mario

2012-01-16T23:27:00.000-08:00

It is still Monday in California...

Another of Mario's Christmas gifts. I ended up having to take the ring down because Mario got his front leg caught up in it twice and was having a hard time getting out of the Willow Trap of Death. I tied up a smaller ring and now this one is underfoot.

Week 5; Getting Rungry

2012-01-13T14:45:00.000-08:00

Grabbed sushi with Naomi this week. That's my sushi stack on the right and hers on the left. Guess the miles are starting to pile up.

Sunday: 8.8 miles, including 4x1600m @ 10K pace (7:47, 7:44, 7:45, 7:43 pace); Normally I pace myself for mile repeats pretty much with the idea to run as fast as I can for a mile. Lately I've been setting new training mile PRs every time I do this workout. But the plan today called for 10K pace which is definitely not "set-a-new-mile-PR" pace. I told myself to keep it in the 7:40's and did a good job. For the record, even 10K-pace mile repeats suck.

Monday: 12 miles @ 9:27 pace; I love my double-digit, mid-week easy runs. I'm out there for a nice chunk of time and I can let my mind wander. I also love the mindset they give you; 10 miles? Not far. Just another run day. My "easy" pace has come down a bit since Fresno which is a major stick I use to measure my fitness.

Tuesday: 5 miles @ 9:33 pace

Wednesday: 10.1 miles @ 9:37 pace; My legs were pretty dead-lead heavy this morning. Wednesdays are normally speed work of some sort and I was thinking I was lucky today was a pretty mild speed day. This was a progression run with the last 15 minutes run hard at slightly sub-8:00 pace. Was averaging a 10:00 pace before the pick-up started so you can see how blah my legs felt. They rallied at the end and I was pretty pleased.

Friday: 18 miles @ 8:57 pace, middle 14 miles @ 8:46 pace; I was supposed to run the middle 14 miles at MP + 10-20 seconds. I was therefore shooting for a 8:50-9:00 pace. I'm actually surprised my average ended up faster than that. It wasn't too taxing and was a good confidence booster. I am trying to internalize the fact that I could probably run a sub-2 half on any given day.

Bikram Yoga Count: 2 :(

I consider Sundays to be the start of my running week, but decided to post weekly recaps on Fridays. Therefore Saturdays will be included in the previous week's wrap-up. This won't mean much to you, but to me it will feel a little strange.

Even without the short run I plan to do tomorrow added into the total, what I posted above is still more than I've been running during peak weeks the last few years. And truthfully, I don't feel like I'm peak-weeking. So far this new schedule and I are getting along fine.

Thank you, to everyone for your nice wishes on the big news. I generally keep my personal life separated from this blog so have no plans to turn this into a wedding planning venue. I may share snippets here and there if the mood strikes me.

Monday Mario

2012-01-09T13:50:00.000-08:00

Dear Devoted Mario Fans,

Hello! It's me, Mario!! That's right. After years of being represented in sometimes unflattering ways, I've been allowed to finally pen a post for all of you. I'm not sure what took so long since after all, I am the main star of this little corner of the blogosphere.

I wanted to tell you about one of my cool Christmas gifts I got this past holiday. I received lots of gifts and I acted surprised when The Biped opened them in front of me even though she also wrapped them up in front of me a week or so prior. Sometimes those bipeds have such a short memory but I play along to amuse them.

I know you can tell, but this is my Christmas day "I'm surprised!!" face. I'm still waiting for my Oscar nomination. And that wet stuff on my fur is not a puzzling medical mystery but really a tear of joy for my new acquisitions.

Any-hoo, back to my post. One of my favorite gifts was...

Hay topper!

I love me my hay topper! First off, it means my litter box got cleaned. Let's face it. No one likes a dirty L'box. Second, it adds a delightful floral scent to my L'Box which is quite lovely. I may not look it, but I appreciate the finer things in life. Third, don't you love the pop of color it provides? Hay is notoriously green and it gets a little boring. Fourth, this stuff tastes ah-maaaa-zing! The way to my heart is clearly through my stomach.

Look at that. A clean, sweet smelling, colorful, candy filled L'box!

So the other weekend The Biped hooked me up with the above treat and wished me an early Happy New Year. Apparently The Two Bipeds were nipping off for a short weekend getaway. I was a bit ticked at not being invited, but I had a long weekend to-do list involving various takes on "Sit Around and Look Utterly Cute." I spend a lot of time thinking of new ways to achieve this and I figured it was best I didn't fill up my weekend with extra activities.

When they returned, there was much happiness and I was told all about how The Two Bipeds had received some sort of hay topper of their own. I was reminded about a top secret conversation I had with the male Biped when he told me he was getting some special carrots a couple of weeks earlier.

If you ask me, my hay topper is much more inviting. Hay topper was not meant to be illuminated with romantic light sources.

I inquired how these special carrots and hay topper tasted and since they didn't respond, I can only deduce that no one bothered to taste either of these delectable treats. Oh, the travesty!! For the record, the moment I get hay topper I dive right into the L'box. And I get a tasty carrot every night and it is the first thing I enjoy out of my evening salad.

Here I am feasting on the previously pictured hay topper. No waste here.

I am unimpressed with this new development. The word, "fianced" is being thrown around quite a bit over here. I surmise I won't be invited to whatever they are discussing which is probably for the best. I am pretty busy perfecting the Art of Looking Cute at all hours of the day. There is some joke about putting me in a little top hat and bow-tie and forcing me to abandon Operation Look Cute for a day, but I'm going to thump loudly if that ever comes to fruition.

So there you are. My short story about my favorite Christmas gift. I'm off to take a nap while still maintaining an elevated cute-factor which is a higher level skill that took years to master.

Nose bumps and fur balls,
Mario

Week 4; Walking on Sunshine

2012-01-07T17:12:00.000-08:00

New Year's Day trail run in gorgeous Half Moon Bay

Sunday: 10 miles @ 10:20 pace; Boyfriend joined me for the first run of the year on some easy trails in Half Moon Bay. We took it slow and enjoyed the views and weather. Theses were the same trails in the Half Moon Bay Marathon I ran in September. We went 5 miles on the trails, then I finished up another 5 miles on a hotel treadmill. I don't think I've been on a treadmill in 2 years and it was really awkward. I had a hard time getting into a groove. I swear that the effort felt much harder than the pace the treadmill was reporting. And sweet baby goats, the time dragged on and on. I couldn't keep my eyes off the distance and watched it slowly tick away in 0.01 mile increments. I started my runner life off as a treadmill runner and I never want to go back.

Monday: 5.23 miles @ 9:28 pace [middle 3 miles: 30 sec hard every 3 minutes (8x @ 7:02 pace)]

Tuesday: 8 miles @ 9:38 pace

Wednesday: 7 miles @ 9:10 pace [ladder intervals 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 2:00, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 @ 7:30 pace with equal recoveries]

Friday: 17 miles @ 9:44 pace; Easy pace long run with Alyssa and Karin. I ran the first 7 miles solo then met up with the ladies for the last 10. It has been a few weeks since I did a long run totally at an easy pace and it was a nice change.

Bikram Yoga Count: 3

I ran 6 days in a row (Fri-Wed) during last week and this week. I think I held up pretty well. It has definitely been years (if ever) since I've run 6 days in a row. I had a massage on Tuesday with an amazing woman I'm so glad I found (I've been trying to see her the week before every marathon and even during training cycles if I can stomach the price). I told her how my shins have been acting up and she found some tight spots in my calf and the bottom of my foot that may be causing the issue. I am also trying to get better with icing my shin post-run. I'm in constant damage control and prevention over here. The shin didn't get any worse with the busy running week. So far so good.

If anyone is interested in my running log, I've used this one since 2006. It is an excel spreadsheet and I really like all the info it gives you. It is customizeable and keeps tracks of all types of stats. I don't even use a lot of the info it generates.

Goodbye, 2011; Week 3

2011-12-31T11:37:00.000-08:00

Quick Updates:

The races keep piling up for 2012 in the sidebar. My next race is the Icebreaker Indoor Marathon next month. I'm training with eyes on the prize at the Modesto Marathon in March, though. My birthday falls on a Sunday in 2012 and I debated whether I wanted to do a birthday marathon. In 2007, I ran the Rome Marathon on my 27th birthday and I think that is a pretty tough birthday act to follow. So I decided I wasn't going to run a race on my birthday just for the sake of doing a birthday race.

But then I realized that I would be running my 32nd marathon on my 32nd birthday. That is a pretty sweet deal and I doubt my age and marathon number will ever coincide on my birthday again. My local choices (I suppose I could have gone back to Rome and run the Rome Marathon again) were LA and Modesto. LA was a nice race but nothing I want to do again. Modesto got good reviews and has the perfect recipe for a PR attempt for me: Flat and a relatively small field size. So I'm all signed up and back into training mode.

In November, I joined a Bikram Yoga studio for the year. I'm trying to go 3-4x a week.

This past week (sorry I haven't been doing weekly recaps lately):

Sunday: 8.6 mi, including 3x1600 with 400m recovery @ 7:36, 7:37, 7:25; That last mile repeat is my current training mile PR and my first sub-7:30 mile. For the record, mile repeats suck.

Tuesday: 7 mi @ 9:30 pace, 3x hill sprints

Wednesday: 10 miles including 6 mi @ 8:13 pace; Running in the low 8:00's is starting to get a little easier and I find myself slipping into 7:xx's for a few splits here and there.

Friday: 15.3 miles: 6 mi warm up, 5 mi: 90 sec hard (14x 7:41 pace), 90 sec easy, 2 mi easy, 2 mi hard (8:09 pace); The thing I hands down love the most about my new training plan is the pace work and speed play during long runs. It keeps the run fresh and I get a big confidence boost doing this kind of stuff in the middle of longer runs.

Sat: 2 miles @ 9:54 pace, 3x hill sprints

2011 Wrap-up

Stats from my running log

This year was a rather bipolar running year for me filled with ups and downs. I had three major injuries which put major dents into my training. But at the same time, I bookended 2011 with marathon PR's at my first and last marathons of the year. I finally ran a sub-4:00 marathon which was my goal for the year. For the first time since I've kept a running log for the year, I did not run more miles than the previous year (I'm pretty sure this is the first year since I've started running in 2001 that I did not set a mileage PR). Yet at the same time I was running faster and stronger than any other year. In November I set official PR's in the marathon and 5K, and unofficial PR's in the 10K, half-marathon, and mile. That is quite a month, right? This year I was also blessed to forge stronger friendships with old runner friends and meet a boatload of new ones. The Bay Area running community certainly took on a life of its own in 2011.

So what am I hoping for in 2012? I am hoping to be in shape to race two marathons so perhaps two ratchets down in my marathon time. I don't have a hard marathon time goal like I did in 2011, but I'm thinking I'll be pleased if I break into the 3:4x's. I really prefer to look at my progress in terms of training runs and I'd love to be running tempo runs in the sub-8:00's by the end of the year. Most important to me is to be injury free in 2012. If I can get that to work out, everything else will eventually follow.

Hoppy Holidays!

2011-12-27T12:33:00.000-08:00

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas!! I meant to get this up as part of "Monday Mario," but the day after Christmas was the exact opposite of Christmas and I was barely home at all yesterday.

Christmas Eve we made gingerbread cookies. Per tradition, we always make a gingerbread family of ourselves. Mario's has sort of taken on a standard look since I got a rabbit cookie cutter a few years ago, but it is still always fun.

I have to turn him into a lop and I added his mustache.

Mario and the tree Christmas Eve

Christmas morning we set the camera up and took our Christmas family photo. Mario looks so adorable in this one, I want to reach into the photo and squeeze his furry cheeks:

Why yes, I am Mario, Lord of this Christmas manor.

And in other outtakes, he looks a little less dignified:

We call this one, "The Gynecologist"

This year Mario was pretty lively during the present-opening festivities. He is usually snoozing in the morning and past Christmases have seen him heading under the couch to catch some shut-eye. He was pretty distracted with PAPER! to shred in this TUNNEL! but he'd check in with us every now and then. When he'd come around, I'd grab one of his gifts and open it for him.

Apparently, last year's big gift is made 100x better when you add some paper to shred inside.

A few of Mario's gifts:

Call me out of the tunnel when you get to the willow wreaths.

Much better.

After all the excitement, Mario hunkered down in his tunnel for a long Winter's nap and didn't emerge until shortly before dinner.

Bunny's version of sitting on the couch all day in PJ's watching Christmas movies.

All in all it was a wonderful day, and I even peeled myself off the couch and got a great 8+ mile holiday run in, complete with a training mile PR (7:25) as a Christmas gift to myself.

We also had a transient holiday visitor who got a coveted place on our tree while he awaits his private jet up to the Pacific Northwest to live with Racer. RG, send me your details again and I'll send this guy up to you.

The original Racer Rabbit met an untimely demise.

I think the new one is a bit more handsome than the original, so all's well that ends well.

Merry Christmas!

Ch-ch-ch-changes & 13.1 LA Giveaway Winner

2011-12-20T15:50:00.000-08:00

Close to a year ago, I bought this book:

And just in the last couple of months I actually got around to reading the darn thing. I've been using the same training plan since April of 2009. It took me from a 4:35 marathoner to a 3:57 marathoner and I think it is time to change it up a little. The last few times I've used the plan, I've added in a little more hill work and some marathon pace miles during long runs. A few times I ran 22 or 23 miles as my longest long run. That worked great, but I think I'm ready for some more changes and have been working on my new plan.

The book has three levels of ready-made plans, but I don't think any of them are suitable for me. So I have to make my own (which is really the whole point of the book). My main goal is to incorporate more speed work into my schedule and to also increase my overall volume. I am committing to adding in a fifth running day and am hoping to peak at around 60 miles vs. 50 this time around. I am trying to be smart about this change as increasing both quantity and quality at the same time is a recipe for disaster.

The last few weeks my chronic right shin has been flaring and I had a knee niggle. So I had to reevaluate my running each week to keep it honest and real. I realized a while back it would probably take going through 1 or 2 training cycles to get where I want to be with my training and I am okay with that. I've had to cut out the fifth day of running the last two weeks to be cautious and I'll be keeping close tabs on what my body is telling me. The book emphasizes adapting your training plan and runs based on how you are feeling and I think that is really important.

I'm starting the third week of my new training plan and am enjoying the change. The workouts are new and I'm already feeling like a stronger runner.

The goal is to go from this:

To this:

Naomi alerted to me this image which I adore.

At least in my head, if not reality :) Next A-race marathon is in mid-March (more on that later). Let's see how much work I can get done by then.

Now on to the good stuff. With all the tweets and comments, there were 35 entries for the 13.1 LA giveaway.

And counting from bottom to top of the list I had compiled, the winner was: @momtomarathon

Send me an email at roadbunner at gmail.com and I'll get the entry code over to you. Congratulations!! And thanks to everyone for entering.

Monday Mario & 13.1 LA Giveaway!

2011-12-12T20:15:00.000-08:00

Little clues the holiday season is here :)

I've been given the opportunity to host a giveaway for an entry into the 13.1 Los Angeles race. My pal, Alyssa, ran the race this year and you can read all about it here. The race has spinner medals and gender specific shirts. Enough said.

The race is coming up in a little over a month and is, obviously, in Los Angeles. I know this will limit the number of people who will be interested, but I'm excited someone will get the opportunity!

Source

To enter:
1. Mandatory entry is to tweet: "Check out the 13.1 LA giveaway at http://www.roadbunner.blogspot.com @RoadBunner"
2. For an extra entry, leave a comment and let me know what you think Mario would like for Christmas this year (feel free to participate on this question even if you aren't a runner or aren't going to be in the LA area next month). If you're doing it for an entry, please let me know that in the comment & also let me know your Twitter name if it is different than your blog moniker.

I'll close the giveaway Monday night next week (19th).

For a double chance to win, check out Aron's giveaway, too. Hopefully we don't pick the same person :)

Mele Kalikimaka

2011-12-10T16:26:00.000-08:00

I've dropped the ball on this blog again (I blame YOU, Twitter). It is just hard to get to this blog when most of my peeps are chatting to me on Twitter all the time. But I've recently gone back to old posts which was really interesting and helpful, so I'm getting back on this blog train.

I have a semi-good excuse. I nipped away to Hawaii to visit my parents. Traveling to Hawaii is so much cheaper in early December than late December. This is the second time my mom waited for me to put up the tree. I really think putting up the tree is practically as good as being there for Christmas morning so I may make this a tradition.

I've been trying to make hand made ornaments for my relatives as gifts the last few years. This year I made a holiday mouse:

Super fun project!

You can see how much my knitting has improved from when I first started a few years ago.

My parents have a large tree and TONS of ornaments. It took Boyfriend and I twenty minutes to put up our tree. It took me 3.5 hours with my mom to do the tree in Hawaii. The majority of the ornaments we have were either gifts or hand made and there is a special story for almost every one. My mom loved to tell me who gave us this or who made that. Especially special to me, my grandma and grandpa on my dad's side used to get us ornaments every year for Christmas. I used to love it when my grandmother would take us to the ornament shop and let me pick one out. It is so special now to see their names written on these ornaments along with the year they are from. I didn't take the good camera home but am thinking maybe next year I will to take some photos of them.

All done!

See that big box on the left? As an aside and public service announcement (because my mom doesn't read this blog and apparently she snooped and already knows), but KitchenAids are REALLY hard to wrap. When Target.com offers to wrap it for you for $5, you can bet your furry bunny butt that it would be money well spent. My sister and I went in on gifts together for my parents this year so we got them each something extra special. My mom's been oogling KitchenAid mixers for years and we finally got her one.

We took a detour after dinner one night to see the Honolulu Christmas lights.

I will have a much more detailed post about my training very soon. But suffice to say I stayed pretty active while in Hawaii. I either ran or joined my mom on her daily 5.5 mile walk each day. I actually enjoyed running in Hawaii this time. Usually I dread not having a big park loop to run through. Neighborhood running is not my cup of tea. I created a larger loop than usual which helped and the winter morning temps were very nice. It was a little humid but the weather this time of year is so much more pleasant than going home during the summer.

I snapped some "Seen On My Run" shots in Hawaii for all of you:

My mom said this poor guy has been sitting here for a while. Anyone else sense a Toy Story 3 Lotso-esque meltdown?

Not the prettiest hibiscus, but when I was growing up one side of our property was lined with this type.

Monday Mario

2011-12-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

The art of urban camouflage.

Run Wild For A Child 5K

2011-12-02T01:50:00.000-08:00

Yes, you read that right. I ran a 5K. And I surprisingly have a lot to say about the experience.

I pretty much stumbled into this race having secured a free entry. I have long and often said that I am afraid of 5K's and therefore avoid racing them like the plague. However, it didn't take me more than a few seconds to decide that I'd race this event vs. just running it for fun.

My current 5K PR was from April, 2005 when I ran a 25:51. And this was a huge deal for me at the time to be running in the 8:00's. But that race hurt and I remember feeling as if my heart was literally going to pound out of my chest as I approached the finish. I swore off 5K's.

That 2005 5K PR was an 8:19 pace which is a pace I can probably hold sans heart attack feeling for 7 or 8 miles now. So I knew I had a PR in the bag barring any huge catastrophe.

I was a bit scared of this race because I don't spend a lot of time doing short interval or even 5K pace work. During marathon training, 3-4 times I'll do mile repeats. And my last mile repeat sessions were early JULY and mid October. Not a lot to go on there. I've always thought it would be super cool to have an average race pace in the 7:xx's and the 5K distance seems to be the only distance this could ever happen for me. So I've had that teensy goal in my mind for a few years as a pipe dream sort of thing.

In October I ran two mile repeats in 7:46 and 7:54. Based on how I felt during those repeats I doubted I could hold a sub-8:00 pace for 3.1 consecutive miles. On a bit of last minute decision, a week ago I did another two mile repeats in 7:31 and 7:38. Not bad progress in a month. I figured with the new training mile PR I had a more realistic shot of going sub-8:00 pace during the race.

My plan was to go out at a 7:50 pace, hold it, and ratchet down as appropriate. I ran a little over 2 miles to the race start from home as a warm up. I luckily found Boyfriend at the start, as well as Naomi, and got there just in the nick of time for the gun.

The race panned out like this (0.5 mi Garmin splits):

The first mile or so, all I could think about was that I had no clue how to pace myself for a 5K. I'm on pace but is that too much? Should I back off? Will I implode? Oh wait, now we're going to slow. Must speed up. But now is this too fast? Repeat. Shortly after the first mile, I realized I felt the same amount of physical distress as I would at about the halfway point of a marathon. Gah!

Mile 1: 7:52, 8:00

One thing I totally forgot about 5K's is that children run them. Let me tell you, there is nothing like pushing along at 5K pace right next to a 10 year old with horrid form, obviously not pacing themselves, wearing a huge backpack, and yet there they are right by you and hanging on. Oh wait! And now that little snotty kid is actually pulling away from you. Gah!

Mile 2: 7:53, 8:02

I saw the awesome Courtney who was out cheering. Such a great surprise! Since I hadn't known she'd be out I was wondering if I would get to see her after the race. "Are you coming to lunch after?" I asked her as I ran by, "I hope you can make it!" As soon as I uttered those words in such a cheery fashion I realized I was not running this 5K hard enough.

I saw Alyssa who beat down the 10K race shortly after that. We had a smiley exchange and again knew I wasn't in the right effort zone.

Then all of a sudden, I was at mile 2 with only one more mile to go. I started to push the pace a bit. I was running along and realized I'd finish with a sub-8:00 pace! I tried to time pushing my pace so that feel-like-puking would coincide with just after crossing the finish line. But I never quite got there. I was giving it my all at the finish, though.

Mile 3: 7:45, 7:29
Mile 3.15: 6:49
Official finish time: 24:32
Pace: 7:55 min/mile

So I'm totally impressed with myself for putting down a sub-8:00 pace somewhere officially. Never thought that would happen. And so with that, you'd think I'd officially retire from 5K's, right? But alas, there is always just a little bit more to squeeze out of yourself, and I'm hoping to one day finish with a sub-24:00 time. I think this is pretty doable with just a little better pacing in the early miles and a little more speed work.

I actually really enjoyed pushing the pace a bit and am hoping to race 5K's more than once every 6+ years in the future. It is a very different change of pace for me from marathons, but I think it will help me to become a stronger runner.

A couple of observations about 5K's:

The marathoner in me loves the parallels between the marathon and the 5K. The 5K is just a little truncated version of the marathon. You feel like it is mile 16 at mile 1.2, it feels like it is mile 24 at mile 2.1. And there is that awesome dash to the finish.
But it all happens so quickly! And if it goes badly you can try again so soon! Gotta love that.
Sadly, you won't be setting any 10 minute PR's in the 5K. Not sure how I feel about trying to whittle away 10 seconds here and there. The marathoner in me does not like this aspect.
My garmin stats were as follows: 3.15 miles, 7:48 average pace. Quite frankly, that is right about where I wanted to be for my overall average pace. And I only ran an "extra" 0.05 miles. Surely that means my average pace on the garmin is going to be pretty identical to the official average pace, right? An extra 0.05 miles in a marathon is like nothing and wouldn't even put a dent in your average pace. But alas, I learned this is totally not so in the 5K. That extra 0.05 miles cost me 7 seconds a mile off my official pace. The marathoner in me dislikes this, too. Note to self, learn to run tangents better. Or find a straight 5K course.

I've got no photos to share so enjoy this one of Mario looking so handsome and stately :)

Monday Mario

2011-11-21T16:58:00.000-08:00

Mario always looks like a Muppet to me when he lies with his legs sticking out in this fashion.

Just in the last two days, I consider Mario to be 100%. He has finally eaten all his pellets on his own (I did back off the Critical Care a bit as an experiment) and if you could only see his primo, planetary poop-pile from the last 24 hours (I discussed briefly with Mario sharing a photo of it for "Monday Mario," but after all of the embarrassing Bunny Burrito photos, I reneged). He's getting into mischief during his play time at night. And he is just generally himself again in little ways I hadn't realized I'd missed until things were back to normal. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.

Monday Mario

2011-11-14T19:50:00.000-08:00

Someone please get in contact with my attorney.

Nothing much new on the Mario front. I have been diligent with his Critical Care feedings and he is still on his meds. His eating/poop production is still slightly below normal. But honestly, if the vet hadn't said anything I wouldn't be too concerned about it at this point so it is not far from normal. He is eating all of his veggies and seemingly normal amounts of hay. He leaves about a third of his pellets every day, though. Call me crazy, but if I'm pumping him full of Critical Care twice a day it sort of makes sense to me that he wouldn't be eating all his pellets. And yet I am not supposed to stop feeding him the Critical Care until he eats all his food as normal. Something seems sort of off there. The one nice thing about the bunny burrito is having total access to kiss those little cheeks.

Two Cities Wrap-up

2011-11-11T18:40:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, my 2011 marathon season is officially over. I managed to bookend 2011 with PR's in the first race of the year and the last race of the year. Had some nasty little injuries in the middle, but overall it turned out pretty great.

So now I am reflecting on what my new PR means to me. During the race, there were a few moments when I seriously started rethinking this whole, "Let's try to PR the marathon" deal. I've gotten finishing marathons down pretty well and it can even be tons of fun. But this racing a marathon? You're spending a lot of time in an uncomfortable zone. And even though a minute buffer is big, it is at the same time not a lot of time, either. I could work so hard for hours and lose it all to one or two bad miles. It started seeming sort of ridiculous to be doing this. I thought to myself a couple of times, "If I go sub-4, I think I may stop trying to race marathons."

Do you know what was one of the first things out of my mouth when I saw Boyfriend after the race? I said, "I've got a faster one in me." Blargh!

In a way I sort of dreaded going sub-4 because I feel like there is no other big goal out there for me. Sub-4 was this shining beacon to work towards and I feel every other goal is sort of arbitrary. There is of course the super shiny BQ! but my BQ time is still far from realistic for me. But then I look back and realize that going sub-4:30 was once a stretch goal for me, too. Remember when I wrote this? Look how far I have come.

I still remember what the coach at Marathon Camp told me. And I still do believe that I owe it to myself to see how fast I can get while my body will still let me do that. I'm going to keep at it and tackle the next realistic goal and see where it takes me. I've hit my "I'll die a happy runner goal," so everything after this is major icing on the cake. I am adrift without a hard end-point goal, but I suppose there is nothing wrong with that, right?

Regarding Two Cities itself, it was a great race! Very well organized and I loved how they separated the half and full races. It would be nice if they had a BYOB (bring your own bottle) mentality where people were ready to help you fill-up with a pitcher, but that is my only big suggestion for them. Kristin did an awesome write-up about the race that highlights some of the major points (the number of bathrooms was amazing! I didn't wait at all just 15 minutes before the race start). And a special shout-out to her for helping get my race packet. Not having to pick it up race morning was a huge load off my mind.

The swag was plentiful but just meh, in my opinion. Yay, for women cut shirts, but it is still too big. The sweatshirt is unisex so useless in public for me. I'd rather have one really nice souvenir than multiple useless ones.

Audrey ran the New York City Marathon the same day I ran Two Cities. In fact, with the later NYC start we were actually running at the same time, too. We were orange Balega sock twins on Sunday. And we both ran marathons ending in X:57. Coincidence? I think not :)

I tweeted her this photo in the morning while I was getting ready.

And she sent this one back to me.

Many thanks to everyone for all the congratulations!! When I first started running marathons I never, ever thought I would ever run a 3:XX marathon. Being a runner is an amazing journey.

Two Cities Marathon

2011-11-08T16:22:00.000-08:00

The Mario Recap, Marathon #30:
PR! Sub-4! Negative split!

Sunday night, I was about to give Mario his meds/Critical Care and yes, still had my medal on. Photo-op!

The Full Recap, Marathon #30:
My goal for the race was to keep my average pace right around a 9:05 minute mile. A 9:09 pace is a sub-4 hour marathon, but since I run based off my Garmin I knew that with the "extra" distance you cover the pace my Garmin showed would end up being slower than my official pace. I figured out that a 9:05 was the buffer I needed to be safe.

From layering in marathon-pace miles in long runs, I knew that I had a tendency to sometimes slip into the high-8:00's. I made 8:55 my fastest tolerable pace for the beginning of the race. I was afraid anything faster than that was going out too strong and I would end up suffering for it later on. There were a few times in the first half of the race I found myself running in the 8:40's or 8:30's and I forced myself to slow a bit to conserve.

The weather was absolutely perfect for a race. They had forecast a 50% chance of rain, low of 41, high of 58. I figured the entire race would be overcast if not drizzly. I'd take it! The rain ended up burning off before the race but the temps were awesome. There was a slight breeze in some locations which was just under my threshold where I would have called it a significant head wind.

The race had an ultra marathon, marathon, half marathon, and two person relay. The marathon and ultra marathon started half an hour ahead of the half marathon. I loved this. I have a huge pet peeve running with people doing shorter distances than me (apologies to those ultra marathon people who had to run with me). The longer distances also went out in a totally opposite direction than the half so you would never see a single person doing a shorter distance faster than you were going. The course was a two out-and-back type configuration with a couple little loops and tails here and there. Nothing special, but I wasn't out there to see the scenery.

Mile 1: 9:00
Mile 2: 8:56

I didn't realize until the night before, but this race had tunnels. Three of them you run through six times. I blame the 16 tunnel passages of Texas for throwing my Garmin off and was counting on accurate Garmin data this race. Luckily I had also thrown on a 4:00 pace band. The race didn't have clocks on the course, but they had volunteers at every mile marker calling out the time. Early on I passed by a mile marker and figured out I was a little more than 10 seconds behind the gun time. I had my reference point for my pace band for the rest of the race.

Mile 3: 9:04
Mile 4: 8:52

I'm not going to lie, around mile 4 I started thinking that this whole idea was slightly ludicrous. The pace didn't feel hard, but it wasn't easy peasy, either. I was talking to Naomi about my race strategy a couple of weeks ago. I told her that if someone told me to go out and run 6 miles at a 9:00 pace, it wasn't something I could just easily pull off. I'd have to psych myself up for it a little bit. And here I was attempting to run 26.2 miles at that pace. What was I thinking?! I then reminded myself that there is a point in a run where things start to suck a little, but then they tend to not suck any more for the majority of the rest of the run. Perhaps I had just hit that point already. It had come a bit early, but I could and would work with it. Fight for it!

Mile 5: 9:01 (gel)
Mile 6: 9:02

Boyfriend made his first spectator appearance around mile 6. It was a big pick-me up which is reflected in my pace the next few miles. Looking at the photos he took, I am smiling and waving at him (which never happened again in subsequent photo encounters). I thought briefly after mile 6 that I had just set a 10K PR in a marathon (I fully admit that all of my PR's under the marathon distance are a bit outdated at this point).

Mile 7: 8:53
Mile 8: 8:59

Boyfriend popped up again around here. Oh, wait, I flashed him a smile at mile 8.5, too :) I think Boyfriend yelled, "You're right on pace!" at me, and I recall thinking that I still had a long way to go.

Mile 9: 8:57
Mile 10: 8:59
Mile 11: 9:17 (filled water bottle, gel)

I stopped to fill my water bottle during mile 11 which really irritated me. I generally race with my 20 oz handheld and will refill it once or twice during a race. I sometimes grab a cup to supplement here and there but generally ignore and keep running through all the water stops. I don't plan for any walk breaks (even through aid stations) when I race and it was murder for me to lose even 15 seconds filling up my bottle. To make matters sadder, this race did not have someone manning a pitcher who I could go to in order to fill my bottle quickly. I had to go to the table and literally empty cup after cup into my 20 oz. One thing that makes sense but really irked me was that they only filled the cup up about an inch on the bottom so I had to go through tons of them. I felt like a bit of an ass emptying cup after cup and throwing the empty cups around. Sorry, volunteers.

Mile 12: 9:08
Mile 13: 8:57

Boyfriend popped up again around the half mark. I was so annoyed at the thought of stopping again to fill my bottle that I yelled at him, "Bring my bottle to mile 21!" I had pre-filled a smaller 12 oz handheld in the hopes that towards the end of the race I could switch out to a smaller bottle thus lightening my load and saving me a water bottle refill.

I set a half marathon PR during this race, too. Blows my mind. I thought about how I felt when I ran my 1:59:11 a couple of years ago. It was hard and I was spent at the end. I thought about how I had to go twice as far today, but also marveled that I wasn't at death's door like I was during that half, either.

Mile 14: 8:53
Mile 15: 8:55
Mile 16: 8:59

During miles 14-16 I thought about how I had never run this far, this fast in my whole entire life. I was hitting unexplored territory. Pre-race I decided I had a very realistic shot of holding this pace to mile 16. I figured I knew I had a half marathon in me at that pace, and even if things got really tough I could probably gut it out another 3 miles. I found myself at mile 16 still chugging away and told myself that from this point on I'd be proud of however many miles I could keep it up.

Remember those dark miles I was psyching myself up for? They always come during race effort races and I didn't know when that would be during this marathon. Well, it happened around mile 17.5. My Garmin gives me splits every half a mile which I averaged out for most of the miles on this report. But I left the mile 17 splits as two half miles because you can tell where I started to slow a bit.

Mile 17: 8:59, 9:12 (gel)
Mile 18: 9:18 (filled water bottle -- The second out and back road seemed pretty isolated, and Boyfriend had even remarked the night before he wasn't sure he could access it to see me out there. I knew if it was possible he would be out there with my bottle, but I was running low on water and couldn't take the chance. So I stopped and refilled again. Was really annoyed at this stop because I even took the cap off the bottle and pointed to it as I ran up, but the volunteers just stood there handing out their cups and I had to go and do my 10 cup refill again)

I was getting really down miles 17.5-20.5. Here is the official elevation chart:

In my memory I had told myself that 16-21 were slightly downhill, and 21-24 were slightly uphill. Now was the time I was supposed to be clicking away easy to perhaps bank a few seconds to be able to slow on the uphill portion. But here I was slowing down. I'd look down at my Garmin and my current pace was 9:20something, 9:15something. I remembered how I was going to be proud for getting this far. My overall pace was still right on target and I knew I could keep up this slower pace for a few miles more and still technically be on track. If I could get to mile 20 today on pace, I could definitely one day, get to 26.2. But then I thought about how hard I had worked to get this far. To do this again another day I'd have to re-run all these miles. Hell no, was I about to let this go. Fight for it!

I willed myself to pick up the pace a bit and I slowly started passing people. I was going to lose this race if I let myself slow on the "easier" part of the out and back. I told myself this pace was hard, but I wasn't at the point that it was impossible. And I wasn't going to slow down unless it became impossible. I wasn't going to be upset if the sub-4 didn't pan out, but I was never ever going to use that reasoning as an excuse to not give it my all this day.

Mile 19: 9:09

The whole race whenever I passed a mile marker I'd look down at my pace band to make sure I was doing okay. Towards the middle of the race I was already almost 0.2 miles ahead of the mile markers which worried me about my official vs. Garmin pace. By the latter part of the race I knew I had over a minute buffer. God bless the volunteers who were calling out the times. I've worn pace bands before but never actually looked at them. So I always felt calling times at mile markers was sort of a useless, thankless job especially in this Garmin Age. I've run plenty of races with time-callers who must pick up on this fact and will call out times for a while and then stop for a while, and then start for a while, and so forth. But every single mile marker I passed with a person present saw me coming and called the time for me. It was such a nice security blanket to know where I stood. I didn't have much energy to thank everyone, but I made sure to thank every volunteer who called a time for me. I even spent oxygen adding a "so much" to the end of my "thank you's."

Mile 20: 9:17, 8:40

I heard Boyfriend from far, far away before I ever saw him. He had made it to give me my bottle. We were right before the turnaround, and I told him I'd grab the bottle from him when I came around the other side. I started drinking lots of water out of my bottle since I had already sacrificed some time to refill it. Plus I wasn't sure if my little 12 oz would be enough to get me to the finish.

Coming around the turnaround nursing my bottle before swapping it out.

I made it around the turnaround and started the trip home. I told myself that coming up were the hardest miles of this marathon. We were late in the race, the sun was out, and I had a few uphill miles to get through. Hard but not impossible.

Mile 21: 8:55
Mile 22: 8:58, 9:24 (I'm assuming this second split was the hill, gel)

I saw "The Hill" and it looked pretty intimidating as you came up to it. But actually running it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. My pace did fall a bit and my breathing got harder, but I never felt the need to stop. Golden Gate Park with your never-ending rollers, I heart you.

My Garmin's elevation data which I think more accurately describes the course than the official map. One big down and one big up and not as much gradual as I had expected and dreaded.

Okay, that hill was behind me, I just had to get to mile 24 and it was downhill to flat to the finish. Around this time I started passing hoards of half marathon walkers. The race does an awesome job of always keeping the half marathoners and the full marathoners separated on the road for the full distance the two races overlap (even at the turnaround!). I never had to sidestep anyone. Great job, Two Cities!

Mile 23: 9:08

I was expecting to be really suffering and really having to dig deep to my mantras (I alternated between "Fight for it!" and "Hard but not impossible" -- having thought of this second one while out on the course earlier). And while I kept repeating the mantras to myself, I wasn't in a deep despair like I had been around mile 18. The cloud cover came back. I felt stronger the last few miles than the latter teen miles. My pace was really good and I kept slowly ratcheting up the pace the last few miles; Playing the gambling game wanting to finish as fast as I could without combusting before the finish.

Mile 24: 8:50
Holy snickers,

Mile 25: 8:42
I'm really

Mile 26: 8:30
doing this.

Like a beacon calling in the distance.

I dug deep and pushed really hard the last almost half a mile to the finish. I told myself just a few more minutes and I'd be a sub-4 hour marathoner. A man running close to me had a friend who was running him in. His friend kept yelling, "You're almost there! Come on! Push it! Keep up with me!" and I took it as a personal challenge to go with them. His friend was running slightly ahead of us to motivate the guy to go with him. They were faster than me and I couldn't exactly keep up, but it kept me kicking to the finish.

Mile 26.46 (Garmin distance) 7:41

I crossed and looked at my Garmin. The time started with a "3." I turned around and looked at the official clock. Still a "3" there, too. I felt a little wobbly for a few steps but overall didn't feel so bad. I collected my medal and sweatshirt and headed out to meet Boyfriend. The race offers a hot breakfast and ice cream sundaes in the finish area, but I don't really have an appetite for any of that immediately after a race. I grabbed half a banana to force myself to eat.

It took a few minutes to find Boyfriend because he had missed me finishing. He ran into a traffic snafu coming back from mile 21 and missed me by 2 minutes. He felt really bad, but I remember thinking while I was out running that the road out there was so isolated it was a possibility he wouldn't make it back. And at the time having that bottle hand off was more important to me.

A special shout-out to Boyfriend who has always been amazingly supportive of me and my running. He puts up with my pre-race moodiness and craziness. He cooks me awesome pre-race pasta. He humors me when I ask him in total seriousness if I should wear the white hat or white with pink accents hat to a race. He is my chauffeur to races. He gets up early with me and hauls butt around towns to see me for fleeting, often thankless seconds. *blows a kiss* My pace picked up every time I saw him and I don't think that is a coincidence.

This is pretty long so I'll get a post-race wrap-up together and posted in the next couple of days.

Catch-phrase on the back of the Oiselle shirt I wore after the race.

Monday Mario

2011-11-07T09:08:00.000-08:00

Mario had his follow-up with the vet on Friday. His eating and pooping is still not 100% and that worried her a little. She thought his stomach still didn't feel normal so we redid the x-rays. She said his stomach is about 50% the size it was when he went in acutely the first time, but she still thinks there is a mass or something in there that hasn't pushed through yet. She's a little puzzled as to what it is as she says it doesn't look like a typical hairball and I can't recollect him chewing up something he shouldn't have lately.

So we restarted him on his anti-gas and anti-gas producing bacteria antibiotic (he had just stopped his course of treatment on those the day before his follow-up). She also started him up on a med that will cause his digestive tract to move a little more (we were unable to do this one the first time because she wasn't convinced there wasn't a blockage somewhere). Also, I had stopped with the Critical Care syringe feeding because his interest in food was high and Mario is just not cooperative with the syringe feeding. But I've been scolded gently and told I am to continue with the Critical Care until everything is 100% normal. I am a little dubious he'll ever eat his normal volume of food when I'm stuffing him with Critical Care, but the vet seems convinced it will happen.

So that is where we are now. Still not out of the woods :( The good news is that his personality is pretty normal so that keeps me from worrying about him all hours of the day vs. a couple here and there.

I'm getting better at the bunny-burrito to feed Mario and figured out if I hold him up like a baby the stuff goes down a little easier. He's a smart little rabbit, though, and if he can do it, will tuck his nose into the burrito to try to hide.

Mario wishes he were a turtle.

I won't steal Mario's Monday thunder with any race stuff today. Tune back in tomorrow for that.

Game Time!(?)

2011-11-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

With all of the Mario trauma/drama I wasn't able to get a running update posted. And now here we are, 24 hours away from the next marathon.

Two Cities was originally going to be my A-race of the year. Early in the summer my paces were getting a little faster and I felt that with another four months to train and build off that level, I'd be in a pretty good place to try to PR at Two Cities. If you've been following along for a bit, my PR is 4:01:02. I'm in that sticky spot where just a PR would be disappointing. I need to go sub-4 to have any satisfaction. Because let's face it, a 4:00:30 would just sting more than bombing and coming in at a 4:15.

My hip derailed my plan to have months to build up my pace and confidence. I stopped doing any speed work through August and September. I am so grateful my chiropractor kept encouraging me to keep up the running as I didn't lose my endurance base. The first week of October I was able to get back into real training and I've been surprised at how quickly my paces started dropping again.

I feel I am currently in slightly better shape than I was at the end of July when I had to give up speed work. I am not, however, quite where I wanted to be going into Two Cities. I have four weeks of solid running, but that isn't the same as having a full 12 of them.

I took a step back and decided I had some options for this race. First, I could set an aggressive yet conservative goal that would build my confidence; Perhaps a 4:08. Something I know I could pull off and then use that confidence to build up for my next A-race attempt. But then I took two steps back and realized something huge. I may not be in as great shape as I wanted to be for a sub-4 attempt, but I am in far better shape than I was when I ran my 4:01 at Texas.

For example:

I pulled up some workouts from Texas and Fresno training to compare my paces. My 7 mile tempo pace is 9 seconds per mile faster now. My mile pace is 25 seconds faster. My easy pace is almost 30 seconds a mile faster. My long run pace is 46 seconds per mile faster.

Do you know what the difference between a 4:01:02 and a 3:59:59 marathon is? 3 seconds a mile. Three seconds a mile.

My second option is clearly to try to go for the sub-4. My confidence doesn't think I can do it, but my body seems to be telling me I have a realistic shot at this. What is the worse thing that can happen if I go out at a 9:09 pace and can't hold it? I slow down.

I've run enough of these at varying effort levels to be devoid of ego regarding my finishing time. If I set out to run a sub-4 and come in at 4:40, so what? I don't think that would crush me. I haven't invested a year's worth of training into this one race. In fact, I've only managed to pull together a month of solid training. Not a huge investment, so not a huge loss. Another nice thing about doing lots of marathons is that there is always another race around the corner to try again.

I think something that far too many runners lose sight of is that a marathon, even a race-effort marathon, is not the end-game of our running. Too many people go out and run races they feel don't live up to their expectations and they take a look at what they did and are upset or disappointed. If I go out and run 16 miles at a 9:09 pace and it all falls apart, do you know what I'm going to think? I'm going to think, "Hell yeah! I ran 16 freakin' miles at MP!" I've never done that in training before. And I'll use that as a stepping stone to my next race. Because even when marathons don't go the way you wanted them to, chances are if it had been a training run, you went out and kicked some major assphalt.

So that is my attitude going into Two Cities. I'm going to give it my best shot, and I'm going to be proud of however many miles I can hold it. It's been a long time since I raced a marathon and I'm nervous as heck. I'm trying to think about what I'm going to tell myself during the dark miles when it feels impossible. This may be my 30th marathon, but I've only ever toed a starting line of a marathon with the full intent to try to PR at a hard effort three, maybe four times previously. I'm still learning how to get my race-face on.

Monday Mario -- Halloween Edition

2011-10-31T09:57:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!

Mario wanted to dress up as Optimus Prime, but the helmet wouldn't fit on his head. So we went with a fireman instead.

He is still not 100% back to normal but getting there. I'd say his personality is pretty much all back and it is just his appetite and poop patterns that need to catch up a little. Every day seems a little better, though.

There's No Place Like Home

2011-10-27T19:34:00.000-07:00

Look who is back!

After three nights in the hospital and plenty of tears on my end, I was finally able to pick up Mario this evening from the vet's! His blood work came back normal. Yay, kidneys! He's been eating a bit on his own and pooping up a storm (they are a little messier than usual which will require some maintentance on my end).

The vet tech spent a lot of time showing me how to do all of this:

Which involves all of this:

Yes, I need to hook my bunny up via needle to that bag once a day for a week.

I thought he might be a bit lethargic and sad, but he is quite perky. I put him in his pen and the first thing he did was run over to his food bowl and pick out a treat to eat. Then for a few minutes he scampered all around his pen picking at pellets, eating hay, and exploring everything. He is settling down a bit now and has even done some good bunny flops. The main thing that seems a bit off is that he might have lost some muscle tone -- he is sliding around a bit more than usual.

Thank you, everyone, again for all of your support through this. Mario is a lucky bunny to have so many people in his corner.

I think I can manage that.

Over the River and Through the Woods

2011-10-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

Thank you to everyone who has emailed, tweeted, commented and texted about Mario. We really appreciate all of your concern and good thoughts.

Today has been a bit of a roller coaster of a day. I called the vet's this morning and spoke to the vet tech. She told me that they had force fed Mario last night but that this morning he refused to have anything to do with any of that. He had not pooped or eaten on his own. He peed once and his temperature was still good. Basically, she said he was the same and that the vet would give me a call once she evaluated him.

The vet called shortly after and said that his stomach was still very engorged. Also, she had gotten his lab results back and Mario was in renal failure. She said she thought it was acute vs. chronic because he was not anemic which I should take as a good thing. She said it was not uncommon for bunnies to go into acute renal failure when they are as severely dehydrated as Mario was due to his inability to eat/drink.

Because of his lack of progress on bloat treatment, she suspected that he may possibly have a blockage somewhere. She said there was no way to know for sure and that surgery at this point would be exploratory. We could possibly do barium x-rays to try to image a blockage but she felt that with his engorged stomach this wasn't the best course of action, plus it would waste a day's worth of time. She said if there was a blockage, today was the day to do the surgery or else his digestive tract could go necrotic and then there would be little hope. Without the surgery, he would surely die. "If this were my bunny, I'd do the surgery," she said.

The vet said she wanted to consult with another veterinarian in the practice who had handled a similar case and had done some research on the matter. She said she would be in touch in a few hours and we could go from there.

The idea of poor Mario going through surgery with no guarantee that it would address the problem was too much for me. I was a wreck and I called Boyfriend. We decided if the second vet agreed, then we would pursue the surgery. I asked Boyfriend to come home from work so he could come in with me to visit with Mario before he went under. There was no way I'd be able to handle that on my own.

I had some time to kill and a run on the schedule so headed out to do that. I had to fight back tears through my warm-up and almost gave up on the tempo portion. I felt like my heart-rate was elevated from the anxiety and it was throwing everything off. The tempo effort eventually helped to get my mind off things a little and I ended up with a pretty good run. I arrived home and promptly burst into tears.

The veterinarian gave me a call and said she had good news. Mario had started to feel better and had nibbled on some hay. She also felt that his stomach was dramatically reduced in size from her examination of him this morning. She didn't feel that surgery was the way to go anymore. I was so relieved. She wanted to start him on an IV in order to try to get his kidneys back to normal. She felt that as long as he continued to improve, she would redo his blood work in a day or two and if his kidneys were better he would be ready to come home.

Mario with his fancy new earring :(

We went in to visit with him. He looked pretty out of it, and I'm hoping that was from the meds he was on. He tooth purred a little as I rubbed his cheeks. When the vet tech brought him into the room I saw he had three nice poops stuck to his butt :) I was SO happy! I had brought some of his hay and pellets from home and he even ate a pellet I gave to him. He perked up for a minute or so while he ate the pellet and actually lifted himself to standing for a while. But right after that he went back into his foggy state. The staff wasn't even aware that he was pooping yet and they seemed excited when I told them. So he's making progress. Eating a little, pooping a little, and getting rehydrated.

The vet said he is no way out of the woods yet, but she is much more encouraged than she was when she spoke to me this morning. I'm really hoping he continues in this direction and can come home soon. I probably won't get to see him again until either Thursday evening if he comes home or Friday. The staff seems to be really enjoying him so I hope they are giving him lots of love.

Monday Mario Part II

2011-10-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

Since most of my bunny blogger friends are not on Twitter, I thought I would post an update today. I'm just back from the veterinarian sans Mario :( The vet wanted to keep him overnight to monitor and treat him.

Mario and I are just x-ray magnets this year.

That big round thing on the left is his stomach, and the vet thinks it is full of gas. The black stuff on the right are his intestines, also gassy. She doesn't think there is a physical blockage, but just that the gas in the intestines have slowed motility and everything is backing up a bit. They are putting him on pain meds, anti-gas meds, anti-gas-producing-bacteria meds, and fluids. Depending on when his stomach comes down a bit, they will start feeding him some food, too. His temperature is normal which the vet says is a good sign.

The vet didn't really start throwing me carrots of hope until I broke down crying so I'm really hoping he'll pull through. It was really hard to leave him there :(

These are different Monday Mario shots, for sure.

Monday Mario & Peak Week

2011-10-24T15:08:00.000-07:00

I've been doing lots of running since Half Moon Bay as I try to get some fitness back for the Two Cities Marathon in a couple of weeks. Here is last week's recap:

Sunday: 12 miles (2 miles @ 9:14 pace, 10 miles pacing KM at the end of the Nike Women's Marathon); I have never had any desire to do this race and after seeing the last 10 miles of the course, I am can say with all certainty that I will never run this marathon. KM battled through a sprained ankle and some tummy issues to collect her Tiffany's pendant.

Tuesday: 10 miles, including 7 miles @ 8:27 pace; My best 7 mile tempo was at an 8:22 pace shortly before my hip blew up. Considering the short period of time I've been back to normal running, I was pretty thrilled to have completed this run as close to that tempo PR as I did. Also, I felt amazingly good this run. The pace didn't seem hard and I could have kept it up a few more miles.

Wednesday: 10 miles @ 9:44 pace; My legs felt suprisingly fresh after the hard run the day before.

Friday: 22 miles @ 9:28 pace, consisting of 4 easy, 2 MP (9:00), 2 easy, 2 MP (8:55), 2 easy, 2 MP (8:57), 2 easy, 2 MP (8:54), 3 easy, 1 MP (8:57); I tried to shoot for a 9:00ish pace for the marathon pace (MP) miles. I've done some MP work in 16 milers before but have never tried it in a 20+ mile run. I suppose we'll see how it worked out in a few weeks.

I also managed to make it to Bikram yoga 4 times this week.

I had the above photo pre-loaded for today's post. I decided to catch some of the more mundane Mario moments. He looks like a crotchety old man chewing on his hay.

Last night I gave Mario his veggies and pellets before bedtime. In very un-typical Mario fashion he totally ignored them :( He refused all the food and even higher-value treats. He is definitely not himself and I am worried sick. I've been giving him simethicone and fluids and we have a vet appointment later today. Fingers and paws crossed for him.

Half Moon Bay International Marathon

2011-10-18T18:02:00.000-07:00

Wow. I don't think it has ever taken me so long to get to a race report. Did I ever mention I hate writing race reports? This will be short and sweet because if I don't get this up ASAP I'll never blog again since I've been putting off other posts until I get this done.

The Mario Recap, Marathon #29:

4:22:12. Negative split. Felt awesome.

The Full Recap, Marathon #29:

The important thing first... I had ZERO leg pain during the race. Woot! I didn't have any hard and fast time goals for the race, but I was secretly hoping to run about a 4:22. I figured if I just kept trucking at an easy pace, that should translate into a 4:22 finish. I didn't want to take extended walk breaks or stop and smell the roses at this race. The last two marathons I've done involved a lot of walking and I wanted to prove to myself that I could still play the mental game of running a marathon, if even at an easy running pace. However, I was not about to beat myself up over having to go slower and would have been content with anything between 4:30-4:40. I suppose the goals were 1) no leg pain 2) sub 4:40 3) 4:22.

The course was partly trail and partly road. I am not a trail runner so I was a little nervous about the trail aspect of the race. I was told by the race director it was not terribly technical and that it accounted for about 8 miles of the race. The course consisted of two out-and-backs (really there were three out-and-backs and the shortest one we ran twice) but it was billed as being coastal and very scenic.

Above is the elevation chart from my Garmin. You can see most of the inclines were in the first 10 miles. I might say that those first 10 miles were pretty challenging. I recall being thankful that my PR and hard-effort attempts at Half Moon Bay had been derailed because it was not an easy course. Even the paved sections had short, steep, inclines.

We ran through the start area after mile 10 and started the second, long out-and-back section. The first part of this section was on a paved bike trail and I was able to pick up a little bit of speed with the firm footing. I was feeling pretty good. The lead half marathoners were coming back at us and I had fun cheering them on and telling the women what place they were. Then we hit another long, trail section. It wasn't rocky but was uneven and required a lot of attention. Also, the out-and-back nature of the course meant that there was 2-way traffic needs to be alert about. I'm sure the ocean views were great, but I was so preoccupied watching my feet I didn't get to enjoy them often.

The last turnaround was just beyond the Ritz-Carlton. Boyfriend and I had a wonderful getaway at the Half Moon Bay Ritz last year (never did get around to posting about that, either). I'll delve into my mini-vacation photos for this. Cue flashback/dream sequence music...

This was the view from our hotel room. And yes, the weather race day was pretty much the same. The race actually wound along that path you see below.

We actually went on a walk along part of the marathon course so I knew all about the short-steep climbs.

As I ran by, I stared longingly at the hotel-stayers who were sitting in these chairs. I had an awesome time sipping hot chocolate and looking at the ocean from them. Can't say they were really cheering for the runners, though. They were sort of looking at us like we were either crazy or they didn't understand what was going on.

The Ritz has a bagpipe player who plays every evening and he was out playing for the runners. He happened to play my favorite bagpipe song ("Scotland the Brave") as I was approaching the hotel and that gave me a good pick-up.

Just another photo from our stay for memory sake :) Yummers.

The hotel had DVD's you could rent for free as well as board games you could borrow. We played Operation three times and I beat Boyfriend every single time :)

Since I never got around to posting about our stay at the Ritz, I'm hijacking this race report to include this video (which I actually uploaded over a year ago to share with all of you):

We had access to a hot chocolate machine which made the most awesome hot chocolate. I believe I drank 21 cups in 24 hours. No joke.

That was a nice trip down memory lane. Back to the race...

Finally hit the turnaround and started making my way home towards the finish. Back through the steep little Ritz walkways and back through the dirt trail section. When I hit the bike path again I felt good and found myself picking up the pace. I was holding a low 9:00 pace and it didn't feel too hard. I still had over four miles to go and wasn't sure I could keep up that pace the rest of the race. A few days earlier I had done my first "tempo" workout in months and had knocked out only two hard-fought 9:00ish miles (and honestly couldn't have done another without combusting).

But I decided to go with it. I thought I'd try to bring my overall pace down below 10:00. I think at that point I was averaging about a 10:20 overall pace. The marathon was pretty small (115 marathoners total) but I had found a little groove with a small set of runners. As I picked up speed I slowly left all my running buddies behind and found myself running alone for the first time in the race. Overall the course was well-marked, but I arrived at a four-way intersection and came to a complete stop because I wasn't sure which way to go. There were no tell-tale marathon signs to help me out. I debated just picking a path and going (obviously continuing straight was the most likely option, but I had Mile 24 Brain here). A biker eventually came towards me and I asked her which way the race was. She pointed me in the right direction. I probably only lost 15 seconds or so here, but grrr.

I kept on trucking and marveled at how good I felt. My low-9:00 pace felt easy. Maybe a sub-4 hour marathon one day could really happen. I had obviously not pushed very hard the first 22 miles, but I wasn't really feeling as tired or down as I usually might be the last few miles of a marathon. I didn't have that mental game of, "Oh my god where's the freakin' mile marker!" I kept up a 9:05 pace the last 4 miles and kicked in the last 0.48 (bleh) miles in an 8:15 pace.

On my garmin I got my overall pace down to a 9:59 but with the extra 0.28 mile I ran, my official pace was a 10:00. Boo to the unmarked course! But I pretty much hit my A-goal right on the nose and felt very pleased with how strong I ran. I didn't take any walk breaks that didn't involve an aid station or gel-eating. I got to tap into that part of your mind that has to keep your legs turning at the end of a long race. I needed a marathon like this mentally after my injuries and after Big Sur and the ET 51K.

The entire race I was thinking about this:

Photo courtesy of Dennis

The main sponsor of the race was Sam's Chowder House. Boyfriend and I had eaten lunch there a few weeks before the race and I saw the seafood paella on the menu and promised myself I'd eat that after the race. Shock of all shocks the paella is not normally on their lunch menu but Boyfriend asked and got them to make it for us. Yummers.

The shirt. Nothing special.

Not a fan of word clouds on race shirts. And some of the words are kind of strange. "Moony?"

I did pick up a coveted Headsweats hat!! Woot!

A lot of other friends were either out running or spectating and it was a really fun day. Boyfriend even ran the half (on in my opinion, sketchy training) and came within 30ish seconds of PR'ing!

I'd recommend the course if you're a fan of running on trails and roads. It wasn't terribly technical but all the roadies agreed it slowed them down. Also, I was told by the race director it pretty much never rains in September but it did misty drizzle at the end of the race. And if there was a big rain pre-race the course would be a sloppy mess. The organization was great and you can tell the race directors are runners themselves. I'll probably never do it again because of the trails but I'd recommend it if you know and love what you're getting into. I do think the race is outrageously overpriced for what it was. I believe I paid $125 and this thing didn't feel like a $125 race (no running on major roads, just back roads, bike paths, and trails). There was a limit of 500 runners total across a 5K, 10K, half marathon, and full marathon. With the out-and-backs and tight trails I doubt they'll be able to grow this race more if at all without running into serious traffic jams.

I will say, I have a problem with the race's catch phrase: 26.2 Miles of Running Heaven. Uh, your race consists of THREE out and backs (one of which you run TWICE). I'm thinking that means it should be more like, 12.35 miles of Running Heaven.

Monday Mario

2011-10-03T11:39:00.000-07:00

These are again older photos, but they are from the first day I increased the difficulty level on Mario's enrichment toy. At this level, the treat is under the blue plug and he has to topple it over to get to the good stuff.

I thought this would be easier than having to push around the big blue disc on the first level, but Mario actually needed a lot of encouragement to find all the treats. And I used a very high value, aromatic treat -- banana!!

Monday Mario

2011-09-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

Summer is over, but before Fall came Mario got to enjoy some watermelon!

Pretty innocent here.

And then...

Watermelon dribblet fangs! Perhaps a contender for his Halloween costume.

Week??; The Reluctant Yogini

2011-09-24T18:56:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted a training update in over a month. I've considered myself injured since the end of July which is a bad place to be when you are marathon training. I started a pretty time consuming course of treatment with a chiropractor. It is a long story but we eventually targeted tight hip flexors pinching on my femoral nerve as the source of all my woes. My leg would hurt when walking and also the first 3-4 miles of any run. If I made it past that point, it would loosen up and I would feel stellar.

What a conundrum -- the longer I ran the better I felt if I could only muscle through the beginning pain. I was in a strange land, walking the line of the injured and the non-injured. One one hand, I couldn't do any specific pace work or speed work. I couldn't walk without pain for most of the day. But on the other hand, I could knock out 20 miles and end feeling super.

Are you injured when you can run 20 miles? I felt bad whining about my hip when so many people can't run at all with their injuries. But at the same time I've been training at a sub-par level, merely keeping my mileage and endurance base up. It wasn't nearly as satisfying as the type of running I enjoyed the beginning of the summer.

I was getting pretty disenchanted with the lack of progress my leg was making after tri-weekly chiro visits for a month. I think my doctor was starting to sense we had hit a wall. She had been suggesting I attend a hot yoga class and I would mentally brush it off as there was no way you were getting me into a yoga class. I guess she had played her last card because she gave me some tough love and more or less forced me to take a class.

Soure: Lululemon.com

That's right. I went to a yoga class.

Last week Thursday I went to my first class. Naomi was my yoga buddy and almost literally had to hold my hand our first class together. I was so nervous! I didn't want to go to yoga. I didn't think it would help and quite frankly I almost didn't want it to help. I didn't want to like the yoga and I certainly had no plans to do this on a regular basis.

I didn't die during the class. Can't say I loved that first session but I did enjoy it and wasn't averse to attending again. On Friday I went for a run, came home, and tweeted this:

In eight days I went to six Bikram yoga sessions and my leg went from 40% improved to 95% improved.

If I only knew then what I know now.

On top of that, I actually like and dare say have a major crush on Bikram yoga. I'm planning on incorporating it into my normal routine and hopefully it will get my leg back to 100% very soon. More importantly, I hope it balances me out a bit to prevent injuries down the road.

So here we are the day before my 29th marathon. This is not going to be the race I hoped it would be. My training was going so well a few months ago that I was tinkering with the idea of trying to PR. That isn't happening. My original plan for Half Moon Bay was to at least set an aggressive time goal (perhaps a 4:10) to gauge where I was as we got closer to Two Cities in November. That isn't happening, either. I'm going to go out comfortably and take whatever my legs give me. I'm mainly hoping for a pain free run.

Monday Mario

2011-09-19T09:45:00.000-07:00

I have no good reasons, just lame excuses for my sad abscence from blogging. Mario's even been getting "where are you?" pings (sadly no one seemed to worry where I was, ha ha). Thanks to everyone who missed his furry face. I'm making a committment to getting back on schedule here and catching up with all of your blogs, too.

As an olive branch for my delay, I present to you the elusive bunny yawn:

A quick eye update: This photo was taken probably over a month ago. I did a course of two different antibiotics for about a month and there was pretty much no difference in Mario's weepiness. I'm pretty sure this isn't an infection. He's eating normally (on both sides of his mouth), is a chunky monkey and interested in all food, comes out and binkies and runs around at night. Bottom line, he is 100% himself. I realized he's had this issue off and on (obviously more on the last few months) for almost a year and I think if it was something sinister like an abscess or strange tooth growing something else would be off by now.

I felt that the weepiness seemed to improve when on the ointment mainly because of the vehicle vs. the medication so am currently treating his eye like dry eye. I can't rationalize putting him under anesthesia for x-rays when he seems so happy for something I've realized is fairly long standing.

The Hangover

2011-08-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

Some wraps-ups about the race and the rest of my time in Vegas..

First off, a quick word about my shorts. I wore Lululemon reflective speed shorts. They are pretty unassuming (in fact, when I first saw them online I thought they just had some cute pinstripe detail):

But man alive do they light up in the night:

A small group of us planned to wear the shorts since we all had them. We all agreed that we got more comments/compliments on them than any other piece of running apparel we'd worn in races before. See, sometimes running clothes have safety functions as well as being cute.

I didn't gamble a cent or drink a drop of alcohol while in Vegas, but I had an awesome time. I hadn't been in Vegas since I was in my early 20's doing what early 20 year olds do while in Vegas. I had a fairly different experience this time around.

Sunday night I went to see Celine Dion's show at Caesars Palace. I had been wanting to see her show for literally over a decade. She closed her original show a few years ago which made me sad but she recently opened a new one. While I love Celine Dion I wouldn't call myself a HUGE fan or anything like that. I had seen her in concert before in Hawaii back in 1999 and I debated a bit about whether I needed to see her again. But I figured the opportunities to see her were limited and there wasn't anything else I preferred to see over her that night.

I am so happy I went. It was an amazing show. A lot of people give me flack for liking Celine Dion but the woman has an amazing voice. She's moved me to tears both times I've seen her perform. In fact, this time around she didn't even have to be singing to make me emotional.

Side fact: I start just about every run listening to a slightly esoteric Celine song. I don't consider this my "Power Song" per se, but it is on the play list of songs I listen to when I want to get psyched up pre-race. I've found high energy music isn't what I want to listen to before a race effort. I like to listen to words.

The lyrics from 2:30-2:46 never fail to give me goosebumps.

I was operating off of a 4 hour nap early Sunday afternoon at her show. That's 4 hours of sleep in over 33 hours after running 6.5 hours through the night. But I was riveted. Sunday was a very good day.

Monday, I met up with a friend who recently moved to Vegas from the Bay Area. We had decided to go hiking out at Red Rock Canyon. When we were making plans I neglected to realize that it would be 90+ degrees out there. But it wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be since it was a dry heat. You barely even feel like you're breaking a sweat since it dries so quickly. It felt sort of strange to be drinking SO much water which seemingly never came back out my body, though.

After hiking, we had lunch at Serendipity 3 which is probably more famous for its NYC location.

My old NYC favorite, Peanut Butter Frozen Hot Chocolate!!

And I had the most amazing grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. I almost DIED when I saw they put Goldfish crackers in the soup. I *heart* Goldfish crackers!!!

SOOO yummy!

I had stayed in the Hard Rock Hotel the first two nights since it was the race headquarters. I really didn't care for the vibe there. I'm not old, but I guess I have an old soul because all the skanky drunk young people there were really annoying. In fact, I felt more at home with all the older people at Caesar's Palace. Ha ha. Luckily, I had decided to move to a different hotel the third and last night (mainly because it was cheaper to actually move to the strip).

I booked the cheapest hotel on the strip I could find. It ended up being at the Excalibur. After taxes and resort fees, I ended up paying $52 for my room (list price was $35 online). When I checked in, the guy at the desk told me he had upgraded me. I went up to my room and was greeted by the largest hotel room I've had. It was a suite with two bathrooms, two flat screen televisions, a living room and dining room. The bathroom in the bedroom looked like this:

Yeah, I think I've stayed in hotel rooms smaller than this bathroom.

Sadly, I didn't have much time in this room. I checked in around 6 pm and had a Cirque du Soleil show to see at 9:30 that night. I had booked a ticket to see "Mystere." It was actually my third choice show ("O" had been my original choice but they had an off schedule the weekend I was there, "Ka" had been next but it sold out while I was deciding). I don't know if it was the late start time and the lack of sleep catching up with me, but I was underwhelmed. I saw "La Nouba" in Orlando a few years back and it was just too similar to that.

The strip on my walk Monday night.

I liked staying at the Excalibur even if not for the ultra cheap super duper room.

When I got home, Boyfriend had this for me:

"Congrats Ultra 'RoadBunner'"

An ice cream cake!! Yummers. We're still working our way through it. Over halfway to go!

A short word on my leg: When I started running during the race, I assumed I felt no pain because of the Tylenol I had taken. But really, Tylenol can only do so much, you know? I had no issues the entire race. I was a little afraid after the race it would flare up horribly, but the 3 days post-race I was actually in less pain than I had been the three days going into the race. I didn't take any pain killers once the race was over, either. Strange, right? Right now I feel like my leg is sliding back a little, but I am still in less pain than I was before the race started. I truly believe the root of my problem is a pinched nerve somewhere and I'm hoping all that running jarred it loose a little. I was seriously planning on giving up on the Half Moon Bay full but since this went so well I'm rethinking that. I guess we'll see how I feel as I resume running.

An outtake from our photo shoot. Guess he didn't think he was properly groomed for his public.

E.T. Full Moon 51K

2011-08-16T23:50:00.000-07:00

The Mario Recap, Ultra #1:

I am an ultra marathoner.

Bought these cute alien antennae at the expo for $3.

The Full Recap, Ultra #1:

First off, I made a critical error in my trip planning. I signed up to take the 7 am flight out of San Francisco to Las Vegas. I recall doing this because it was a cheaper flight. However, this meant I had to wake up at 5 am (about 3.5 hours earlier than my usual wake-up). I arrived in Vegas shortly past 8 am feeling groggy and in a daze. I was luckily able to check into my hotel early.

Vegas hotels are huge and I schlepped all the way over to my room and swiped the key. The door wouldn't open. Boo. I went back to the desk about a mile away and told them what happened. The guy rekeyed my key and back I went to the room. Swipe the card. Red blinky light. $*%&! Alllllllll the way back to the desk. The next lady helping me was about to just rekey my card again, but luckily a higher-up was watching and realized this was my second time back. She upgraded me to a better room and assured me this key would work.

Success! I have no idea what my original room was going to look like, but this one was pretty sweet. It was BIG and had a fluffy bed and huge shower.

Big cushy bed with a fluffy comforter and tons of floofy pillows!!

You could fit about 6 RoadBunners or 36 Marios in that shower.

I didn't really have a plan for the day. I had some breakfast and was debating whether I'd go shopping for a bit or take a nap. I eventually ended deciding to try to to take a nap. I managed to sleep a little less than 2.5 hours. I had originally planned for my Saturday nap to be banking sleep for Saturday night. But instead my little nap was really making up for the lost sleep from Friday night. Ah, well. Lesson learned.

After I woke up, I decided to just lounge in my comfy bed watching cable TV all day and killed time until the 4 pm packet pick-up. It was so relaxing in the room I had a hard time envisioning myself running for hours on end later that night.

Very low-key event.

On the way back up to my room from packet pickup, I got a late lunch/early dinner pizza. I figured I'd eat a big meal then and perhaps have a quick snack around 7 pm before getting on the buses. I attempted to fall asleep again but didn't get any more sleep. It was slowly starting to dawn on me that I was going to be attempting to run 31.7 miles soon. My leg pain had gotten slightly better as I had taken three days off from running, but it still hurt even when walking. What in the world was I thinking?

I headed down a little before 8 pm to meet up with friends before getting on the buses that would drive us 2.5 hours into the middle of nowhere. I probably fell asleep for only 20 minutes on the way to the race which was a little disappointing for me.

Black Mailbox, ironically white.

We were ejected by the infamous "black mailbox" which marks a dirt access road which leads to Area 51. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by the weather. I dare say it was slightly cool. Score. Throughout the race there was often a refreshing breeze which kept my temperature worries off the radar.

We were all given glow necklaces to wear. Poor photo, but the scene at the start.

I have previously aired my distaste for marathons which have concurrent half marathons or relays. I think it cheapens the marathon distance and is hard for morale. This race had a 10K, half, full, and 51K. However, the full and 51k'ers started at the black mailbox and all the other distances were shuttled further down the road to start their races. Therefore, you had the feeling at the start that you were truly all in it together and weren't running with other people who were doing shorter distances (I did pass some half walkers, but never caught sight of the majority of people doing the other distances). And for the record, I have no problem sharing the road with people doing other distances if they aren't moving at my same pace. I just hate running alongside people who are doing a shorter distance than me. Does that make sense? In case you were wondering, I wasn't bothered by the marathoners. Ha ha.

We started running and miracle of miracles I felt NO PAIN from my left leg. I haven't run without pain in that leg for weeks. I chocked it up to the extra strength Tylenol I had taken a half an hour before the race started (I never train on pain killers, but always take them before races).

Before the race, I created a distance-only data field on Garfield:

I figured that with all the issues I had going on, the last thing I needed to see was my pace. All I needed to know where was I was distance-wise. With very few exceptions, I kept to this screen the entire race.

I started off running very easy to see how my leg would hold up. After weeks of pain it felt so awesome to be running pain-free. In retrospect, I sort of feel like a lot of the happiness I felt during this race was the gratitude I felt for this gift of pain free running.

At this point, let's look at the elevation profile:

As I mentioned before the race, the first 13 miles are all uphill. No rolling hills. Just UP. It starts off at a pretty gradual grade, and in the dark you almost feel like it is flat. But eventually, make no mistake, it is going up. Too rub salt in the wound, as you climb the elevation obviously increases which makes gathering oxygen even harder.

When I was training for Bear Lake, I did some reading on altitude training. I read somewhere that no matter what shape you are in, the way altitude affects you is just hard-wired into your physiology. I learned at Bear Lake that altitude hits me hard. For my perceived effort, I would have told you I was moving along at a 10:00 pace but in reality I was coming in at 11:20+. Oh, well. That is part of this game. I was feeling pretty good and I remembered that at Bear Lake, around mile 8 I started to feel like utter crap. I crossed my fingers and my toes that wasn't going to happen (it didn't).

I envisioned in my head that I would eventually end up alone out there. But for the majority of the distance I was always in at least sight distance, if not sharing running space, with other runners. There were quite a few I leap-frogged with for most of the race.

Rare, but surprisingly existent spectators!

The girls above were howling like coyotes which I thought was funny. It was amazing for how far you could hear people cheering out there.

There were a few malfunctions early on: I put a small piece of medical tape on my arch where my ankle brace rubs. The last run I did another area seemed to be bothering me so I put a piece of tape there, too, before the race. Very early on this tape was pinching the skin on my foot and I had to stop and take off the shoe, brace, and sock in order to remove the offending piece of tape. I generally don't 100% subscribe to the "nothing new on race day" rule, but I suppose it applied here. My glow stick necklace also fell off twice and I ended up running holding it in my hand for many miles before I chucked it when the glow started to fade.

The aid stations were about 4 miles apart from each other. We were instructed to carry our own water bottles. At Bear Lake I realized that the dry air at altitude increases my fluid intake. I was therefore a little paranoid about the water situation and filled up my bottle just about every aid station. Because of this, my right arm got pretty achy from holding a full 22 oz bottle. I started trying to switch hands but am not used to holding anything in my left arm. On the bus ride back I even thought I might get a cramp in my right arm, but amazingly I had no specific muscle arm soreness after the race.

With the increased water intake and slower pace came increased pit stops. I typically stop zero times to pee during a marathon. I stopped 5 or 6 times during this race. Gah. But I was expecting that, having learned my lesson the hard way at Bear Lake last year.

Even though I knew that the "hill" was 13 miles long, I kept looking longingly at the red lights up ahead that were on the backs of other runners hoping they would stop being above my line of sight. I mean, having never experienced a 13 mile uphill grade it seemed sort of illogical that it could keep going up forever like that! The 2.5 mile Hurricane Point at Big Sur will never scare me again after this doozy.

At one point I was running more or less by myself and I went ahead and turned my headlamp off. The full moon was out in full force and it was actually pretty bright out there.

I had to tinker in iPhoto to get the photo to look like this, but my shadow by moonlight looked just like this.

It was amazing to be out there running in the moonlight. There was a quote I love from a Sporthill ad of all places that said, "Running takes you places you might not otherwise go." The quote really spoke to me when I went to Kenya to run a marathon in 2006. But I was ruminating on all the other less exotic places running has taken me in my life. If I wasn't a runner I would never have come out to the desert in the middle of nowhere in Nevada. And I sure as heck wouldn't be out here in the dark soaking up the scenery.

Speaking of the scenery, there were lots of little bushes and mountains in the distance off to the side. When I was at Bear Lake some runners were talking about this race and were saying that it got sort of mind numbing not having anything to look at. I disagree. The atmosphere was enough to make up for lack of changing scenery. It was hard to make out too much in the dark and I almost felt like it wasn't real. I had the feeling that I was on a movie set and at any minute someone would flick on the lights and ruin the illusion.

Hard to capture in the darkness, but the full moon and a mountain in the distance.

The last two miles or so of the hill were tough. I was taking short walk breaks whenever I ate a gel or hit an aid station (I ate my typical 4 marathon gels but also grazed on pretzels and animal crackers they had out). So I wasn't walking much at all. But the last two miles of the hill I took short walk breaks here or there to regroup. I had broken up the race into the major chunks of 13 miles, 20 miles (you pass the finish and start an out and back), 23 miles (the marathon turnaround), 25.x miles (the ultra turnaround), then the finish line. I was so looking forward to getting to the top of that hill.

The running got noticeably easier on the downhill side of the hill and I kept telling myself that with every step I was losing elevation and gaining oxygen, too. One of the criticisms I've read is that the 10K and half marathon finishers leaving the race site detract from the experience because that puts cars on the road coming towards you. Overall, I didn't mind too much. It only really happened for the miles somewhere between 13 and 20 and it didn't bug me too much. I did put my headlamp back on, though, in order to have better visibility.

I passed by the finish line at mile 20 and took another dose of extra strength Tylenol. I usually take just one dose for a marathon, but figured 4 hours into it I'd dose up again. At the 20 mile aid station I also downed a salt capsule which I've never done before ever. Not sure if it was a great idea, but with all the water I was drinking, I figured it wasn't a bad idea.

Then we were spit into the out and back section of the course. About a mile into this section runners started coming back at me. It was nice to cheer for them and many of them had nice words to say back, too. The marathon turnaround had music playing and it became the next magnet to pull me.

I think somewhere after the marathon turnaround the sun started to rise. And then something totally magical happened. Off to my left, the full moon was still high in the dark sky. Off to my right, the sunlight was peeping over the mountain tops. I felt like I was in a hug between the characters of the "Day and Night" Pixar short.

It was utterly beautiful, humbling, and almost indescribable. I've seen sunrises in my life but something about this was different. Perhaps it was the ability to see both horizons perfectly. Perhaps it was being right smack in the middle of the two horizons Perhaps it was all that plus I was out there, alone for a stretch, doing what I love. I honestly rank this moment as one of the top moments in my running life.

I took a video which doesn't even begin to capture what it felt like out there. The lights ahead at 4 seconds in the marks the ultra turnaround point I was heading towards:

That light at the turnaround seemed SO close and yet it never appeared to get any closer. But eventually I got to the ultra turnaround. A very nice volunteer took down my number and I ate a banana and some pretzels. Then I got to work heading home to the finish.

As the sun came up, the scenery started to open up a bit, too. It wasn't so obvious in the dark, but we were running on a very straight strip of road. It made it feel like you weren't making any progress. In fact, I disagree with the runners who said the dark was mind numbing. Looking down the straight strip of road was far, far worse.

I was happy my leg held up. All those strange pains I've been having didn't crop up at all. Not once the entire time! Towards the end I had the usual groans and aches but I was happy to take that.

I wasn't waiting for it, but I happened to look down when Garfield read exactly, "26.2." Out of curiosity, I switched over to the time screen. I hit the marathon point in 5:25 which was about what I thought I might do out there.

So that is what I've been looking at the last 5+ hours.

I have to say that I am really proud with the way I held up. I did take scattered walking breaks during the last 10 miles, but they were pretty short and quick. I have to admit that continuing running was really all mental. Sometimes you hit points in runs where you physically just can't run. I was at the point where walking was exponentially more appealing, but running was still an option and it just took some mental toughness to keep running.

That cluster of buildings up ahead is the finish. So close and yet so freakin' far.

When I got to mile 30 I told myself that I was going to run the entire last 1.7 miles to the finish. One of my favorite Central Park loops was 1.7 miles and I imagined having to run just one of those. The plan got slightly derailed as I stopped to take photos of this:

And this:

I actually lost a bit of time here trying to get a self-portrait with the sign.

I had to pick bushes and signs on the road to keep myself running. "Just run to that bush..." then "Just keep running to that post..." Looking at the finish area not seeming to get any closer wasn't helping. The whole race I had been thinking of getting to 31 miles and I sort of neglected the additional 0.7 miles tacked onto that. My legs had no gear except "run slow" but I was running! The last two miles or so the actual sun started rising and I had to tip my head down so the visor of my hat would shield my eyes. I had debated carrying sunglasses with me, but am glad I left them behind.

I kicked it up just a bit the very final stretch and finally turned in to the Little A'le'inn and crossed the finish in 6:33. Whew.

Finish area

The unisex small shirt is like a dress on me.

I am really happy with the way I ran. Yes, I was slow. Yes, I had to walk some. But I felt like I was in control of the walking and I definitely ran the majority of the way. I felt strong the entire way and I'm really pleased about that. The course is not easy. Altitude and a long incline grind you down early on. And I think since you can't visually see the hill so well, it is hard to understand why things are so difficult. The last few miles I was sort of thinking of how it was crazy to run this far. 26.2 is good enough for me! I declared it a one and done. But not one day after the race I was contemplating doing this race again.

Oh, and the medal glows in the dark!

It was awesome to see my running friends, KL, JB & CC. They all ran really strong races out there. 'Til the next reunion race, ladies!

Monday Mario

2011-08-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't been as consistent with it as I should, but Mario is doing great with his enrichment toy. A few times he's gotten his craisin bit out of every well with no additional encouragement from me (previously if he lost interest I'd tap the toy and call him back). He often gets "stuck" once he's pushed the disc all the way away from him (much harder for a bunny to pull it back towards himself), but I've been impressed when he figures it out. This is still the easiest level, but I'm thinking with a higher value treat I could probably graduate him to level 2 soon.

Paws work well for digging out the treat!

The nose knows.

Pre-loaded "Monday Mario" for your continuity loving pleasure.

Week 10; ET Phone Home

2011-08-12T11:31:00.000-07:00

Sunday: 10 miles @ 9:36 pace; I stretched and stretched and stretched my hamstrings Saturday night (I've decided all my issues are currently arising from tight hammies) and it all really helped to loosen everything up. I started off pretty slowly since I wasn't sure how everything was going to behave. My quad did the usual decline in discomfort through the run. My hip and butt behaved the whole run. My calf did a strange thing: twice early on it clicked rather forcefully three times (it sort of scared me since it was almost a pop) but I didn't have to stop and continually stretch it like Friday. The calf is still pretty sore to the touch from all the tightness on Friday but I'm feeling like it won't give me major ongoing issues. I picked up the pace at the end and found a couple of MP miles.

Tuesday: 10 miles @ 9:52 pace; I felt pretty crummy the first 5 miles. My leg was hurting and I just didn't have any pep. I almost scrapped the distance but stuck with it. I was rewarded with a strong 3.5 mile finish as my leg loosened up. Such a bipolar run.

Wednesday: 4 miles @ 10:04 pace; I decided to do a short shake-out run to optimize some recovery time before the race Saturday night. I had originally wanted to knock out another 10 miler but figured at this point it would probably hurt more than help. I've learned it takes 4-5 miles for my leg to settle down so I was hurting the entire 4 miles. I also felt horribly sluggy. Bleh. This was the first run in a month where my average pace was in the 10:00's (and that was a 20 miler). I suppose I could have fought to bring it down, but with all the pain in my leg decided to take whatever naturally came.

And there it is. My next run is the 51K on Saturday night. I find it sort of amusing I'm off to do an ultra since I feel as if I'm pretty under prepared for even a marathon at this point. With my skipped 20 miler due to my leg I haven't run 20 miles in a month.

Going 31+ is going to be interesting for the following reasons:

It is at altitude. This will slow me down. When I ran Bear Lake I felt as if I could have run a 4:40 marathon easy that weekend. I ended up finishing in 5:20+. So I'm figuring the altitude alone will add about 40 minutes to my marathon time.
The first 13.1 miles are all uphill. Coupled with the altitude I'm sure this will be fun.
The race starts at 11:59 pm. This is past my bedtime. I've done night runs during relays before but those maxed out at about 5-6 miles. 31+ in the middle of the night? Umm...
It is in Nevada. In August. The race is located a few hours north of Vegas in Rachel, Nevada. It is cooler out in Rachel but it is still way warmer than San Francisco. I'm anticipating the starting temp to be about 70 degrees. I seriously don't rememer the last time I ran in 70 degree weather.
I'm injured. No way around this one. Something funky is up with my leg and I haven't been able to figure it out. I've obviously been able to run on it, but it doesn't make for a zen experience. I was going to say I have never run a marathon injured, but I remembered Honolulu in 2009. I tweaked my hamstring after CIM and ran Honolulu a week later. It hurt the entire race but I managed to make it through. I figure if I can survive Honolulu injured, in the heat, a week after a PR effort at CIM I can make it through ET. Right?

So with all the above in mind, I have no doubt I will be out there way past sunrise. Hopefully they still have breakfast waiting for me at the Little A'le'Inn when I am done. I am going into this with the attitude of taking my time and enjoying the experience. A few of my running friends will be out there and I'm super excited to get to see them. I am pretty much the antithesis of a Vegas person, but I am so looking forward to my weekend there, too. Hopefully I'll have good news of a finish to report when I get back.

The super awesome Audrey tweeted this today. So sweet!
More cowbell, ET!

Monday Mario

2011-08-08T18:32:00.000-07:00

Mario would like to share his newest class, "How to decorate with slightly-worn willow wreath branches." Our last installment showed how you can wear willow wreaths as fashion pieces or perhaps hula hoops:

This week we take it to the next level with interior design.

Example 1:

Encircle your water giving apparatus.

Example 2:

Hang it up like a Christmas decoration.

Afterwards, be sure to take a much deserved rest. Concentrate on looking cute. It helps to accessorize with other random willow objects.

I have no clue how Mario managed to decorate as he did. Especially that hanging one!

We are still in a holding pattern with his eye. It always looks wet because the fur is always sort of laying down flat in that area. But in the morning when I put in his first drop or the ointment I touch it and it feels dry. So I am hoping it it just all the stuff I am putting in his eye which is giving him that appearance. He is still in awesome spirits and is eating and binkying like a champ.

Week 9; It All Falls Apart

2011-08-06T16:56:00.000-07:00

Sunday: 6 mile; Kept my friend, Karin, company during the last six miles of the San Francisco Marathon. We ended up walking more than running which was a blessing in disguise for my leg.

Tuesday: 8 miles @ 9:37 pace; My heart rate was up. So sad that taking even a few days off does this to me. My leg loosened up as the run went on which made me feel good.

Wednesday: 10 miles @ 9:45 pace; My quad issue starts off at a level 5-6 pain for the first few minutes, for the majority of the run is a level 1-2, and by the last few miles is non-existent.

Friday: 16 miles @ 9:57 pace; I really, really struggled during this run. My hip was achy for most of the run and my upper calf got really tight on me. I had to stop and stretch it out multiple times. I felt like I was at mile 24 of a marathon for the last 4 miles of this run. So part of this was physical, and part of it was just a bad run day. Not a great confidence booster for a 51K in a week.

So a quick follow-up about the chiropractor: Verdict is that I have a slightly curvy spine which is causing imbalances in my legs. She said it is very minor and we're being nit-picky, and that if I wasn't a runner stressing my body so much it would give me no issues. Side note: I have a compression fracture in one of my vertebra (I'm assuming from my horse fall; Not really sure what I paid $300 in x-rays for at UCSF after the fall if they missed that -- I still haven't forwarded my UCSF x-rays to the chiro to see if she can see the fracture in those as well). She said I'm young with good discs so it won't give me any issues.

I'm not sure yet if it was the right choice, but I clunked down a hefty sum of $ for 30 visits with the chiropractor. She's working on fixing my spine and also doing ART treatments on my wonky leg. I'm going three times a week for a month and it tapers down from there. Gah.

So far, all that has really happened is that I'm getting additional pains in new areas (see Friday's run). I just finished up my first week of treatment, though, so it is too soon to tell if anything good long-term will come of this. I like that she is trying to get to the root of the problem versus just managing the current fires, but at the same time I need an extinguisher stat over here!

My terrible 16 miler has me thinking of dropping down to the half distance at Half Moon Bay. I'm sadly going to be pushing my body for another week but would love to give it some time off after the 51K. I've got my eyes on Two Cities. I keep hoping I'll wake up one day miraculously healed...

RG, I am at week 9 of my schedule which was set up to be trained for Half Moon Bay next month. I may reset the week count once I know what I'm doing and tweak the schedule a bit.

My Marathon Training Plan

2011-08-05T00:46:00.000-07:00

Sun Tues Wed Fri

Week 1: 7 mi 6 mi, incl 4 @ T 6 mi 12 mi

Week 2: 7 mi 6 mi, incl 2x1600 7 mi 14 mi

Week 3: 7 mi 7 mi, incl 5 @ T 6 mi 16 mi

Week 4: 7 mi 8 mi, incl 6 @ T 6 mi 18 mi

Week 5: 7 mi 7 mi, incl 3x1600 7 mi 20 mi

Week 6: 7 mi 8 mi 8 mi 8 mi

Week 7: 9 mi 9 mi, incl 7 @T 9 mi 16 mi

Week 8: 10 mi 10 mi, incl 8 @ T 8 mi 20 mi

Week 9: 8 mi 10 mi, incl 4x1600 11 mi 16 mi

Week 10: 12 mi 10 mi, incl 7 @ T 10 mi 20 mi

Week 11: 11 mi 7 mi, incl 5 @ T 6 mi 8 mi

Week 12: 6 mi 3 mi 6 mi, incl 4 @ T 3 mi

(Thursday)

Week 13: Race Day!

26.2 mi

The above is the training plan I have been using ever since the San Francisco Marathon 2009. It was generated by Runner's World Smart Coach (though they have since changed their plans because I can't get it to generate this exact plan again with the same inputs).

Quick explanations: T = tempo runs. The 1600m repeat intervals always have a 800m recovery jog in between each pick-up. I generally do the speed work smack dab in the middle of the mileage so that I have equal warm-up and cool-down periods. The specified pace for every other run is always "easy." I never do any other aerobic activity on the other days of the week (I'm trying to change this but I hate to exercise).

I've PR'd 4 times on this plan every time I've used it. While not for everyone, I think that my body does best on less running days and higher mileage per day. This plan peaks out at 52 miles/week which is about what I used to peak at on a 5 day a week plan. I love how it gets you running 10-12 miles and it doesn't feel like a "longer" run at all. If you want to run 26.2 fast, I don't think 10-12 miles should feel very long to you. This plan will get you running 10 miles and feeling like it is any other run day. The two week taper vs. the more popular three week taper seems to work better for me, too. I have a very low natural athletic ability (I recently took 6 days off and could tell my cardio had suffered for it) and I think it is better to keep my mileage up as long as possible.

I've been trying to grow within this plan the last two cycles, especially. I've been adding in hill work, fartleks, and marathon-pace miles here and there. I've been debating about folding in a fifth day of running. But with my leg tweaks I want to concentrate on just the extra little speed play here and there for now. My goal maybe the next training cycle or one after is to up the overall mileage a tiny bit.

Monday Mario

2011-08-01T16:04:00.000-07:00

Last year I read about the awesome willow wreaths from Binky Bunny that the Big City Buns had loved. They were already sold out when the blog post was up and I put my email in to be notified when they were back in stock. A couple of weeks ago I got an email saying they were back in stock. I swooped up two of them for Mario.

Day 1, He dug right in with no hesitation!

Day 2, He made quick work of the leaves and just had stems.

By about Day 4 he was down to just a couple circle twigs. I got out of the shower one night and Boyfriend said, "Come quick! You have to see what Mario is doing."

Poor guy had gotten what was left of the wreath around his neck and couldn't get it off.

Boyfriend said he had been like that for about 10 minutes.

If I could just flip this...

I had time to snap a couple of photos before Mario successfully flipped it off his head.

It is a little hard to judge with all the stuff I'm putting in his eye, but I'd say it is probably about the same. Of course, you put in drops and ointment and the fur around his eye is always looking a little peculiar. I've got another week or two of the current regimen before I analyze the next move.

If It's Not One Thing....; Week 8

2011-07-29T10:29:00.000-07:00

Sunday: 10 miles @ 9:21 pace; I have decided to make Sundays my "Speed Play" days. Tuesday has always been formal speed day on my current training plan (changing between tempo runs and mile repeats week to week). I am trying to elevate my running a notch so have been trying to incorporate more quality running. I figure I'll mix and match from hill repeats, fartleks, and marathon-pace miles.

This Sunday I did 10x30 second pick-ups w/30 second recoveries, one "easy" Strawberry Hill ascent, and finished it all off with 2.88 miles of MP (8:51). I sort of like the idea of doing short, fast, hard efforts and finishing off with MP miles to learn what that pace feels like on tired legs.

Tuesday: 10 miles, including 8 miles @ 8:28 pace; This is the hardest workout I ever do on my current plan. Eight miles is a long way to go at an aggressive pace. I tried to look at it in chunks but got a little psyched out mentally before the run even started. I could feel some deep fatigue in my legs from the get-go and had to work harder to keep my pace (my goal was sub-8:30). I didn't hit the same tempo pace I did the last two weeks, but given my harder workouts lately I am really happy with this run.

Wednesday: 8 miles @ 9:48; My legs were super dead this morning. Super dead. I guess all those faster miles caught up with me. It was pretty much all I could do to keep running, but I still managed to keep up my normal recovery pace. I love how these long recovery runs the day after hard workouts teaches my mind that I can run a fairly long time on tired legs. I find it amazing every Wednesday morning how they feel so heavy but just keep trucking.

Friday: Well, I've had some strange, niggling issues in my left leg for a few weeks which are at the point I realize they aren't just going to go away. I probably could have gone out and run my 20 miles today but I decided to play it smart and take the day off. I'm postponing the 20 until Monday or Tuesday of next week. Pushing the long run out a few days did miracles for my recent calf issue, so I'm hoping it will do the same for this quad thing. It is hard for me to do stuff like this, but I'm trying to save a few weeks of quality running by sacrificing a few days of it now. RG mentioned how it was nice I was getting faster and not getting injured. Not true, I'm always dealing with this or that. I feel like I've always got something bugging me, and once one thing heals another thing flares up. Boo. I've got an appointment with a sports chiro today and will probably start seeing someone regularly for maintenance down the road.

I took a photography workshop last week. This was one of the photos up on the wall that the teacher had snapped. I was mesmerized by the darn thing. Something about it made me want to jump right into the picture and go for a run. It was for sale. $1200. Boyfriend says I can snap my own foggy shot somewhere.

I have a question for everyone: I am planning on taking part in an indoor marathon in January. You basically run a kazillion laps around an indoor track until you run 26.2 miles. I know it sounds like torture, but these events get RAVE reviews. Supposedly they are tons of fun because you see all the other runners and you get a cheering section every single lap (plus an aid station and bathroom every lap, too!). So my dilemma is this: The event I am looking at has the marathon on Sunday and also a half marathon on Saturday. Just like the Goofy Challenge you run the half Saturday, the full Sunday, and you get a third medal for doing them both.

Initially I was all in for this Gold Challenge of a half and a full. But I am starting to have some reservations. I'm sure the full will be fun, but I'm not 100% sure doing a half AND a full on an indoor track would be quite as exciting. At Goofy you get to run through the parks which I adore so that makes me pumped to run two days in a row. I'm not sure an indoor track has that sort of allure. At the same time, I'm flying my butt to Wisconsin and there won't be much else to do except run these races. And I'm not planning on setting any PR's at any event so what's an extra 13.1? On the other hand, I've done the Goofy Challenge three times so not sure there is anything to accomplish or prove to myself here.

Registration opens soon so I have to make up my mind pronto. Any input?

Race Decisions

2011-07-26T13:52:00.000-07:00

I don't know if anyone but me pays much attention to the sidebar of the blog on the right. I only add races to the sidebar when I've actually registered. I pretty much have the entire 2012 year planned out, but I'll save the big reveals for much later.

As far as races I've recently signed up for:

Seattle Rock 'n' Roll Marathon 2012: I was sent a wicked coupon code which made the price of this race a good deal (RnR events are notoriously expensive). Can't say I ever had a desire to do this race so it was a total spontaneous move. I went from not even thinking of this race to being registered in a matter of 30 minutes. I coerced a handful of friends to sign up, too, so it should be a fun trip. I love Seattle and can't wait to go back for another visit. I am willing to strike this off the docket if things don't work out, but I'm hoping they will.
Big Sur Marathon 2012: I consider this race to be the marathon I plan to run every year for the rest of my marathon running life. So I bit the bullet and signed up on opening day.
ET 51K: A slight change of plans happened. I got cajoled into upgrading from the marathon distance to the 51K distance. It wasn't like they had to twist my arm too much, though, for a few reasons. First off, I'm flying out to Nevada for this race. The bigger of an event I can make it the better. Two, it is a road 51K. Road ultras are pretty rare and being a total trail weenie this may be one of my few shots to get an ultramarathon finished. Three, the race is run near Area 51. To do a 51K out there appeals to the number geek in me.

In order to make room in my running schedule for a 51K I have slightly readjusted my goals for Half Moon Bay. I was leaning more and more towards going for a PR at Half Moon Bay. My paces have been consistently faster for all types of runs in this training cycle versus my Texas training cycle. So I feel as if I probably have a good marathon in me if I can keep it up. However, I don't want to force myself to do too much too soon after the 51K. I want to have the option to lay low a week or two to recover. I am not planning on setting any speed records at ET, but I'm sure the endeavour will set me back a bit.

Two Cities was always on my radar as a PR attempt (November 6th) so I've decided to declare that my next A-race. I will be setting a semi-aggressive time goal for Half Moon Bay and who knows? Maybe my legs will bounce back and I'll decide to go for it. But I needed to free myself of that idea to make the 51K palatable.

So yeah, I'm going to do my first ultramarathon in 2.5 weeks! Uhh...

I was asked what training plan I use. I've been using a plan that Runner's World Smart Coach spit out for me back in 2009. It has me running only 4 days a week which has kept my injuries down (I struggle, even now, with a few chronic issues). Even though I'm only running 4 days a week, there are no low mileage days. As you can see I run a fairly moderately long distance every time out plus a long run. Recently, I think Smart Coach retooled as I can't get the same plan to come out inputting the same info I usually do. I can try to get a post up showing the whole plan soon.

Oh, and yes, those shorts from my 20 miler are from Lulu (speed shorts). I love them!

Monday Mario

2011-07-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

So a quick update on Mario's situation: I've decided to definitely go the most conservative path first. I've restarted the antibiotics. D. Moll has suggested a few holistic ideas which I am giving a go while we play our litte waiting game. As I told her, I am not normally big into non-Western medicine, but perhaps Mario is a Qi bunny at heart :) And if it won't hurt him, I'm all for that versus knocking the little guy out.

Glenna, your friend was also very helpful. Thank you so much for the connection. I am going to do a bit more sleuthing on my own as far as vet options and whether Mario seems to be favoring one side of his jaw to the other (in my light assessment, no, but I will do a more careful observation). I'm also going to go the route of humans with this issue: Warm compresses and artificial tears. In fact, after the first day of ointment I felt things looked a little better and even remarked to Boyfriend that perhaps Mario just had nasty dry eye. Glenna's friend suggested this is a possibility so I'm going to work up that avenue as well.

Both D. Moll and Glenna's friend gave me more vet insight into similar cases and I'm definitely considering how it all applies to Mario.

I'll keep everyone updated.

Still the weepy eye. It gives him such a sad look :(

Rungry!!; Week 7

2011-07-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

I'm so hungry I could eat twigs

Sunday: 9.5 miles @ 9:50 pace; I had a fun run with two great ladies. Audrey came up to SF to run so I stuck with her the first 2.5 miles as a nice warm-up. I then got passed over to Alyssa who was out doing a mellow recovery run (the only way I keep up with this lady is if she is on a recovery run). We did one Strawberry Hill ascent together then I knocked out two more by myself (9:34 pace PR on the second ascent). After that we finished off the run with some flat miles around Stow Lake. I clocked sub-9:00 minute miles the last 2.7 miles and am happy to report they felt like a comfortable working pace.

Tuesday: 9 miles including 7 miles @ 8:22 pace; Knocked another tempo run out of the park. I looked back to my Texas training cycle runs and this same run in that cycle I ran the tempo portion at a 9:04 pace! That is quite an improvement (later tempo runs in the Texas cycle were done in the upper 8:30's, but I am still very impressed). And if you want to see how far I've come in 2 years, here is the same week of training for SFM back in 2009. Wow. Also fun to note how this week of the training plan is where I realize the mileage ramps up. The 2009 SFM training cycle is the first time I used this training plan and I've stuck with it ever since. I've been getting faster and am generally less injured on this plan. It works for me. I've been tweaking the paces and adding more speed work in, but the mileage base of the plan has remained the same.

Wednesday: 9 mile @ 9:38 pace; Ah, the longer, early morning pre-work runs. Always a favorite around here *eye rolls*. I've found with these day-after speed work runs, it takes about 4 miles to get into a groove, but once I hit it, the legs come back to life a little.

Friday: 16 miles @ 9:18 pace; Did the following plan: 1 mile easy, 2 miles MP, 2 miles easy, 2 miles MP, 2 miles easy, 2 miles MP, 2 miles easy, 2 miles MP, 1 mile easy. I'm considering MP to be 9:00 pace give or take 10 seconds. I nailed the MP pick-ups at: 9:01, 9:01, 9:03, 9:00! 9:00 pace is working for me, but it feels comfortably sustainable. I have over three months to get in shape to hold it for 26.2 and I'm starting to think it is realistically doable. My PR marathon pace is currently 9:12... Did pretty close to that over the 16 miles and it felt pretty easy.

Garfield Garmin is still being a major pain in the arse. He consistently measures the first half a mile long which means my pace is all wonky AND I've had to add on extra distance at the ends of runs to make up for it. On Friday's run, he was wonky the first half a mile as usual, but then my lap pace was jumping all over the place in later miles. Since I was running off of pace it was throwing me off. I had to stop and reset it. I'm still experimenting with what makes it work and what doesn't. I have one more trick up my sleeve before I give up totally.

The mileage kicks up a bit from here on out -- and this week my hunger finally showed up. I've been rungry all week! I've had so much pasta this week (I literally eat pasta at least once a day every day of the week). I feel as if my hunger stabilizes out as the training continues but I guess this was the week my body decided change was in the air.

Most importantly, thank you, for all of your comments regarding Mario. I will have an update on Monday.

Teary-Eyed, Both He & I

2011-07-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

Mario has had a weepy right eye off and on for months now. Last month I took him into the veterinarian who irrigated his tear duct and put him on an antibiotic ointment. One of those two things seemed to help things improve but it never fully resolved. I spoke to the veterinarian today who gave me two options:

1) Do a series of skull x-rays to see if there is an underlying issue causing his tear duct to be clogged (think dental issues, abscesses, tumors). This however, requires Mario to be put under anesthesia which makes me very nervous. We can run some blood tests to minimize the risk of anesthesia. But the vet, quite frankly, told me death is a possibility.

2) We can try the ointment for a longer course of treatment. The vet said it is rare but some bunnies do have more involved infections. I know a little bit about eyeballs and it is not an eyeball infection (the vet also agrees). If he has an infection it is in his tear duct. My gut tells me it is a noninfectious issue (perhaps there is a secondary infection but I feel there is something more sinister causing the clogging) but I am leaning towards retrying the medication since it poses less risk to Mario. However, I am also worried that delaying the x-ray could allow any underlying issue to worsen (she's thinking 14-21 more days of ointment).

Does anyone have experience with older rabbits being put under (Mario is at least 8 years old. Possibly older since I adopted him full grown)? Mario is 100% unfazed by all of this and doesn't even seem to be bothered by the tear overflow. I called a renowned local rabbit vet's office (we are currently getting care from an avian vet with a special interest in rabbits) hoping they could do x-rays without anesthesia but was told they generally put bunnies under as well.

Monday Mario

2011-07-18T12:35:00.000-07:00

I slept for almost 11 hours last night. Mario approves.

Week 6, Plan Deviation

2011-07-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

This week was a cut back week where every run was supposed to be an 8 miler of easy pace. Things got sort of turned around and I didn't do one run as planned -- but I think it turned out pretty good.

I ran over 30 miles this week with this lovely lady. Photo from our 20 on Sunday.

Sunday: 20.2 miles @ 10:01 pace; Alyssa had the awesome idea of participating in a 6 hour race (you run a 1 mile loop as many times as you like in the 6 hour time frame) to get her last long run for SFM done. Her idea snowballed and before you knew it, there were TONS of Bay Area bloggers coming to take part. A few of us decided that in order to break up the monotony of scenery and flat elevation we would arrive a little early and run out to, across, and back from the Golden Gate Bridge. That clocked us 7 miles so we did 13 loops to finish with 20 miles. I stuck with my pal Karin the entire 20 miles. My fastest 20ish miler to date was at this same pace pre-Texas Marathon. But today I felt like I was holding back.

Tuesday: 8 miles including 6 miles @ 8:22 pace; I wasn't supposed to be doing any speed work this week but I missed this run when my calf was acting up. Next week I have 7 miles at tempo and I felt I needed this 6 mile effort to get me mentally ready for next week. I beat my tempo pace from the other week and overall felt really strong the entire time.

Wednesday: 7 miles @ 9:45 pace; My legs were very heavy this morning so I took it easy.

Friday: 10.3 miles @ 9:34 pace; Karin was doing her long run of 16 miles today. Since no long run was on the docket and I thought we'd be running at a 10:00 pace again, I offered to run a couple extra miles with her. But then she said she wanted to push the pace a little.

Holding off a couple of days on the 20 miler that should have been done last week kicked my sore calf to the curb. It was 100% normal for every single run this week. After this cutback week my training plan really starts to take off in mileage. Put on your seat belts!

Monday Mario

2011-07-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

Mario wants strong ankles, too.

The Week of Sevens; Week 5

2011-07-08T16:51:00.000-07:00

Alyssa shot this while we were waiting to start our run Sunday. Notice how we are all gathered in the shade in SF. It was a warm day.

Sunday: 7 miles @ 10:15 pace; Easy, fun run with lots of Bay Area ladies around GPP. My leg was a little tight and mad about the 17 mile Friday, but overall not too bad and I was able to stretch it into submission. We even ran up Strawberry Hill once (I've been a bit nervous to do this since that is where my leg started acting up) but it didn't give me any trouble there. We finished off the run with ramen which I've decided is the best post-run food (second perhaps to saimin, but that is rare strain of noodle dish found mainly in Hawaii).

Tuesday: 7 miles, including 3x 1600m in 7:47, 7:51, 8:09; The last time I did mile repeats, Garfield ate my data so I was curious what I would be able to do. The first repeat is my new unofficial mile PR! The second repeat also beat my previous PR by a few seconds. That third one... err... Not sure what happened there. I don't recall feeling so terrible but I guess it all caught up with me. I haven't done any speed work in two weeks due to my calf so I'm still really happy with the way this run went.

Wednesday: 7 miles @ 9:46 pace; The legs were pretty heavy this morning but I kept on trucking.

Friday: 7 miles @ 9:48 pace, including 2x Strawberry Hill; I keep track of the pace I log up Strawberry Hill versus the time it takes me mainly because I don't always run the same line of curve up the hill. Posted my fastest pace yet the second time up today. 9:38! After this run I met up with Alisa who is visiting from Portland. We did an easy 4 mile walk/run over the Golden Gate Bridge.

I took Alisa and Mr. Pi on a brief sightseeing tour of SF. The view from Twin Peaks today.

I normally do my long run on Fridays but skipped for three good reasons: 1) Alisa was in town and we decided to go check out the Golden Gate Bridge. Alisa's been dealing with some injuries but she was running at great pace! It is always great to see her and her hubby. 2) There is a huge group of awesome runners participating in a 6 hour run this Sunday. I'll be there to knock out my 20 miler. The course is a one mile loop and you can run as many as you like in the 6 hour time frame. 3) My calf is feeling better every day and I figure the extra two days before I throw 20 miles at it can only help. Last week I made huge improvements and had a slight setback after my 17 miler. So it seems as I keep running on it I get two steps forward, one step back. Hopefully this week I take enough steps forward that I am in the clear.

The above shot is from July 4th. Alyssa came out to meet Rowdy and then we went to the beach to chillax and fly our Rainbow Brite kite. Here is Boyfriend showing me how it is done.

Monday Mario

2011-07-04T09:55:00.000-07:00

I gave Mario his paper bag toy from BunnyFest the other day. He wasn't too intrigued with it right away but by early morning I could hear him ripping away.

Sadly I missed the shot where his head was stuffed inside the bag.

Like A Duck Out of Water; Weeks 3 & 4

2011-07-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

Wow! Two more weeks have come and gone. Week 3 was filled with both awesome runs and skipped runs due to injury. I've bounced back quite a bit in Week 4 but am not quite out of the woods with this calf issue yet:

Sunday: 7 miles @ 9:43 pace; I did three Strawberry Hill repeats. Somewhere on the descent of the second one my calf was getting tight and achy and of course I ran back up and down the monster hill again. Calf successfully trashed. At the time, though, I was having so much fun. I love doing repeats on that hill.

Tuesday: 7 miles, including 5 miles @ 8:24 pace; As I posted before, I tried to do as much damage control as I could Monday for my calf. The first few miles of this run were pain-free but somewhere around mile 4.5 it started getting achy and I kept pushing through it. Calf issues aside, I had an awesome tempo run. This is the first time my average tempo pace has fallen into the 8:20's. I am so tickled with my progress.

Saturday: 2 miles @ 9:55; So I guess running my fastest ever tempo on a questionable calf wasn't one of my better ideas. I had to skip a couple of runs (including my long run) to let my calf heal up. This was a short test run to see how it was doing.

Sunday: 7.1 miles @ 9:48; I decided not to try to cram my 16 miler into the weekend and to just continue on with Week 4. My calf got a little tight about halfway through the run but I stretched it for a bit and was able to finish pain-free.

Tuesday: 8 miles @ 9:49; This was supposed to be a tempo run but didn't do any speed work this week. My calf was a little tight but still better than it had been Sunday.

Wednesday: 6 miles @ 9:22; My calf felt 100% normal this whole run. I let myself push the pace a little bit.

Friday: 17 miles @ 9:43; This was supposed to be an 18 miler but with the skipped 16 miler the week before I decide to split the difference. Endurance-wise I felt amazing and could have easily gone the whole 18 miles. But my calf got a little cranky for a few miles towards the end and I didn't want to push my luck. We'll see how much this long run has set my leg back. So far it doesn't seem any more achy than it did after Tuesday's run.

On my 7.1 miler Sunday, Boyfriend came with me to Stow Lake to test out our new DSLR camera. As I mentioned, race shots were on my list of things I want to be able to do with this camera. It has a continuous shooting setting which takes 6 frames a second. SIX FRAMES A SECOND! I passed him 7 times on the one mile loop and he got over 700 shots of me. If you ever want to know just how crappy your running form is, sit through a presentation of 700 shots of you running at 6 fps. Gah. I have LOTS of stuff I need/want to work on and I don't even know where to start.

While he was waiting to see me, he took this sequence of a duck jumping onto a log:

My favorite is of Mr. Duck shaking off the water:

(click on the photo) Look at those water droplets!

Anyhow, imagine a runner instead of a duck jumping out of the water and you can see what this camera can do. And as Boyfriend said, "I don't even know how to use it! I am just pointing and shooting."

For those of you who asked, it is Nikon D7000. I also got an upgraded lens. It is not light and I wouldn't love to walk around with it for hours. However you have to remember I am coming from the days of a metal SLR and a metal zoom lens so this thing feels relatively lightweight to me. It isn't so complicated to use on auto setting, but there is no point in getting a camera like this if you are only going to use it on auto. I'm hoping to attend a workshop this month to brush up on my photography skills and learn some of the quirks of a digital SLR. Because anything BUT auto setting is pretty intimidating at this point.

Monday Mario

2011-06-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the annual BunnyFest!! We went last year and it was a lot of fun and very informative. My parents are in town visiting so I had planned to make it to the second half of the BunnyFest day. There were two veterinarian speakers I wanted to listen to and I wanted to be there for the raffle.

Side note: We went to the Computer History Museum (great museum in Mountain View) in the morning and saw this:

Nothing like seeing your favorite childhold toy behind glass in a *museum* to make you feel old. To make myself feel better, the very first display (chronological order) in the museum had a slide rule which my dad said he used in college. That's right! Shock of all shockers there were no calculators when my dad was in college. Gah.

Lots of fun booths with bunny stuff for sale.

Bunnies for petting (Again, LOTS of people brought their rabbits which I just don't get. Rabbits don't strike me as pets that take well to being brought to strange environments with lots of crowds/other rabbits. But the bunny eye candy was pretty cute).

Mario's bounty (those treats are actually DOG treats! I didn't notice until I got home. But they are made with all plant-based things so guess it will work)

I was especially excited about the Teach 'n Treat. It is an enrichment toy you hide treats in and the rabbit has to use his brain a bit to get them out. It touts "Foraging Fun!" There are escalating levels of difficulty. I started Mario off on the easiest level. The blue circular piece in the center slides around to reveal the treat wells below. Mario needed a little help but was able to figure it out. I was so proud!

Wednesday Wings

2011-06-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

So Rowdy is doing much better! I went to see him Monday and he is walking around with no issues. Yay! I only took him out for a short walk so as not to push him too far but he seemed back to his normal self.

So cute with his tongue hanging out.

Sadly, Rowdy's leg issues seem to have jumped over to me :( Sunday on my run my lower calf/upper achilles got really tight and achy during my hill repeats. I was having a good run so did another hill repeat and a two mile cool-down on the leg. Stupid. I rolled it out and stretched it lots Monday. Tuesday I went out for a tempo run. It wasn't bothering me a bit until about 3.5 miles into the run. I was having another great run so kept on pushing another 4 miles. Stupid. Tuesday I rolled and stretched obsessively but it is still sore today. I am trying not to be stupid so skipped today's run and tomorrow is a rest day. Fingers crossed it will be better for my long run Friday.

I slapped a sample Salanpas patch I had on it. Wow! Major relief! The pain area is at the mid point of the patch. It feels bruised when you press on that area.

So I went ahead and ordered Garfield Garmin 3.0. I have a feeling the issues I have been having are software based and not hardware based but I decided that a $350 piece of equipment shouldn't be giving me this much headache. Is it too much to ask for one that works out of the box?

Monday Mario

2011-06-20T11:23:00.000-07:00

My newest toy is a Nikon DSLR. I took photography for two years in high school and was a photographer for my high school newspaper a year after that. This is back in the day of 35mm black and white photography. I used my dad's old, heavy, metal, Nikon SLR which is an awesome piece of equipment but pretty bare bones. My new digital toy with hundreds of buttons and knobs is a bit intimidating. I haven't done much with it except point and shoot (I'm hoping to attend a workshop next month). But I have to say I am so impressed with the results with my minimal knowledge. I really wanted the camera to be able to take better photos of Mario and also to be able to get better race photos. For both of these things fast, prompt shutter speed is key.

Fast shutter speed, indeed!

I call this Mario's "Neurotic Bunny" habit. Every now and then he chews on the bars.

Another thing is the ability to zoom. If Mario is doing something I want to get a photo of, I usually have to get really close to him which causes him to stop and stare at me. Or, he will abandon his cute activity to come running over to me. With the new camera I can zoom in and he is unaware I'm taking photos. I also get an immediate reaction from the camera which means I capture exactly the moment I want versus waiting for the lag of the camera and capturing some other random moment.

Garmin Woes, Week 2

2011-06-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

Introducing Garfield Garmin who replaced Garmin the Garmin. If you're wondering why I didn't make a big stink about his arrival it is because he has been a grumpy fool the last few months and I haven't really felt like giving him the blog space.

Sunday: 7 miles @ 9:51 pace; Did two Strawberry Hills ascents.

Tuesday: 6 miles, including 2x 1600m with 800m recovery; I was really excited to do this workout because I haven't done mile repeats since January. It is a very long story but the short version is that Garfield Garmin decided to eat my splits like lasagna. I'm fairly certain they were sub-8:00 and I was even thinking I might have posted an unofficial mile PR (previously 7:53). But I guess we'll never know... I suppose the important thing is that I'm running faster than I was pre-Texas.

Wednesday: 7 miles @ 9:42 pace

Friday: 14 miles @ 9:39 pace; The miles went by so quickly and I felt strong. I think it is safe to say that my "easy" pace has gone sub-10:00 which is right where I want to be right now. Dipped down into the low-9:00's for a bit at the end which felt like a nice working pace.

Garmin the Garmin was a rockstar and never gave me huge troubles. My dad's Garmin 405 broke and I mentioned to him that when I finally upgraded mine I would give him my old one. It was almost my birthday so my dad offered to buy me a new one if I gave him my old one. WIN! So I finally got my lovely new orange Garmin 310XT. I was smart and bought it from REI (you can return anything, anytime for any reason) in case I got a lemon.

Garfield 1.0 was a lemon. After a few runs he locked up and I promptly took him back and returned him to REI. I then ordered a new one. Garfield 2.0 (the one I currently have) then went on to lock up the same way as Garfield 1.0!! Argh!!! I called Garmin support at this point since obviously it was some sort of widespread issue. I was told to reset the unit and the next software update should take care of it. Garfield 2.0 was behaving pretty well after this, though I held my breath every time we'd start off to see if it is going to lock up.

Well, the other day the long awaited software update was posted. They actually didn't have my issue listed as one of the fixes, but I went ahead and updated. This caused the debacle of Tuesday's run. AND now ever since Garfield isn't locking satellites as well in the beginning of the run. My distance and pace is all wonky the first half a mile and I've had to add on extra mileage at the end of my run to make up for this.

I've decided this is all kharma for deporting Garmin the Garmin before his time. I liked to think of his time with my dad as a nice retirement in Hawaii doing lesiurely 2 mile runs. Apparently he preferred running marathons with me. I haven't decided if I should stick with Garfield 2.0 for a bit or get yet another one or just scrap this whole idea. Maybe Garmin 610? I think I prefer buttons to a touch screen. I am starting to think REI has some sort of bad apple bunch of 310's lying around because most people seem pretty pleased with theirs. Le sigh.

Wednesday Wings & Week 1

2011-06-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since we had a Rowdy photo! This horse will stand there looking at you with his ears pricked like this for far longer than any other horse I have ever met. This means I have TONS of photos like this.

Rowdy is not doing so well right now. I went out on Monday and he was limping pretty badly on his front foreleg. They are giving him pain killers and I know they have moved him to a flatter paddock. He was still happy to see me and I took him out for some grooming and grazing. He didn't seem reluctant to walk when asked and wasn't trying to keep weight off the leg when standing so I'm hoping it isn't so terrible. Hopefully it is just some old-man ache that goes away soon.

I decided to start up my week workout wrap-ups again. It may start to feel sort of redundant what with my posting on Daily Mile, but I'll try it for a bit and see how it goes.

Sunday: 7 miles @ 9:21 pace; It felt natural so I went with the flow and pushed just a little at the end.

Tuesday: 6.2 miles including 4 mile @ 8:30 pace; My fastest tempo run ever was on February 22nd, the day Wings dropped me on my head. I had never run an 8:30 average pace before and I was so jazzed to be so close to dropping my tempo pace down into the 8:20's. Well it appears I am back where I left off which is really suprising to me. I thought I'd have to do these workouts this month slower than where I left off and hopefully upon repeating them the following month I'd gain some ground on my old speed. Not so. Thank you, legs.

Wednesday: 5 miles @ 9:55 pace; Generally Wednesdays come with heavy legs from Tuesday speed. I felt pretty good this day, though. I even went up Strawberry Hill once. I am trying to incorporate Strawberry Hill ascents and descents a lot more into my training. Strawberry Hill is a half a mile incline that really gets your heart pumping. I'm still tinkering with how and where I fit the hill work in, but I love it.

Friday: 12 miles @ 9:29 pace; Much faster than I would generally do a long run (yes, 12 miles is a long run these days) but it felt like a comfortable working pace so I let myself stick with it. When I trained for San Francisco back in 2009 I remember that my tempo pace was in the 9:20's and I was really jazzed about that. I find it very encouraging to see how far I've come since then.

Monday Mario

2011-06-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

Bunny Loafing on a box can sure take a lot out of you.

Yaaaaaawn.

Friday Favorites -- Firedaughter

2011-06-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

It has been at least over a year since I discovered Firedaughter. I stumbled upon it on Etsy (an online venue for people to sell handmade and vintage items). Firedaughter is a one woman show put on by Samya. She is a kick ass runner (she just ran Boston), mother, and fire wife who makes awesome tops that highlight all these avenues of her life (oh, she is also a Twilight fan -- I know some of you people are Twilight diehards -- and she makes baseball tees).

Every shirt is handmade when you order it. You can pick from various styles of tops (tanks, long sleeves, sweat shirts) in various colors and also the ink color to create a very personal shirt.

I have the following designs so far:

Recently, Samya came out with her "Fight For It" shirt. She describes it best herself here. Twenty percent of every sale goes directly to St. Jude's. I love the saying and I love the cause.

Definitely check out all her awesome designs. Samya is super sweet and has been an absolute pleasure to deal with every single time. People call her creations, "Pretties" and I couldn't agree more.

Fight For It

2011-06-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

My new running mantra has become, "Fight For It." I was previously getting a bit down about the loss of fitness the whole fall-on-head-ankle-debacle cost me. And every day I was out there and things were feeling tough, I'd repeat it in my head to buckle down and just keep plugging away. It made me channel my anger and frustration into good running. Let me tell you, it works. I've used "Believe" in the past which was awesome during races and pulled me through. But I currently like the bite of tenacity and empowerment behind "Fight For It" more right now. I intend to use this one for a bit. There is an awesome story about the above tank which I'll post this Friday.

My running has been going really well and pace-wise I am pretty much back to where I'd like to be at this point in training. If I'm being honest I am amazed at how quickly it came back and I am excited to get on to the meat of training.

I took a good hard look at my tentative training schedule last night and already feel the need to revamp it. I'm a little ahead of the curve right now and want to keep building on that, mileage-wise. Originally I was treating June as a freebie month where I was following the beginning weeks of my usual marathon training schedule. Then, at the end of the month I was going to repeat those initial weeks when I jumped back into official training.

I think I need to treat these weeks as the first few weeks of official training to get my mileage up higher before ET in August. ET is a total training run with no real time goal. However, it is at altitude and is all uphill the first 13 miles. I want to put myself in the best position to perform well under the altitude+uphill combo.

Two, I am having some misgivings about running Half Moon Bay AND Two Cities/Fresno. A part of me feels that the races are too close together. I was looking at CIM in December which would give me another extra month of training. It would also open up the Humboldt Half question and allow me to get a good half marathon race on the schedule. But I reread some friend's CIM reports (and also my own) which pretty much made me NOT want to rerun that course. I think my heart is with Fresno this year.

So this leads me to think about how I want to approach Half Moon Bay. I don't think I can race both Half Moon Bay and Fresno. I don't even think it is wise for me to set a semi-aggresive time goal for Half Moon Bay (I was thinking maybe something in the 4:15 range, initially). I have to either throw in an easy 4:35 effort or maybe drop down to the half. If I decide to just go for it at Half Moon Bay, I suppose Fresno would be a moot point. I'll have to see how things shape up the next few months.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be very much appreciated!

Monday Mario

2011-06-06T11:50:00.000-07:00

They say bunnies love to have bells and toss toys to throw around. Mario has never been really big into any toy I've gotten him. I occasionally cycle these rings into his house because he pushes them, digs at them, and does toss them side to side. I sometimes wonder if they are really more of an annoyance to him and he is trying to get rid of them vs. him having a good time. You be the judge:

The Rest of 2011

2011-05-31T00:00:00.000-07:00

Seen on Sunday's run: A stone turtle for the real turtles to rest on.

I've run by this little lake in Golden Gate Park hundreds of times but never ran around it until this weekend.

I am back on the running train and feeling good. I am slowly and wisely ramping up distance and intensity (vs. my mad dash for mileage before Big Sur). I am not where I was before the whole fall-on-head-twist-ankle saga but it is coming back and I'm having fun.

I've got the rest of the year mapped out (who am I kidding, I've got 2012 mapped out already, too, ha ha -- so far 6 marathons, stay tuned)

For the rest of the year, I'm eyeballing:

August: Extraterrestrial Marathon

September: Moo Cow Half, Half Moon Bay Marathon

October: Humboldt Half Marathon??

November: Two Cities Marathon

ET is run in the middle of Area 51 at midnight. I've worked it into the schedule as a glorified training run -- no taper and I'm going to take it really slow (it is also at altitude so the taking it easy should come naturally). I've got a couple of running friends who said they'd be there so it is going to be a fun time.

Moo Cow is a new half marathon that features a cowbell medal at the end! It is a hilly course so no major time goals. I'll also not be pushing too hard at Moo Cow because the new Half Moon Bay Marathon is a week later. Right now I'm thinking I will probably have some sort of a time goal for Half Moon Bay. If I'm feeling it I may go for a PR but if I don't think my legs are back I'm hoping to go for a semi-aggressive time goal to show myself I'm at least back in the PR striking range. So I consider it the B-race for the remainder of the year.

Humboldt is a HUGE question mark at this point. When I ran the full marathon last year, I decided that the Humboldt Half is the fastest, best option I have within driving distance at a half PR. The course is fairly flat, appears to be downhill in both directions (because the Redwoods are so darn tall) and the shade of the giant trees promises to keep things cool. I really want to race it one day.

This may not be the year for a few reasons -- I have a lot of time, but I have doubts I'll feel strong enough to go for a half PR in October. More importantly, a full PR is higher up on my wish list and Two Cities is only 3 weeks after Humboldt. I originally wanted to better my half time before going for a sub-4 full marathon. My half PR is currently 1:59 and I thought that psychologically it would be hard to go for a sub-4 marathon without a faster half PR. BUT I think the 4:01 at Texas has given me enough of a mental edge to try for a sub-4 full without a faster half PR.

Two Cities in early November is my A race right now to try for a sub-4. It gets awesome reviews by other runners and is supposed to be a fairly fast course.

So there it is for you. I'm on a schedule again!

Monday Mario

2011-05-30T10:37:00.001-07:00

If you can't run a marathon, the next best thing is to sit on a bag from a marathon.

iFitness Belt Review

2011-05-27T11:13:00.000-07:00

I was asked to do a review of my iFitness belt (which I seem to be wearing more and more these days).

I started out my workout belt life with a SPIBelt. It worked pretty well, but since the pouch has no form of its own and takes the form of whatever item you put in, the belt tended to roll on my body and it was hard to get things in and out.

My rinky SPIbelt which hasn't seen fresh air in years

I also disliked that I was always afraid my keys/ID would fall out when I reached in to grab something I needed during the run.

I heard awesome things about the iFitness belt and thought I'd give it a shot.

One awesome selling-point for me was that the iFitness belt has a little internal pocket you can tuck your key or ID into so it doesn't fall out while on the run.

View of internal pocket

My first iFitness belt purchase a few years ago was the single pouch model:

I was told by the sales rep at the expo that you had to wear it low on your hips (I usually place the band right below my hip bones) in order to ensure it wouldn't bounce or ride-up.

I'm not sure electronics would survive a dip in the ocean, but the pouch is made of neoprene which offers a fairly high level of water/sweat protection.

I've run with my phone in the single pouch and it doesn't bounce or ride up at all. I literally forget I am wearing it. Since I'm wearing the pouch low on my hips I don't get that uncomfortable feeling that comes when I wear something higher up on my natural waist. I also used this pouch when I was horseback riding to keep my phone and keys handy. I also liked that the neoprene was tough and would provide a layer of protection between my body and my car key in the event of a horse fall.

This past January I won an iFitness belt giveaway on Twitter and was treated to any belt of my choice at the Walt Disney Marathon expo. I chose the Ultimate II belt. I had actually been interested in trying one of their belts that have elastic loops you can stick your gels through.

Cropped for a peek at my snazzy Oiselle orange armwarmers

I tried it out for the first time at Big Sur (above). I stashed my camera in the pouch and my gels in two of the loops and the one velcro pouch on the side of the regular neoprene pouch. You can also see the cap of my lip balm sticking up behind the gels (there is an elastic loop for that).

I use eGels which are pretty huge compared to Gu or Hammer packaging. I almost lost a fingernail trying to slide those gels through the loops. But they were really easy to get out and were held very snugly.

It took Boyfriend and I twenty minutes total to get two gels in the belt loops pre-Big Sur. For the above photo-op I got the gel pack through on the first try. Live and learn.

I was a little afraid that the belt would chafe my shorts, but they came out unscathed after 26.2 miles. I have to say that during Big Sur I did have to readjust the position of the belt every now and then. I think this is because I was taking my camera in and out a lot which changed the tension a bit.

Another thing I recently picked up are the hydration add-ons. Since I already had two belts I am glad I went this route vs. buying a hydration belt. For one, I can decide how many and where to put the bottle holders. Two, I can have all my nifty Ultimate II features or not, depending on my mood.

The hydration add-ons have a little clip inside which clips onto the belt. They attach very securely.

The one downside to the add-ons are that the bottles are tiny. I generally run with a 22 oz handheld and will refill it once or even twice on long runs. The hydration add-on bottles are 6 oz and on a hot day I could probably drink the whole thing in one gulp. There is no way that amount of water would hold me from water fountain to water fountain. However, for race situations where I plan to utilize the aid stations, they are perfect. I have some water with me inbetween aid stations to sip but I can drink more at a station or refill the bottle along the way.

I tend to like to use a belt hydration carrier when running races with my camera so I have two hands free to get my camera out and take photos. Generally a race where I am taking photos I am not caring too much about the time so won't mind stopping to refill so often. And what do you know, there is also a pocket to hold said camera. So the belt set up like this is perfect for me.

True to iFitness form the belt doesn't bounce with the added liquid and it is easy to get the bottles in and out (I haven't run yet with two bottles of liquid -- at Big Sur the second bottle-holder was filled with a pack of Peeps and during Bay to Breakers I had my camera in the second bottle holder).

My camera in the hydration holder.

Peeps in the hydration holder. So many uses!

Another thing I really like about the Ultimate II is the race bib clips in the front. I used it for my last two races and I didn't even notice the bib was there. Newsflash! They also have race bib toggles you can add on to single pouch belts. Hurrah!

The belt is fastened with a secure clip. No more messing with velcro & snagging your delicate tech clothes.

I also purchased the double pouch model for Bay to Breakers. My intent was to put my camera in one pouch and my phone in the other. As I mentioned above, I ended up putting the phone in the pouch and my camera in a bottle holder for easy access. I think I prefer this since it is super easy to get the camera out quickly and the belt didn't have to be readjusted at all since I wasn't taking something in and out of the pouch all the time. However, I decided to keep the double pouch model since I figure it may come in handy one day.

Double pouch model

One interesting thing about the double pouch is that it only has an internal pocket in one of the pouches. I think having the internal pouch in both sides would have been a nice feature.

So there you have it! I definitely recommend iFitness belts for carrying all your stuff on the run and other active activities. There are tons of different models to meet your individual needs and you can mix and match accessories to create your dream belt.

Monday Mario

2011-05-23T15:52:00.000-07:00

Such a lush.

Friday Favorites

2011-05-20T12:41:00.000-07:00

1. Oiselle armwarmers: My latest obsession are my Oiselle armwarmers. I tested them out for as long as 26.2 miles at Big Sur and more recently during a rainy run.

Kept me warm in the rain and wind

First off, they fit me which is a HUGE win for armwarmers. Previously I had only found one brand of arm warmer that stayed up on me. The Oiselle armwarmers only come in one size, but they amazingly seem to fit all shapes and sizes.

The material is super soft and stretchy. One thing I am really amazed about them is that they seem to keep me warm when it is cold and cool when it is warm. Big Sur actually got sort of hot at the end but I never had the urge to pull the arm warmers down. It is was sort of freaky.

They have thumbholes which means they also keep your hands warm. Love love.

I received the arm warmers free from Oiselle as part of their running team but was not asked to do a review. I will definitely be buying more in the future with my own $. In fact, I'm hoping they'll make little rabbit-sized ones for Mario so we can match.

2. Zucchini quinoa lasagna: Whenever I need a quick opinion I turn to twitter. I asked my tweeps if they had any favorite quinoa recipes and was pointed to this recipe (scroll down for the recipe) from Sarah at Peas and Thank You. I made it the same day and it is delicious and healthy! D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S. I'm already planning to make it again next week.

3. Bay to Breakers Salmon: Last but not least, I forgot to include the video of the salmon at Bay to Breakers in my race report. These people start at the finish and run against the flow of traffic to the start:

They passed us as we were going up the Hayes Street hill. By far I think they are the coolest "tradition" of the race.

Also, check out my friend A's awesome Gu giveaway!

Bay to Breakers

2011-05-17T11:01:00.000-07:00

Bay to Breakers is probably the foot race for which San Francisco is most known. In fact I have friends who are decidedly not runners who have taken part in this event in the past (while pushing a keg in a shopping cart). When I moved to SF I realized that in a few years the race would hit its hundredth running and I decided to hold off and do the race in 2011.

Boyfriend ran the race in 2008 so I was there to spectate the back of the pack shenanigans. I timed an early morning run in 2009 to see the elites run by. So now all that was left was to take part in the race myself. The race is notorious for boozing and I hate how people trash the park and neighborhoods during the event. Last year was especially bad and the race even lost its title sponsor.

The race organizers promised a crack down on bandits (about 50% of the people who "take part" in the event aren't registered), alcohol, and vandalism. All of which sound great to me. This is quite the unique event because it attracts world class atheletes in the front of the pack, and the people way in the back are generally drunk non-runners who probably didn't pay and don't make it to the finish.

When Boyfriend participated in the race he ran into major transportation snafus and couldn't make it into his starting corral. Subsequently he was behind a lot of parade-type participants and had a hard time hitting his pace. Because of this, Audrey and I left my apartment at 5 am to catch the shuttle down to the start. I'm not sure what all the transportation woes were about because a shuttle was there waiting for us when we arrived, there were exactly FOUR people on board the entire bus for the entire ride down to the start area (the bus only stopped once for some people who decided they didn't want to get on). It was totally awesome.

We were some of the first people down at the start and I was treated to a pristine porta-potty. Can't vouch as to whether any men used it before me, but I was the one who took the paper wrapping off the toilet paper so definitely no sit-down action before me. Win!

We met up with Naomi and waited for the start. You know you're at a different type of running event when "runners" are smoking cigarettes (and other stuff) in the start corrals. Yuck. There is also some sort of strange tortilla tossing tradition.

This was my best result of trying to capture a flying tortilla

If you ever wanted to know what kind of a face a tortilla that was about to get trampled by 50,000 people would have...

LOTS of tortillas flying around; I got hit by one and it hurt more than you'd think it would.

There's the start line!

I had signed up to be in corral A to make sure I got as far up as possible, but I ended up starting in corral B so I could hang with Audrey and Naomi. It was a great call on my part because I had a great time running with the two of them.

In case you didn't know, Bay to Breakers is also known for nudity.

Thanks to Audrey and her photoshopskills, you won't have to burn your retinas after reading this report.

I didn't actually count the naked people but they weren't exactly scarce. For a fun factoid I only saw one naked women and the majority of the naked people were older vs. younger. So basically, all the people you wouldn't want to see with their clothes off were out there with their clothes off.

Bay to Breakers is also known for its costumes. I didn't spend too much time catching a lot of them on my camera, but I'll throw a few in the report.

Hard hat with an owl statue attached. Not sure what that is supposed to be...

We were running at a very easy pace.

Audrey showing off her fairy wings

The race starts downtown and winds its way west to the ocean

Hayes Street hill; We walked this sucker

This group was carrying a limbo stick which sadly conveniently bent right when I hit the shutter button

Balloon people? Die-hard "Up" fans?

Spectator fun in Golden Gate Park

I love this park

Even though I am not exactly in the best shape right now, 7 miles goes by so fast mentally for me. I couldn't believe how quickly we seemed to hit the park and once there I know every turn and incline to the finish.

More costumes

This one just doesn't look comfortable

My favorite quote of the day, "We can't let that old naked guy with the cane beat us!" Sorry, I didn't get a photo of the naked guy with the cane. I didn't think my camera would survive capturing his backside.

Blurry windmill shot on the way to the beach

Heading to the finish

They normally don't hand these out, but for the 100th we got medals!

The new title sponsor was Zazzle. I find it hugely ironic that with a shirt company as a sponsor the shirts were ridiculously plain and lackluster.

The bling!!

I'm really glad I ran the 100th but I definitely won't be taking part in this race again. It is costly for a 12k run and the logistics of the expo were not fun. Getting to the start and back home is not so terrible for me since I live in a convenient location for these things. But it is a nightmare for people coming in from out of town. And the crowds -- I am just not a huge fan of such huge events.

And I can definitely do without all the naked butts.

Monday Mario

2011-05-16T11:59:00.000-07:00

Sorry for all the lack of posting over here. This weekend I spent the first Saturday night in my own bed in a month. I've been pretty busy and will try to catch up. Easter weekend we took a quickie trip to NYC.

One thing I was really excited about was getting to go to the Central Park Zoo. I've run by this place hundreds of times and never went inside. I was really excited when I saw they had a red panda. I LOVE red pandas. And this guy was quite active running around his enclosure.

Cutie Pie!

I also thought this was cool:

They have fur on the bottom of their feet like rabbits. And they are crepuscular like rabbits, too. It is official. If I ever can't have a rabbit I'm getting a red panda.

We were strolling down Fifth Avenue when we passed FAO Schwarz and saw this:

This of course warranted a look inside:

"Bunnies are our best friends indeed, they do delight and give glad dreams."

I have to say, I think Mario is the ultimate Bunny by the Bay living in San Francisco and all...