April 2019 Road Races

Thist post got put on the backburner as we went on our trip and then I kind of forgot about it. However I wanted to make sure I documented it.

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Prior to April, I hadn’t done a race in over a year. So this year I decided to try again at the Buzz Oates RunSac Race Series. I had signed up for it last year (the mileage program) but never got past the one race. It’s been a few years since I did shorter races (5K) and so I decided to do a 5K and then my coworker wanted to do a 10K so I signed up for one as well. They all happened to be within a few weeks of each other so I decided to lump them all into one post.

First up was the Credit Union SacTown Run on April 7. They have both a 10 mile and 5K option. I had not been doing much distance work and wasn’t feeling up for the 10 miler so I did the 5K. Starting at the beginning of the year my running has been more consistent. I’ve been doing more treadmill running but this does allow me to do incline and speed work. I wanted to see how my speed was given that I’m getting older. My last 5K was in 2017 where I ran ~8.5 min/mi pace. The race started just west of the Capitol and there was plenty of street parking within a few short blocks of the start/finish area. They had plenty of portapotties and also various tents with vendors (other regional races, local businesses). My one gripe was that the people who had set the portapotties put them against the curb and there was quite a bit of road camber (the curve on each side of the street to allow for water to run away from the street) and so the portapotties weren’t level and would rock when you got in and tried to sit down. I knew it wasn’t me because every single person who went in or out of them commented about it and would tell the next person: “good luck” and then laugh. lol. Small gripe I know.

Otherwise the rest of the race was straight forward. The course consisted of running through the streets near the Capitol and then crossing the famous Tower Bridge into West Sacramento by Raley Field (home of the minor league baseball team Sacramento River Cats) and then back across to the finish.

I went out comfortably hard for the first 2 miles and then still feeling pretty good I pushed myself hard the last mile to see if I still had some speed. I crossed the finish line in 26:18. This was actually 34 seconds faster than my last 5K in 2017 – not bad! The other great thing about 5Ks is that the recovery period is minimal.

IMG_20190407_073030 IMG_20190407_074204 IMG_20190407_083111 IMG_20190407_090554

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Bora Bora (French Polynesia 2019)

Finally the last installment of our French Tahiti trip (previous islands here & here). It almost feels like a lifetime ago that we were lounging in the paradise. It’s been busy (mostly work) since returning from the trip.

(Links to the other islands: Tahiti & Moorea)

Day 6

We arrived at the Moorea airport from the Intercontinental Moorea. I don’t think I’ve ever been a smaller airport. There was no security. We literally walked up to the desk, gave our passports, checked our bag (which involved throwing all the luggage onto carts to manually take out to the plane) and got our tickets. The waiting area could maybe hold 50 people comfortably. D had done some research and said we should sit on the left side of the plane because then you get views of the islands (including Bora Bora) as you’re approaching. We boarded a 2 prop plane that probably held 100 people for the 45 minute flight.

They served some pineapple juice on the short flight. The highlight of course was seeing Bora Bora from the air.

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Moorea (French Polynesia 2019)

(Links to the other islands: Tahiti & Bora Bora)

The morning of our third day in paradise started with a buffet breakfast at the hotel. Our checkout time didn’t correspond to when our shuttle was to transfer us from the hotel to the pier for our boat ride to our next island so again we had to sit and wait in the lobby area. Thankfully this was much shorter than before. Our shuttle driver turned out to originally be from Cali and had been in French Polynesia over 18 years but his daughter is currently going to school in Cali. The boat ride from Tahiti to Moorea took about 45 minutes. It was a smooth trip over and gave great views of both Moorea (ahead) and Tahiti (behind).

We were picked up by another shuttle bus and taken to our hotel (another Intercontinental) with a brief stop at the Hotel Manava to drop off the majority of folks. The trip took about 45 minutes overall. The day turned out to be very clear and beautiful but also meant the sun was very intense. At check-in I was just standing there and just dripping sweat. What I learned about all the resorts is that the main areas (reception, lobby, etc) are all open buildings (meaning there’s a roof to shield from rain but there are no walls/doors creating an open feeling overall but meaning there was minimal ventilation – ceiling fans).

IMG_20190517_131459 — *View from our lanai*

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Tahiti (French Polynesia 2019)

***This is a very image heavy post***

(Links to the other two islands: Moorea & Bora Bora)

A few months ago my wife emailed me about a deal to French Polynesia. Admittedly I had no idea where geographically this was. I of course had heard of Tahiti and Bora Bora before. We actually had been watching a show that was based out of French Polynesia and I thought how gorgeous it was. On a whim, I though “why not?” and we booked the trip.

After doing some research, I learned this set of islands was in the south Pacific (essentially directly south of Hawaii) and only an 8 hour flight from LA (not bad!). So a few months later in the middle of May we made our way to these tiny islands by way of LAX (stopped to see some family before).

Unfortunately our trip there (and back) were both redeye flights and I’m terrible at sleeping on airplanes. We had moved seats to the bulkhead thinking we’d have more legspace but in reality I couldn’t extend my legs fully and it was uncomfortable. I ended up sleeping maybe 30-60 minutes total and arrived exhausted. We landed around 5 am when it was still dark out. Luckily going through customs was smooth and our baggage came out quickly. They did have a small band set up as you walked to customs (they were just setting up when we deplaned).