Marathon Training Week 5

Another week in the books. Overall am happy with how things went though my long run could have been better. I’m just glad that I fit it in as I had minimal motivation to do it. I even putzed around the house for a good 30-60 minutes putting it off and then finally walked out the door and got it done.

I also finally did my Tuesday run, which has always been on my schedule but I’ve never done. Part of it is due to a change in my work schedule, which gives me some time after work to run and also due to my new treadmill (post is yet to be published about it). I was still sore from the race 2 days prior to Tuesday, but I think it was good training for my legs.

Here’s a summary of last week’s running.

( ) = # of miles on my plan

Tuesday – 2.39 (3)

Thursday – 6.05 (6)

Friday – 5.25 (14)

Saturday – 11.5 (5)

Sunday – 2.35 (3)

Weekly Total – 27.54 miles (31)

This week’s runs highlight the gravity of the large volumes of rain that we’ve been experiencing this year. My Friday run showed just how much the river had risen. It’s amazing to see in the pictures the difference between an overcast day on Friday and a beautiful blue sky day for my long run on Saturday. Many of the areas of the bike trail were completely submerged in water. Also there is a golf course on the north side of the river that lies by the river. Most of the course is underwater as well.

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*View along the bike trail at Sac State*

img_20170210_100341 — *A road to nowhere*

img_20170210_100357 — *Normally this a grassy field*

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My long run took me on a tour of East Sacramento, including the bagel shop we like to get bagels on the weekend. My long run was a test of my mental persistence. I had a few cocktails the night before and was just feeling overall tired. My training plan has been thrown askew because of the race and it changing my long run distance. I need to get back on track. I was originally going to head upstream along the river, but as evidenced in the pictures above, I could not go past Sac State so decided to run through campus. Since it was a Saturday, the campus was relatively empty.

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Looking forward to week 6. So far my legs are fairly sore but no major injuries (*knocks on wood*)

-StewsCat

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2017 Surf City Half Marathon race recap

Last Sunday I completed by 19th half marathon. It was the 21st running of the Surf City Marathon/Half Marathon in Huntington Beach, CA. I grew up about 20 minutes from HB and so this was kind of a homecoming race.

I had originally signed up for the full marathon last year. Currently my overall long-term running plans are to complete a full marathon every other year (to hopefully give my body time to recover and just not tax myself too much given my history of injuries). I had been contemplating between Surf City and the Carlsbad Marathon. Eventually I settled on Surf City and my good friend KP was thinking of doing it as well (though in the end she couldn’t due to scheduling conflicts). I was excited about the race and the course didn’t seem too bad. One gripe I read about the full distance was that there was a lot of “looping” back and forth along PCH and the ocean. So it could be a little disheartening because you see the people that are a few miles ahead of you and realize you still have a ways to go.

The Big Sur Marathon lottery came a few months after I signed up for Surf City. I thought “why not sign up for the first timer/bucket list lottery and see what happens?” Sure enough, I received the email that I made it in and could register for 2017. So I did. Now I had a decision to make. Surf City was on February 5 and Big Sur is on April 30. With such a short time between races I knew that I shouldn’t try to do 2 full marathons in such a short time (see above about me being injury prone). I made the decision to drop to the half marathon for Surf City.

The race expo was set up in a large tent on one of the parking lots along the beach southeast of the pier. The organization for the bib and t-shirt pickup was well done. You had to know your bib number ahead of time because within the front of the tent, they had lines with a certain interval of number (1-1000, 1001-2000, etc). And then they had a separate area with lines based on your shirt size. So I was able to pickup my bib and shirt and tote bag within just a few minutes of arriving. This was good because I only had a few minutes to check out the expo as we were heading to meet friends for lunch. Continue reading “2017 Surf City Half Marathon race recap” →

Marathon Training Week 4

Another week of training in the books. I can’t say that I did a faithful job following my training plan but overall I am happy with what I did. All of my training for last week was done in a different part of the state – southern California. I had previously signed up for the Surf City Marathon in Huntington Beach last year. After finding out I had made it into Big Sur, I decided to drop from the full marathon distance to the half marathon for Surf City. This did require a small fee to change but I thought it was worthwhile and at least timing wise the 13.1 miles would fit into my training regime.

Since we were doing some of the touristy stuff as well as setting up times to hang out with friends, I shortened some of my runs and altogether skipped another one. I won’t feel too bad about it though since I had a fun weekend.

Here’s a summary of last week’s running.

( ) = # of miles on my plan

Tuesday – 0 (3)

Thursday – 5 (5)

Friday – 2.7 (10)

Saturday – 0 (5)

Sunday – 13.1 (4)

Weekly Total – 20.8 miles (27)

First thing I did after getting off the plane and settled at my parent’s place is go for a run in my old hood. Originally the neighborhood they live in was built in the 50s or so. However, over the years people have demolished homes and rebuilt them in all sorts of styles. In the last 5-10 years, there have been a lot of crazy houses that don’t fit into the area. You can see the difference between more original housing and new housing below.

The race (recap to follow) took place on Superbowl Sunday so we decided to make a weekend of it. Both our families live down in SoCal so it was easy. My folks were out of town but let us stay at their place and use their car (yay for free lodging and transportation). My wife had never been to the Getty Center in LA and has always wanted to go. So this time we had some free time and decided to make a day out of LA since it is a good drive from where we were staying in the OC.

Normally SoCal is sunny like 95% of the time. We happened to go down the weekend that it was rainy and overcast for 3/4 of the time. After spending the first day down hanging out with the wife’s family, Friday morning we set out for LA and the Getty. Due to the rain, traffic was slow going but at least we were moving so I can’t complain that much. And then we arrived at the Getty and surprisingly there were quite a few people visiting as well. Normally people go to the Getty less so for the art and moreso for the beautiful garden and views of the city.

I had previously visited and thought it was nice. Seeing the galleries and visiting the property is free except you do have to pay $15 for parking. Due to the large amount of visitors, the tram that takes you from the parking structure to the actual facility was backed up. The Getty sits on top of a hill and you park at the base of it. Even though it was raining, they offered for people to walk up to the Center. I grabbed one of the complimentary umbrellas (my wife brought her own) and we started walking. Not 100 feet into the walk, another employee offered a free shuttle bus to the entrance. Yay for free and no walking in the wetness. We did kind of a speed walk through many of the exhibits as that is our MO. Unfortunately the large garden was closed due to the weather and rain. The views of LA were also obstructed due to overcast conditions.

After leaving the Getty we made our way into Culver City to have a late lunch at Father’s Office, which is a gastropub that was founded by Sang Yoon, who has been on Top Chef. He developed the Office Burger, which he calls the perfect burger. Watching him on TV, he also talked about how much he detests ketchup and that you can’t ask for that at his restaurant. We both ordered the burger and fries and had some beer (and I had a cocktail after my beer). Overall the burger was filled with quite a punch of flavor and was very yummy.

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day. Clear blue skies and sunny. In the morning, we hit up the race expo to pick up my bib and shirt. We were meeting up with some friends for lunch so didn’t get to hang out too long at the expo. We met up at Ballast Point Brewing in Long Beach. I thought Ballast Point was a San Diego brewery and it is but looks like they’re doing well enough that they have branched out their locations. Their grilled fish tacos were delicious and I had the Sour Wench Blackberry Ale. It was quite tasty and refreshing. The views from the outdoor seating area weren’t so bad either.

After Ballast Point, the wife and I weren’t done with our day drinking just yet so drove over to Belmont Shores to have some more beers. We ended up at Belmont Brewing and enjoyed some beer and another great view. I do love the ocean.

I probably shouldn’t have had all that beer the day before a race, but I couldn’t pass it up. And overall it didn’t affect my race all that much.

Up Next: Surf City Half Marathon Race Recap

-StewsCat

Marathon Training Week 3

My week three of marathon training hit a bit of a snafu. Originally on this week’s plan, I had a long run of 12 miles. Next week (Week 4) I was only supposed to do 10 miles for my long run. I forgot, didn’t plan out, that I actually am doing a half marathon race next weekend. I wasn’t sure if I should alter week 3’s plan of 12 miles and ended up compromising during the actual run. Week 2’s 10 miler felt really good and easy. This last week’s 11.45 miler was extremely tough. I wonder if it was related to the fact that the night before the run I had a few cocktails. I am still learning about my own body and what alcohol does for it. In the past I used to have a beer the night before a race and then I did a few races without having beer the night before and noticed that it was a little easier. I’m by no means going to abstain from all alcohol during training, but maybe see how my body does by not having alcohol the night before a long run.

Here’s a summary of last week’s running.

( ) = # of miles on my plan

Tuesday – 0 (3)

Thursday – 4.13 (4)

Friday – 11.45 (12)

Saturday – 5.3 (6)

Sunday – 3.0 (3)

Weekly Total – 23.89 miles (28)

This week’s long run took me along the American River Trail. I used to live by the river the area that I ran this week. It was nice to be back in my old running haunts. The day was nice and warm (high 50s). I saw some good wildlife on this run. I didn’t get a picture but there was a very white bunny with a few brown spots. It did not look like the normal wild jackrabbits that are along the river. I wondered if maybe someone had freed their bunny or it had actually escaped its home and was exploring. Later on I saw a legit jack rabbit along the trail. I also came upon this heron that was standing regally by the bike trail. As I approached, it would spook and fly away – but only about 20 feet ahead and then we repeated the process over and over since I was heading in that same direction.

The rain has stopped for a while now and so the river levels are definitely lower than they were previously.

There is still evidence of the previous rains/winds as there were quite a few trees that had toppled over. You can see that some of these trees actually obstructed the bike path along the river.

It’d been awhile since I ran on the bike trail. There’s one section that is covered by trees on both sides and it is very peaceful.

Overall my body felt good at the end of the week. I had some pretty serious soreness the morning after my long run. However I don’t know if that was also due to some heavy lifting I did the day before the long run. I still managed to do my medium length run (5.3 miles) the day after the long run. So overall I’m happy with how things are going. I have been using my foam roller more to try to stave off any injuries. So far so good…*knock on wood*.

-StewsCat

Marathon Training Week 2

My second week of training is complete. I continue to fine-tune my training plan. I had 3 miles on the schedule for after work on Tuesday. However, I was feeling some soreness with my right lower leg (below the knee) on Monday and somewhat into Tuesday. With my history of injuries, I don’t want to take any chances with hurting myself, especially this early into the training cycle. So I decided to skip Tuesday’s run again.

( ) = # of miles on my plan

Tuesday – 0 (3)

Thursday – 5.01 (5)

Friday – 10.03 (10)

Saturday – 6.05 (6)

Sunday – 3.26 (3)

Weekly Total – 24.35 miles (26)

Overall I feel good at the end of the week. Today’s run I did with my wife biking alongside me (she’s been doing this for some of my shorter runs and it is great having the company). Compared to the run last Sunday, this one felt easier and my legs felt better – even though I did more miles this week than last. Hopefully that is a sign my body is actually adapting to the miles.

I’m excited for this coming week as hopefully will be getting a fun delivery, we shall see and I’ll update as things unfold.

We had some crazy rains/winds here with more of the latter than the former. These last few nights I’ve actually been awoken due to the high winds outside. Somewhat scary as there have been multiple trees in the neighborhood that have either have large branches fall or even entire trees (as seen below). Here are some shots from this past week’s training: