On today’s run, I went to check out a new neighborhood, McKinley Village, that is being constructed just outside of the midtown/downtown Sacramento area. Many in the East Sacramento neighborhood were very resistant to the introduction of a new houses because they were concerned of the increase in traffic and congestion. The location of the site is interesting because it sits between a freeway and some raised train tracks. They actually had to create a tunnel under the train tracks for a road in and out of the neighborhood (as below).
Entrance underneath the railroad tracks
That means there’s only one way in and out. Eventually I believe they are supposed to create another ingress/egress from another part of the neighborhood. I guess within the “Village” there is supposed to be like 5 different sections. So far they only have model homes built and sales offices open. You’ll see from the pictures below that the designs of the homes vary greatly. With the space being so open right now, it looks a bit strange having a contemporary condo next to a more traditional looking home.
Lake – yet to be built-up homesPicture right after entering McKinley VillageLooking south from the entrance of the VillageClose-up of some homes – look how closely they are to one anotherContemporary condos?Front of the condosCommunity clubhouse
Another unique feature of the neighorhood is that there is supposed to be an art walk within a park area. So far they have a few pieces up already next to what looks like a bocce ball court.
Rabbit Ears or leaves? (juxtaposition of a billboard by the freeway in the background)Leaf shaped bench
There is also a clubhouse and I guess a community pool. As you can see, there’s a ton of sitting water as it has continued to rain a good amount the last few days.
Beyond the wall is the Business 80 freeway. I will say that the sound barrier is not that bad but you can definitely hear the hum of the cars going by.
Freeway right behind the wall
One huge negative (at least in my own eyes) are that a lot of the houses actually sit in front and behind each other – like those apartment parking spaces where it is one long space and you can park two cars but need to move the outer one to get the inner one out. I can’t imagine having a house so close to another home and also having absolutely no yard whatsoever, but to each his/her own.
The house in the back is all squished in therePicture of the exit
So my first week of marathon training (Big Sur International Marathon at the end of April) is done. It did not start off well. We’ve been getting some pretty crazy rains and rainfall totals here in northern California lately. My first run was supposed to be last Tuesday. We had some historic rains last weekend that continued into the early part of this week. My original plan was to run after work on Tuesday. By the time I left work, the rain was still steadily coming down and I was just tired. So I skipped it. I definitely want to follow a plan more closely this time (considering I’ve never followed one before), but I am not going to be a slave to it. I am going to listen to my body as well. Overall I’m still happy with my week.
( ) = # of miles on my plan
Tuesday – 0 (3)
Thursday – 4.2 (4)
Friday – 8 (8)
Saturday – 4 (4)
Sunday – 4 (4)
Weekly Total – 20.2 miles
Injures/aches – mild right Achilles pain after the last run of the week. Some mild soreness of right knee also present.
My first run on Thursday I purposely ran over to the American River to see how it was looking. Various parts of Sacramento have been flooding with the recent rains. I know it is very unlikely for the American River to flood but I wanted to see how much it had risen with all the water we’ve been getting. Boy I was impressed. Here are some pictures of the river.
Normally there’s a lot more air underneath that bridgeThe water plant (structure) typically has many more feet of white building underneath it
There’s supposed to be a dirt pathway you can walk on at the bottom of the greenery
The first run of 2017 is in the books. I made it out for 4.3 miles and some short(ish) intervals mixed in. I happily accomplished by 2016 goal and thought I’d set some modest goals for this coming year.
Goal 1: Stay Healthy
This will probably always be my goal each year with regards to both fitness as well as life in general. I’ve now been running for 7 years consistently and the first 6 years have been plagued with various injuries.
Goal 2: Finish Marathon #4
I’m signed up for the Big Sur International Marathon. Everything you read about running a race often involves having multiple goals for the race. This way you have a fall-back goal if it isn’t your day. So typically people will set up a Goal A, Goal B, Goal C. My A Goal would be a PR (which isn’t that ambitious considering that’s anything less than 5 hours). It is a little ambitious because of the hilly nature of the race. For Big Sur, everyone says not to even try for a PR and just enjoy the beauty that surrounds you, which I do plan on doing (that’s why it is my A Goal). My B goal is to finish feeling good (each of my first 3 marathons ended with me walking – I suspect I know why too). Finally, my C goal is to finish before the 6 hour cutoff.
I suspect that the reason I’ve not had good luck with finishing any of my prior marathons in a satisfying way is because of my lack of training volume. I haven’t really ever followed a strict training plan for my marathons. I know that this probably has had a significant impact on me on race day. So I’m going to try to stick to an actual marathon training plan this time.
The one difficulty I will run into with this race is that I’ll be traveling the 3-4 weeks prior to the race. This potentially impacts my long run (20 miler?) and the timing of it. I will most likely need to make an adjustment and do the longest run prior to the trip and just maintain my fitness on my trip.
I’ve started to break in some new kicks as I start my marathon training program. I’m returning to the original brand that I used to run in almost exclusively: Saucony. I have enjoyed the Guide series and so have started putting in mileage on the Saucony Guide 8. So far just one run but I like them and the green in them.
I finished off 2016 with a nice 4.5 mile run. Honestly it felt like the best run I’ve done in the last week or so.
The end of 2016 is upon us. It’s been a good running year for me. I managed to go the entire year without any major injuries. I definitely chalk this up to my newer rotation of shoes – 3 different shoes of all different types – and no aggressive changes to my mileage. My goal going into the year was to hit 70 miles per month (an arbitrary goal but one that was more ambitious compared to anything I’d done previously). A few years ago I had attempted to do 50 miles per month but that was derailed with injury about 4-5 months into the year.
I’m happy to report that I hit my 70 miles/month goal and also have a new PR for total yearly mileage. The breakdown of my monthly totals is as follows:
January – 75.87
February – 71.24
March – 77.05
April – 74.36
May – 70.45
June – 72.08
July – 71.56
August – 71.74
September – 70.89
October – 71.43
November – 70.16
December – 75.8
Total yearly mileage – 872.6 (183 runs)
My previous highest yearly mileage came in 2013 with 718.7 miles. I chalk up the previous few years of much fewer miles (500-600) due to injuries. This past year I only ran 2 races. My goal was to have an injury-free year of running, which I accomplished. I’m pretty proud of the 70 miles/month goal. I’ll admit there were a few months where I had concerns about not making it.
This year I also added a GPS running watch to my aresenal. I bought the Garmin Forerunner 225 in January and have been using it consistently for most of my runs. I don’t obsessively look at it on every run as I know many running coaches suggest having at least a few runs with no GPS watches/phones/etc to just enjoy the run. I, luckily, am able to do those runs even with my watch on without looking to see how far I’ve gone or how fast I’m running. My phone GPS also hadn’t been terribly accurate so I was glad to have something a little more reliable.
Runner’s World magazine had an article talking about decluttering as it pertains to running gear (clothes, shoes, hats, accessories, etc). Growing up I was in an environment where we kept things. By things I mean “everything.” You never know when you’re going to need something. My wife is the complete opposite and tries to keep material things to a minimum. I have slowly been trying to be more minimalist as the years have gone by. After reading the article, in which the author professes to having way too much running gear, I thought I should probably join in this movement and start slowly culling running shirts. I have collected quite a few tech t shirts from various races. I profess to never having actually purchased a tech t-shirt since I have obtained them all through race registrations. My cubby that I keep my shirts in was over-stuffed and some of the shirts I have are 6 years old. So far I’m retiring the following two shirts (my wife looked into places where I can actually recycle these shirts rather than going into a landfill somewhere).
The meteor martian was my first and only 10K race to date. I still can’t believe I ran it as quickly as I did (52.75 minutes). The AFC 5K was my first race in SD, which culminated in the RnR SD Marathon in 2011. Both shirts served me well in many many runs in the last 6 years.
The Sacramento Running Association, who host the big California International Marathon (CIM), decided to put on a new event this year. They timed this race so that it was about 4 weeks from the CIM. They called it a “training race” because they had a 20-miler, in addition to a half marathon distance and a 5K. For many marathon plans, a 20 mile training run is recommended anywhere from 3-4 weeks from race day and some plans call for more than one 20-miler. The race also benefits the American River Parkway Foundation. Since I live near the parkway I utilize it on a weekly basis for one or even a few of my runs. I figured that it would be good to give back to this great resource. As I am not training for CIM, I signed up for the half marathon (they had an option to change between the half marathon and 20-mile distance for free at the packet pickup). When I signed up for the race I flirted with the idea of bumping up to the 20-miler but with my lack of proper long distance training I stuck with the half marathon.
Packet pickup was at the usual Fleet Feet in midtown Sacramento. I had some errands to do beforehand so couldn’t make it to packet pickup until the mid afternoon. The store was quiet and pickup was quick. I realized this was a very no frills race as I literally was given a bib and a shirt and that’s it. I’m used to at least a few other things to pickup like some other race flyers and such but this was barebones. Being the inaugural race, I wonder also if they just weren’t putting a ton into the race like some other races (the CIM has a huge race expo at the Sacramento convention center). The other slightly odd thing about this race is that it was being held on a Saturday. I’ve done a few Saturday races but not usually half marathon distances. I actually liked this because it would give me Sunday to recuperate before having to go back to work on Monday.
I had my usual pre-race pizza the night before. We got a large combo pizza from a local place called Roma II (we haven’t actually been to the original Roma but have had Roma II a few times). We also got a side order of some meatballs (not pictured).
Roma II pizza
Then it was an early night for bed (which the wife enjoyed especially because she was feeling a bit under the weather). I slept well and woke up early at 3:40 am. I need some time in the mornings to get my stuff together (breakfast, bano, bano, bano). Surprisingly this was the second straight race that I’ve slept fairly well. Prior to these last 2, I almost always have a restless night of sleep and then get up. I do wonder also if it has to do with the fact these last 2 were “home” races and I slept in my own bed. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that this was half marathon #18 and I’m just getting used to it finally. Either way I’m happy with being able to sleep before a race.
Since the start/finish of the race was at the familiar to me William Pond park and this is also where the start/finish was for the 2 half marathons I’ve done previously (American River Parkway Half Marathon), I was quite familiar with the parking situation. After parking in the neighborhood by the park, I trekked into the park in search of the porta-potties. They weren’t set up as well as I thought but since I arrived about 40 minutes before the start time, the lines were still short for the porta-potties. It is quite hard to use when it is super dark outside and inside the porta-potties. People were using their cell phone flashlights as well as the better equipped who had headlamps. The race officials understandably pushed the race start time from 7 am to 7:10 am so there was some more light on the trail. Just prior to the start, the race people played a recording of the National Anthem – with recorded cheering and everything. People were chuckling with the cheering that was from the recording. And then we were off.
Immediately after the start, we crossed a long foot bridge that took us over the American River. We’d also cross this bridge at the 13th mile just before finishing back at the starting line.
The first few miles were run in the pre-sunrise haze and fog. It was quite beautiful and peaceful. This section of the river trail is quite remote with the river on one side and fields on the other side. I’m used to running in the area of the river trail that is relatively close to civilization (roads, buildings, other people). I don’t know how comfortable I’d be running in that part of the river by myself. But it was pretty and peaceful.
Eventually we made our way off the river trail and did a very short stint in a small neighborhood. Essentially we went through one exit on the trail and made our way about 2 streets over and onto the entrance of another part of the trail. At this point, the trail was not paved and was more packed dirt and gravel, with a few areas of unevenness. Eventually we made our way east and back onto paved roads. And then at some point we hit a turnaround and came back the way we started. I continued with my 4 minute running, 1 minute walking at an average total pace of about 10 min/mile. Throughout miles 4-10 I continued to feel good. I took a GU gel around mile 6. I picked up another gel around mile 7 and then took my 2nd gel around the 10 mile mark.
Overall I continued to feel good for the race and coasted into the finish line. I didn’t do a crazy sprint like I often do with the last 0.1 miles. I actually stopped a few times in the 12-13 mile range to get some good pics.
At the finish line, I picked up a banana, half a donut and had a beer. I went with the Erdinger because the Shipyard beer was an IPA and I thought that was a bit alcohol heavy for post-race.
StewsCat 