Palos Verdes Half Marathon 2012

Pre-race
I signed up for this race on a whim. When I went to sleep on Friday, I didn't even know if I wanted to run it. But I packed up my stuff anyways. At the very least, I would be a volunteer. I wasn't too sure that I would want to run a race a day before my big 75th race, the Pasadena Marathon. Well, I guess I didn't get dressed up for nothing. I love races where you can register on race day. It was actually cheaper since I didn't have to pay the Active.com fees.

I arrived and parked at the city hall at around 5:30am. I got my stuff ready and took a shuttle over to the starting area at the Terranea Resort. I brought a check to register for the race. This race does not take credit cards. Only checks and cash are accepted. I filled out a scantron form and got my bib and timing chip.

Since it was about an hour before the start of the race, I walked down to the expo area. The exhibitors were  mostly in the process of setting up their booths. I found a nice place to sit down and wait. I suppose I could even get the fire going in the fireplace. :)

All of sudden as I was waiting, I realized that I did not have my handheld with me. So I backtracked to the registration table. Lucky for me, no one took my bottle. I bumped into my friend Jake. I would seem that only the veterans for this race knew that the start would take place in the street. The rest had all lined up in the finishing chute. The announcer finally realized this and made an announcement for the runners to move into the street.

There were a few girls in front of me with some cute phrases on the back of their tops. This course had a ton of rollers. Some of them are decent climbs. After the National Anthem was sung through a horrible sound system, the race was ready to start about 15 minutes late.

yeah, what hills? :)

The Race
Goal: 2:00 hopefully under

We started off running southeast for a short out and back. I don't think I took the first mile slow enough. Then I started to speed up on the next two miles. By the 4th mile, I was forced to slow down going up the hill that we would finish on. I tried to dial into a steady pace, but the rollers made that tough. One fellow runner encouraged me when he passed me as I was starting to struggle. I think he was a war veteran or knew someone that was a wounded veteran since I was wearing my Team RWB shirt. From miles 9 through 12, I could not get going. There was a lot of road camber which made my ankle really sore. I should've had enough cushion to make it under 2 hours, but I had to slow down to alleviate the soreness. Coming down the final hill to the finish line was nice. Although I missed my goal by about a minute, I was happy with the run.
1: 8:38
2-3: 16:01 (8:01)
4: 9:20
5: 9:02
6: 8:48
7: 9:44
8: 8:58
9: 10:04
10: 9:50
11: 9:54
12: 9:52
13: 9:49
13.1: 1:01
Finished: 2:01:03

Post-race
I've said it before and I'll say it again. I love races that only give out shirts to finishers. I do not like seeing the race shirt being worn during the race. I think all races should make their runners earn their shirts. But that's just this guy's opinion.

Team Red, White, and Blue!

Finisher medal and shirt

I waited a bit at the finish for my friend. He came in just minutes after me. After he grabbed his gear bag, we headed over to the expo area to grab some post-race drinks and food. We then went our separate ways. I went to go catch the shuttle. There was mass confusion again, but not as bad as last year. Nobody including the people in charge knew where was the official pickup spot. A lot of the runners were clearly frustrated. Apparently some of the bus drivers didn't want to turn into the Terranea Resort, so they started picking people up at the main street. If they want to keep and grow this race at the current location, they really need to address the parking issue. People coming into the resort were also clearly upset with the traffic.

I finally got back to my car at the city hall. I changed into some dry clothes and drove over to the Mitsuwa in Torrance to get some snacks and an early lunch. I ate the salmon onigiri (rice-ball) while I waited for the restaurants to open. I ordered the katsu plate from Katsuhana. Lots of carbs and protein to recover for tomorrow's big race.

shrimp crackers, Lychee drink, salmon onigiri

Katsuhana

Sycamore Canyon 50k 2012

This race was one of those races that I really wanted to complete because the past two times I've ran it, I've always stopped at 30k due to various reasons. I also had some volunteer credits with PCTR, so I decided to use that and run the 50k. My right ankle was still somewhat sore from the Safari Park half marathon last weekend, but my only goal was to finish. I was also trying out brand new shoes, The North Face Single-Track.

I got to the parking lot a little after 7am. The parking permit dispenser had not yet been opened. I waited around for the park folks to open the machine. Then I waited around some more for the bib pickup. As the start of the race got closer, I started to see more familiar faces. About 30 minutes before the start, I went back to my car to drop off the jacket and pickup my handheld.

A few of my super endurance athlete friends

I wore my DFL gaiters along with some Adidas arm sleeves as calf sleeves. I guess it's advantageous to have skinny legs. They actually felt better as calf sleeves. They were kind of short for arm sleeves. I only have 2 pairs of calf sleeves and both had not yet been washed.

Our shoes

The race started at 8:30am. There was really no race strategy other than start slow and try not to hurt the right ankle too much. I started at the back of the entire pack with my friends. They were going to take it easy running either the 18k or 30k. They were going a bit slower than I wanted, so I wished them a great race and jogged off. Even though I wanted to go slow, I still had to make sure I stayed ahead of all of the time cutoffs.

The Walking Diva!

Nice and steep up to the fire road

Going out on the pink loop was probably to only time that I felt very comfortable. But the long downhill single track to the La Jolla aid station really took a toll on my right ankle. I ate boiled potatoes with salt then started the yellow loop. The earlier section was pretty technical. I usually pass people here because I like rock-hopping. When I got to the big open fields, I got passed by everyone that I passed earlier. The camber really hurt my ankle. I had to stop and take pictures to help alleviate the soreness. I tried to jog here and there but always tried not to do too much to aggregate the right ankle.

I like the rock-hopping section

There's a Coyote on my tail!

Lady running her first trail race, 30k

There she goes!

This part of the course always reminds me of The Lord of the Rings

I caught up to some of the runners that passed me in the fields during the technical section. They were very cautious going down, but I just love rock hopping. I don't blame them for going slow, this section was pretty treacherous if you're not careful. We all have different strengths in our running. I tend to do much better in the technical sections.

Again I had boiled potatoes with salt and refilled my bottle with some Clif Shot electrolyte drink at the aid station before starting the pink loop back to the Sycamore aid station.

La Jolla aid station

Everything was going okay until I reached the fire road going down to the Sycamore aid station. The right ankle was just very sore and could not handle the slightest camber or unevenness in the road. It was pretty depressing to be walking the downhill sections. Again I forced myself to jog a little here and there to mix things up. Once I got back on the flat road leading up to the turnaround, everything was fine. The ankle was definitely fine with a flat surface. When I rolled into the aid station, I briefly considered calling it a day. But I didn't want to get so used to dropping out. Plus I had 4 hours to cover the final 18k. So I refilled my bottle, ate some food, and headed back out.

Even though we had overcast for most of the day, there were spots in the lower elevations where it was starting to get sunny and hot. On that steep climb up to the fire road, I just stopped to take in the views and also take a picture of some flowers.

On the way down to the La Jolla aid station, I got to see everybody that was ahead of me. When it was my turn to turn around and head for the finish, I saw that I was second to last. I was hoping that I didn't get caught by the Walking Diva! She is always a very steady and strong walker.

Fortunate for me, I caught my second wind going down the fire road. The more I ran, the better I felt. Since I'm used to only running 26.2 miles, it was very weird to have that feeling at about 28 miles into a run. I was even able to run pretty fast to the finish line. One guy at the finish line was wondering why it took me so long when I looked so good at the finish. I told him it was runner's high and my ankle will be really sore shortly. :)

1: 1:08:02 pink out
2: 1:45:16 orange loop
3: 1:33:34 pink in
4: 1:39:51 pink out
5: 1:35:18 pink in
Finish: 7:42:04 (watch), 7:42:13 (clock)

The amazing Walking Diva!

After finishing, I grabbed a Coke and went to my car to change. I came back to the finish line to get a photo of Yolanda finishing her race. Even though she came in last, she got 3rd place in her age group, and set a PR.

It's well known that PCTR has been having problems. I hope that they have turned the corner and is headed in the right direction. Unfortunately word of mouth spreads in the running community and the turnout for this event was very sparse which resulted in me getting 3rd place in my age group. There was only 3 people in my age group that ran the 50k. It was a good thing I didn't drop out at the 30k mark again. I finally got my 50k finisher's coaster! :) One guy was manning both aid stations at La Jolla and Sycamore for the last of the 50k'ers. Which meant that he was driving back and forth to take care of us.

Safari Park Half Marathon 2012

Pre-race stuff
I apologize right off the bat... there are no food pictures in this race report. :) Since I've almost fully recovered from my injury, I've been on my best behavior in getting my weight down. I hope to be in the 140's by next month.

I'm not sure what happened, but after my little run on Saturday, the right leg in particular my knee and ankle started feeling sore. I woke up pretty early Sunday morning and made the drive out to the Westfield Mall North County in Escondido. I love races that have race-day packet pickup. These days, I hate the hassle of going to a race expo. All I do is end up buying crap I don't need and signing up for another race... by accident of course. :)

I arrived and parked at the mall by about 4:30am and God bless the volunteers, they were already setup ready to go even though the instructions said that they wouldn't be ready until 5am. One of the volunteers did sass me when I asked her what's today's date. She said something like, "yesterday is Cinco de Mayo and that means today is..." It's early and do I look Mexican to you? :)

Race packet pickup at dark thirty

I got my stuff ready and took a nap in my car. The starting line was just steps from my car, so it was very convenient. Reminds me a lot of the Carlsbad Marathon. The car next to me had a nice license plate frame, which read, "Live well. Love much. Laugh often". Words to live by.

Live well. Love much. Laugh often.

About 30 minutes before the start, I headed over to the portapotties. Then I headed over to the starting area. There were no corrals but there were pace markers for you to self seed yourself. I hung out at the 8 min/mile marker. I spotted a fellow Marathon Maniac while waiting for the race to begin. I had thought that all of my friends would be at the OC Marathon. I'm sorry walkers, but please do not line yourself up in the 6 min/mile area.

Goal A: sub 2:00
Goal B: sub 2:05
Goal C: just finish if the soreness gets worse

Before the start of the race, I was very doubtful I could make an attempt at goals A or B. The main source of my doubt was the soreness in my right knee and ankle. I had looked at the elevation profile and had a pretty good plan to get goal A. Due to the parking disaster last year, they had drastically altered the course. On paper it looked like a better course. It was relatively flat with 2 monster hills.

The race
As we started the race, my right ankle felt a little weak and weird. But I tried not to panic and just jogged it a bit. It didn't feel any worse, so I picked up the pace a little bit to get out of the initial crowding. After going through about 4 miles following a girl running around my pace, I pulled over to take my S-cap. I've been getting used to taking them every 30 minutes. Once I started back up, I tried to dial it back a little since we had a monster hill coming up at mile 7. It was a dirt road zigzagging a bit all the way to the top. I had thought about jogging up it, but then I decided to just save it for the later miles. I took my second S-cap while walking up the hill. The downhill on the other side was quad-busting steep! I tried to keep my non-hilly miles between 8:30 and 9 minutes. I was pretty gassed by the final big hill at mile 12. But I knew that I had accounted for the extra minutes for the 2 big hills to come in comfortably under 2 hrs. I took my final S-cap while walking up this hill. I still had to run one final mile. It was a relief knowing that I could go really slow and still come in under 2 hrs.

1: 8:33
2: 8:01
3-4: 16:25 (8:13)
5: 8:39
6: 8:37
7: 11:18
8: 7:56
9: 8:37
10: 9:01
11: 8:43
12: 12:11
13: 8:05
13.1: 0:50
Finish: 1:56:56

Post race stuff
I knew when I ran a 2:04:06 at the Hollywood Half Marathon last month that I was ready to get back down to sub 2. It felt good to be back on this side of the 2 hour mark. It also felt good to execute a plan exactly the way I had envisioned it. I'm hoping to be at least sub 1:50 by Disney World.

I'm starting to like the Gemini Timing system over the disposable D-tags. You end up getting to keep the nice looking timing chip as a souvenir. I didn't feel like staying in the zoo this year, so I headed for the exit after grabbing a Powerade and getting my stuff in order. On the way out, I had to stop to take a picture of these white faced ducks. My favorite meat next to steaks is duck! Run! Run away! :)

mmmm ducks! :)

At the exit, I caught one of the shuttles back to the mall. I changed out of my shirt and relaxed a bit in my car before making the near 2 hr drive back home.

I liked this year's shirt better than last year's orange one. Kind of wish the shirt was cotton. I'm really tired of tech shirts. I thought the medal this year was also better. The tiger eyes were green little "gems"! Gotta have the eye of the tiger! Gotta have that edge! Rawr! :)

I'm pretty sure I'll be back next year for this race again. Sure it's far and at a somewhat remote location, but it's a good race supporting the endangered Sumatran tigers.

Shirt, bib, and medal

Eye of tiger!

La Jolla Half Marathon 2012

Saturday
By the time that I had gotten home from the Castaic area, it was already 10pm-ish. I got cleaned up and was contemplating just staying up. But I'm not a Spring chicken anymore, so after draining my blisters on each foot, I decided to get at least a couple of hours of sleep before I head down south for the La Jolla half marathon. I also decided to wear the Leona Divide shirt for the race. Ink-n-Burn makes the most comfortable race clothing!

Leona Divide race shirt

Sunday
Being the on-time or rather super early person that I am. I got to the Del Mar Fairgrounds before the race people even got there! In my drowsy exhausted state, I sort of panicked and thought maybe they had moved the starting line to a different location this year. There was also the Cirque du Soleil tent at the starting area to add to my confusion. I actually started driving down to La Jolla to park at the finish where I could catch the bus up to the start. But then I realized just how freaking early I was, so I turned the car around and parked at a nearby hotel to wait. Eventually the race folks started to show up. I guess I shouldn't show up at 4:30am for a 7:30am race. :)

I was among the first cars to park. I grabbed my VIP postcard and headed over to the starting area to pick up my race packet. I was walking very gingerly and awkwardly as both feet did not want me to be moving around. I was thinking, "how am I suppose to complete a half marathon in my condition?" But the more I moved around, the better things felt. At first I had to ignore the irritation from the blisters and just force myself to walk "normally".

I waited around the VIP packet pickup table with a few others. They weren't ready to hand them out until about 6:30am. As soon as I got mine, I headed back to my car.

VIP race packet pickup

Bring on the hurt!

After getting my stuff ready, I headed back again to the starting line area. I met up with my San Diegan friends briefly near the gear check truck. We parted ways when they went out for a warm up jog and I went to find a place to sit down.

Starting line

The Race
Goal A: finish around 2:30, don't do anything stupid

I let myself go on the first two miles just to check what the legs could do. The first mile felt ok, so I sped up a little on the second mile. But after that it was time to coast it in. I had thought about trying to run around a 2:10 but I didn't want to gamble with the still-recovering ankle. I stuck with the original plan of running around an easy 2:30 and started taking regular walk breaks at every mile marker. The downhill at mile 5 felt awkward. The quads were clearly trashed from Leona Divide. Once we hit the Torrey Pines hill, I only ran at most about 1/4 of it before I ended up hiking the rest of it. Even this monster of a hill felt easier to hike compared to Leona. After getting to the top, I stuck to keeping my miles between 11 and 12 minutes while continuing to take my walk breaks. I was promptly passed by 2 people that I knew. I took a GU at mile mile 7. The big downhill at mile 11 again made my legs felt like they were going to fall apart. I passed a lot of people running up the final hill headed up to mile 13. Right before the steep downhill cobblestone section near the cove, we ran through a row of people looking for and yanking out bandits. I wish more races would do this so that the race isn't so crowded.

1: 8:26
2: 7:55
3: 9:51
4: 10:38
5: 9:30
6: 13:42
7: 12:48
8: 11:54
9: 11:11
10: 11:48
11: 9:22
12: 11:33
13.1: 12:39
Finish: 2:21:17

Post race thoughts and food
I made a good fartlek run out of this race. I put in a lot of speed bursts here and there probably annoying the heck out of the runners around me. Running on roads was much easier than running on trails. The sure footing did not aggravate my right ankle. Getting out of the finish area has always been a pain in the butt each year. Friends of runners always crowd the exit so it takes forever to get out. I suppose I could run faster so that I could avoid the crowds. It's not as bad if you finish under 2 hours. I stopped by the t-shirt table to pick up my shirt. Then I headed over to the bus stop to catch a ride back to Del Mar.

Reverse Ultra Goofy!

I changed and took a quick nap in the car. Then I met up again with my San Diegan friends at the Brigantine Seafood restaurant for lunch. It was really close by the Del Mar Fairgrounds. I had a Karl Strauss IPA, a Crab & Lobster Cobb Salad, and finished it with a Guinness. This was a very good salad. In hindsight I should've gotten a drink with caffeine. I was dozing off on the drive back home. I had to roll down the window and slap myself a few times. 2 down, 1 more to go to complete the Triple Crown.

Karl Strauss IPA

Crab & Lobster Cobb Salad

Guinness

Leona Divide 50k

Friday
I had originally planned to take Friday off. But one of my bosses asked me to come in. So I ended up putting in a half day of work. The drive up to the Castaic area from Irvine sucked. But I made it. Along the way there was a huge accident on the southbound 5 freeway just a few miles south of Magic Mountain. Of course, everybody on the northbound side slowed down to rubberneck.

I checked into the Rodeway Inn just off of Lake Hughes Road. No frills, but a nice enough place to crash for one night.

Rodeway Inn

Old School TV

My friends who were also running LD wanted to meet up for dinner. They were staying out in Palmdale. We hadn't decided on a place yet and I was getting pretty hungry from skipping lunch. So I drove out to In-n-Out to pre-eat. But I got a text when I pulled into the In-n-Out parking lot, so I hopped back on the freeway to make the drive out to Sharky's Woodfired Mexican Grill in Palmdale.

I got some chips with guacamole and a grilled shrimp burrito. Why do I always forget not to eat a burrito before a race? It was good though. After taking about the race and future races, we parted ways. On the way back I stopped by a 7-11 to pick up some drinks. I picked up OJ for breakfast, beer to sleep, and water to hydrate myself. I then laid out my gear for the race.

Chips & Guacamole

Grilled Shrimp Burrito

Saturday
Going into the race, I've been 0 for 2 with the 50k distance. The first attempt was a painful DNF at Montaña de Oro where I was not adequately replaced my electrolytes. The second attempt was at Santa Monica Mountains where I rolled the same ankle too many times and dropped out at the 30k aid station. So the goal for this race was just to finish. I did not want to go 0 for 3 with 50k's and get in the habit of dropping out. There would be no bunny chasing for me at this race! :)

I drove up Lake Hughes Road to get to the community center. The roads were very familiar as I used to come up here for our college church retreat. I parked and picked up my race packet. It was pretty awesome to see some familiar faces. Trail runners are the best. Nice folks.

Nice shirt!

The golden rule for running is nothing new on race day. Well, I always seem to be breaking that rule. I wore new glasses. I also wore my trail shoes that I've only worn one other time. That'll all come into play later in the race. I got ready and lined myself up way in the back. The strategy was just to hike or slow jog the uphills, run the flats, and don't go crazy on the downhills. I stopped a few times to take photos. I really wished that I lived closer to some trails. Running trails put me in a happy mood.

Everything was going fine for the first couple of hours. Then on my way to the 16ish mile aid station, I tripped over something and slid head first. The water bottle on my right hand broke part of the fall. But the left hand and knees took the rest. I would also be so unlucky to trip with my bad ankle. Once the adrenaline wore off from the fall, I could feel the soreness. Why did I fall? So, I wore new glasses that I had just picked up on Friday before driving up. Apart from having my eyes having to adjust to the new prescription, I got those transition lenses that would darken and lighten on their own. It turns out that they don't transition fast enough. As I was running from bright sunlight into the shady areas, I could barely see anything. That was the section were I ate it. It was nice and flat, cool and shaded. I literally ate a part of the trail because I forgot to clean my water bottle before drinking from it. I took a nice drink of trail dirt. :)

I saw my friend Kristin here at the aid station. Her husband was running the 50 miler. I hope I was somewhat coherent when I was talking to her. It was starting to get hot and I was somewhat confused as to where to go. Good thing there were people pointing me in the right direction. I crossed the road and headed up towards the 50k turnaround at mile 20 something. Along the way, I passed a couple of people sitting in the shade on the side. It looked like the heat was getting to them as well. It was amazing to see the front runners of the 50k coming back down.

It was a long hike up to the turnaround with very little shade. Once I got there, I saw a lot of the carnage. A lot of the runners there were sitting down. Some of them were fighting nausea. Only at a trail race do you have people encouraging you to throw up, saying "you'll feel better if you do." :)

For some reason, I kept craving Mountain Dew. It was what was motivating me to get to the next aid station. Even when they didn't have any, I would still be thinking about ice cold Mountain Dew. I did drink some delicious flat warm Coke. It tasted pretty good when you've been running for several hours. Frank Shorter was a genius for drinking that back in his day.

I was emotionally deflated coming down the mountain because my right ankle was too sore to run on. It was especially sore when it was downhill and cambered at some of the more treacherous single track sections. I was afraid that I might fall off the side of the mountain. But as slow as I was, I kept moving forward. I kept listening for footsteps because the faster 50 milers were beginning to pass me. Sometimes I swear I would hear footsteps approaching, but when I turned my head around to check, no one was there. I guess being tired and baking in the sun leads to hallucinations. :)

Eventually I got myself down to the finish line. There was no way I was going to DNF especially with the generous time limit. I finished about an hour longer than I wanted or anticipated. But it was good to get that monkey off my back, to have finally finished a 50k. I was beginning to think that the marathon distance was my limit and that ultra running was just not for me.

Finish: 8:43:46

Post race thoughts
I came out of the race rather unscathed. I cleaned out my wounds, threw on my shorts with more pockets, grabbed my phone, and waited for my friends to finish their race. I'm going to have to pack my own post race food if I run this race again as the finish line food did not really agree with me. Nothing wrong with the food. They had vegetable and chicken fajitas, beans, and rice. It was just not something that I'd normally eat. Once all of the Maniacs had arrived at the finish area, we gathered near the finish line and took pictures.

Just a few scratches on my left hand

...and a few scratches on both knees

Ultra-Maniacs!

I said goodbye to my Maniac friends and stuck around to wait for my friend that was finishing her first 50 miler. That was pretty cool to see her finish especially when I was getting texts from her that she had been throwing up. I have some amazing friends!

My Maniac friends were supposed to text me directions to a restaurant. But I never got a text by the time I got down the mountain so I just headed to In-n-Out to get some protein to repair my legs and also carb up for the race tomorrow. Somehow I thought it was a good idea to follow a 50k (a distance I've never finished until this race) with a super hilly La Jolla half marathon the next day! As if the distance itself wasn't enough, I've been recovering from another bout of tibial stress fracture. Just let me tell you that a 50k is not a good distance for a welcome-back run. A much shorter road race with sure footing would be a much better choice. But I guess I'm always up for a big challenge. No one can accuse me of being too cautious. :)

The shoes that I wore also had not yet been broken in properly and they irritated the heck out of my heels. I had two big blisters, one on each foot. I lanced and drained them when I got home.

Rebuilding my legs