Angie Eats LA

Remember my blog buddy Angie? Formerly of Angie Eats Peace?

Well, Angie may have stopped blogging but she hasn't stopped running marathons. On Sunday she was among the masses who ran the LA Marathon, her eighth marathon.

In case you haven't heard, the LA Marathon this year was downright miserable. Rain, wind, cold temperatures... conditions straight outta the Pacific Northwest. Anyway, a little rain and wind wasn't going to slow Angie down.

On her shirt, you'll notice the words Arizona Marathon. Yeah, four weeks before LA, she ran a marathon in Arizona.

Anyway, early on things were going great. The weather was bad but not too bad in the first couple of miles.

Then, the rain came down. But Angie persevered.

She helped pace her friend Jose (in the green shirt) to his first marathon finish, and what a treat it was for him. I know a thing or two about having Angie as a pacer. We ran many long runs together and we each broke the two-hour half marathon mark together, in the 2010 Run Through Redlands.

We encountered hills and sun that day, but these obstacles in LA were far worse. They eventually took their toll on Angie, who despite having a positive outlook on running and marathons eventually felt the brunt of the storm.


Alas, she crossed the finish line in roughly 5 hours, 29 minutes. She called it one of her worst experiences but I tried to tell her that it was beyond motivating, given that she'd just run a marathon four weeks prior and the conditions were anything but ideal.

She wasn't having any of it.


I hope she's feeling much better about her medal and her accomplishments from that day, and hopefully she's cracked a smile or two since then. She is and will always be a star in my book, and I'm lucky to count her as a friend.

You rock, Angie!

Marathon No. 4

Okay, I've started this blog post twice already but it keeps getting to places I don't want to go. So I'm trying this again...

My next marathon will be:

EITHER

the Los Angeles Marathon on March 20

OR

the Diamond Valley Lake Marathon on April 9

I had thought about LA for the longest time, since that's what our running group is training for. I will have a lot of friends running the race that day and it would be great to run it with them. I think I can handle the race because I think I'm a stronger runner now than ever. Surf City didn't totally destroy me this time around and I think mentally that I can handle the rigors of 26.2 once more.

However, work could get in the way of LA. It could work out better for my work schedule to run a marathon on another day, and April 9 is the closest date of a marathon around this area. Diamond Valley Lake is near here and the marathon is smaller. The best part and the part that is most intriguing is the convenience. I get headaches trying to think about how to get myself to the start line in LA. Diamond Valley Lake (DLV) would be so easy to get to. The race starts at 8 so I would have plenty of time to get out there, so no hotel necessary.

Money also could play a role. I need new shoes desperately. I felt every damn rock and pebble on the beach path Sunday. DLV is 80 dollars cheaper than LA. That's pretty significant. Considering I already spent more than 100 on Surf City (the entry fee alone, not counting hotel) and will drop another 130 or so on San Francisco, I'm not sure about triple figures for LA.

I'm debating all these things right now. I very much want to run LA but it will be here next year and I'm not sure I'm going to want to do Surf City next year. DLV is intriguing, the course isn't bad and I might have some family other than Mrs. LB out there cheering me on (you feelin' me, Danny?).

I haven't given myself a deadline yet but I want to decide soon. Maybe by this weekend the decision will be finalized. But when it is, you'll be the first to know.

Thursday Tidbits

I was going to save some of this stuff for Friday's post but I worry that it would be very, very long with the regular things I do as well as another couple of tidbits so I figured I'd post a pre-Leftovers leftover post.

LA Marathon

I haven't yet completed Marathon No. 2 and I'm already looking towards Marathon No. 3.

The Los Angeles Marathon will be held on March 20, 2011. Registration opens today, but I haven't registered. The thing I'm most excited about having found out this early is the hotel registration. I think it would be nice one day to stay at the host hotel of a marathon I'm racing in. Just for the experience, you know? It would also be nice to walk out of the hotel, go to the start line, cross the finish line and walk right back to my room. I had to walk like a mile or so to get to my hotel at Surf City and my San Fran place isn't too close either.

So I might just go ahead and jump on that when the hotel info is released. Of course, some of the runners who did LA this year might beat me to the punch but that's a risk I'll have to take.

There is one slight drawback to the LA Marathon. It costs $145. Unreal.

Awesomeness

I was recently given an award by fellow blogging runner Navy Wife. She had some very nice things to say about yours truly and I'm always honored to know when anyone reads this blog and gets something from it. I hope to inform, entertain, inspire, motivate or just plain have fun with all my readers, so it's nice to get some bloggy love :)

Go check out her blog. She's a new runner, just ran her first race recently. She's one of many Seattle-area running bloggers.

Publishing Issues?

Has any other blogger had any issues setting posts to publish automatically?

If you are around very late at night, you might see a Thursday post go up Wednesday night. It says Thursday and everything but sometimes it's not quite Thursday, or whatever day it says it is. Well, I was setting posts to publish automatically but they weren't publishing at all. It was very frustrating. I'd write something up, set it to hit the blog after midnight and then nothing. I'd wake up in the morning and instead of saying "scheduled" it just said "draft."

GRRRR

If I'm up and around, it's not that big of a deal I suppose to publish something at, say 11:30 p.m. and change it so it will show Thursday. I just dont like for someone to come on my blog at like 11 a.m. on Wednesday and the first post they see says Tuesday. That's probably the writer in me who wants to keep the site updated.

But if I'm not around - like next week I'm going to be gone for a couple of days - then it's not going to happen. If the blog won't update automatically, then this blog won't get updated. And that sucks!

Just wondering if there are any issues with that, if anyone else has experienced that.

Lopers And Marathoning

I'm not even at Marathon No. 2 yet and I'm already looking ahead to Nos. 3 and 4, and maybe 5.

Marathon No. 2 is the San Francisco Marathon, of course, which will go down on July 25.

I have not decided on Marathon No. 3 yet but I had considered the Las Vegas Marathon, on Dec. 5. I just kind of figured that once San Francsico came and went that I would want to run another marathon, and that one was good since it was at the end of the year and would give me plenty of time to prepare for, and since it's a popular marathon for Lopers I might have several others to run my long runs with.

Now, I've got more to consider.

The Lopers season will start on Aug. 1 and the Lopers will train for both the 2011 Surf City Marathon (and Half Marathon) and the 2011 Los Angeles Marathon. Surf City next year will be on Feb. 6 and I'm not sure if LA has set their date yet. This year, the two marathons were six weeks apart Feb. 7-March 21.

I'm wondering now about what I should do.

- Run Las Vegas, Surf City Half and LA Marathon

- Skip Las Vegas, run Surf City full and LA Marathon

- Run Las Vegas, Surf City full and LA Marathon

I've got this to chew on now.

What's most appealing about running both Surf City and LA is that it will be part of the training plan, so most Lopers will train for both. That means I experience everything with everyone. While I'd still probably have to run on my own (I have two half-marathons tentatively scheduled for the fall, plus Ragnar) I wouldn't have to run any 18- or 20-milers alone. Those would be on the Loper schedule, and I had some awesome 20- and 22-milers running with my Lopers.

Still, I don't want to pass by the chance to run Vegas. That just seems like a great way to cap the year, to run my third marathon and possibly my 12th race of the year in the process. And there are two full months between Las Vegas and Surf City, plenty of time to recover and prepare for another marathon.

I'm not going to make or force myself to make a decision soon. I want to mull this over and chew it up, but I also wanted to start that process now.

Motivational Mondays (March 22)

Sunday was a big day for the Lopers.

It wasn't exactly memorable out at Loma Linda. I ran 12 miles with a couple who take turns pushing their one-year-old along on a stroller. It seems tough, at least the uphill parts, but I'll never know because there won't be any more babies here to plan my schedule around (this is a good thing, trust me).

Anyway, few Lopers showed up at Loma Linda on Sunday. But that's because many of them were out in Los Angeles for the LA Marathon.

As I'd written earlier, I wasn't exactly feeling regret about the race, but I will be excited to run the LA Marathon in 2011. I believe that's the marathon the Lopers will train for in the 2010-11 season, and I'm not complaining. With any luck, that will be my third or fourth marathon!

Although I had many friends out there, the two people I was keeping tabs on the most were my blog buddy Angie and my uncle Jorge. I did receive text messages along the course of their progress and was able to figure some things out on their respective FB accounts but I haven't talked to them about their experience.

In short...

Angie set a new PR! She'd wanted to finish in under 4:30 but did not meet that goal. However, she finished in 4:33:57, which is faster than her Long Beach time.

I was worried at first because the first update I got from her was late, and at the 10K mark her projected time was more than five hours. I knew what her goal was and how she'd been training so I wondered if something had happened.

Still not sure what happened at the start but I do know she rocked the finish. The LA Marathon web site breaks down some info, and according to their system she passed 1,412 runners over the last 4.5 miles. So she certainly finished strong.

Jorge, meanwhile, finished in 3:53:03! His time in Surf City was faster but to run your first two marathons in a span of six weeks and to finish both in under four hours is amazing. Jorge battled a cold too and ran the marathon in less than his prime condition.

Jorge's early time was great, an 8:12 pace through 20K but I'm not sure if it was the head cold or just the intensity of the marathon as his pace slowed in the last half. Still, that's nitpicking. There's no denying him his moment of glory and his second marathon.

I had many other friends race in LA and more blog buddies race across the country, and it is very motivational to see all these races come to fruition on the same weekend.

Particularly, however, seeing Angie set her fourth PR in her fourth consecutive marathon, and to see Jorge face another 26.2 in the face and live to tell about it is a great driving force for anybody's ambitions.

Regret?

On Sunday, several people I know and am close to are running the LA Marathon. There are 11 people from the Lopers' 11-minute-per-mile pace group running, plus several other Lopers who are in other pace groups, plus my uncle Jorge and a few other non-Loper running friends.

Needless to say, I could have been surrounded by friends all the way from Dodger Stadium to the Santa Monica Pier.

But I'm not going. I will be running 10 miles, maybe more, in the sleepy streets of Loma Linda.

So now that the day is so close, do I regret not signing up?

No. I don't.

I'm happy with what I did at Surf City, and am happy with what I've done since then. Not just last week's 5K PR, but with my runs and the quality of my runs, and how I've been feeling. Lately, I've just been feeling really strong, feeling like I can run all day. I like that feeling.

Maybe it's just being relaxed. I don't really have a big race to train for. I plan on signing up for the Run Through Redlands half marathon, and hope to do so soon. I do have that free 5K next weekend, and of course the Mud Run. But none of those races require the kind of commitment a marathon does. Now, that's not to say I'm slacking at all or not taking my training as serious. I feel I am as focused now on my running as ever, so not having a marathon hasn't affected that.

But I still think that LA would have been too soon for me. I still have pleasant memories of Surf City and had I signed up for LA, I would have pushed those out of my mind and would have had to have re-focused on another marathon.

What's best for me is to continue along the way I've been, with strong training runs and my weekly Sunday long run, and pick the right marathon, not the next marathon.

I'm still thinking about the Las Vegas RnR Marathon in December, but lately I've been more and more intrigued by the San Francisco Marathon. July would be a good time for me, in terms of having enough time to get properly pumped and prepared for it, and would allow me the chance to recover in time for my fall racing schedule. I don't have any races planned for August or September, but I plan on Ragnar and the Mission Inn Half Marathon in October and November.

Anyway, while those races are still far off, I don't feel like I'm missing out on LA. After all, next year my first marathon will probably be the LA Marathon, so I only have to wait one year to enjoy that one.

Muddy Runner Q & A: Surf City Only The Beginning

Among the many great things I was able to experience during the Surf City Marathon was having the opportunity to run my first marathon with another first-time marathoner, my uncle Jorge.

Jorge has been influential in my life in many ways, ever since I was in my teens and he would always one-up me and my brothers in basketball or tennis, our sports of choice back then. Much like Danny is in our family, Jorge has always been the athletic one among his own siblings. Jorge has four brothers and five sisters - one of whom is my mom.

While Jorge has always been athletic and an adventure-seeker - he has traveled to numerous locales across the globe - I've only recently become one. He had run the Camp Pendleton Mud Run before I did, and we've ran the last two together as part of our larger Mud Run contingent. So for me, to have run a marathon at the same time as the most athletic person in my extended family is an honor. For me, a highlight of the marathon itself was having the chance to greet Jorge during the marathon - we gave each other a high-five when we crossed paths near the beach.

Jorge finished Surf City at 3:46:34, with a pace of 8:39 per mile, impressive statistics for any marathoner, particularly a first-timer.

Anyway, Jorge was gracious enough to take a few moments to answer a few of questions for the first (and hopefully not the last) Muddy Runner Q & A.

This is a bit of a timely post as well - Jorge's second marathon will be Sunday, when he joins the masses for the Los Angeles Marathon.

***

Question: What made you want to run a marathon?

Answer: It was one of those things on the back of my mind for the last 15 years or so that I wanted to accomplish. The urge became stronger when I met others who had run one or were training for a marathon. For the longest time I'd start training and gave up, so I started doubting myself wondering if I could ever run a full marathon.

Q: What are some of the things you remember the most about Surf City?

A: Being nervous driving on PCH on our way to the marathon. I could not believe the day had come. Then when I got there talking to you I relaxed a little and just tried to enjoy the moment. I stretched to calm my nerves. I had run a half marathon before but this time it was different. I kept telling myself I was prepared. Then a few minutes before the start I realized everything felt right. I felt peaceful, my body felt rested and my mind was cleared of thought. I was just focused on the race…I was in the zone.

Q: What was the most difficult thing about Surf City?

A: I would have to say Miles 19-22. My legs were feeling the stress and I started doubting that I could finish but like they say, mind over matter. I was able to overcome that stress and kept telling myself 'Just a few more miles. Don’t give up now.' And being the competitive nature that I am (as a Valenzuela I think you have a little bit of it too), I was able to push myself and finish.

Q: What went through your mind when you crossed the finish line?

A: It was so surreal. I put my head up and said to myself 'You did it!' Overall, I was just happy with myself, thinking how proud my dad would have been if he was still with us, since he loved to watch all sorts of sporting events on TV.

Q: How did your body feel in the hours and days after the marathon?

A: I could barely walk but made sure to alleviate the stress and soreness and avoid cramping up. My body felt warm as if I had a fever for the next 4 – 5 hours after. The next couple of days I felt soreness in my legs mostly but not as bad as I thought was going to be. I think all the stretching I did before and after the race helped.

Q: After you got home from Surf City, you immediately signed up for the LA Marathon. What was it about the marathon experience that prompted such a response from you?

A: I wanted to experience what I had just gone through again as soon as possible. And just running the LA marathon, I knew it would be a totally different experience altogether.

Q: What are your goals for the LA Marathon?

A: My training between marathons didn’t go as planned, with my skiing vacation and all. I’ve only trained the last two weeks consistently with a few runs here and there prior to that. I’m hoping for a time of 3:50 or better.

Q: Are you looking at any other marathons in 2010? If so, what do you hope to achieve in any subsequent marathons?

A: I’m hoping to do at least two other marathons - San Francisco and Long Beach - this year. Then I would have four under my belt - not bad for the first year, right? My goals are to better my time every time I run a new marathon and ultimately to inspire other family members to take up running.

***

I would like to thank Jorge for taking the time to answer my questions and to have shared his experience here on my blog. I hope you all join me in supporting Jorge this Sunday at the LA Marathon.