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Archive for April, 2013

10 More Ways to Tell You’re a Serious Runner

Posted in Humor, Marathon, Running, tagged , , on April 29, 2013| 5 Comments »

1. Your feet have calluses and your calluses have blisters.

2. You wear compression socks under your jeans for Saturday night parties.

3. You run while on vacation.

4. You know what arnica is and how to use it.

5. You sign up for a race as a training run. [Spring Blast Half Marathon, here I come!]

6. It’s not “food,” it’s a “recovery” snack.

7. You have calculated and memorized the number of calories you burn per mile at your current weight.

8. You can name at least four different brands of commercial sports drinks, plus you have a recipe for making your own.

9. You wake up earlier for your long run on the weekend than you do for your normal day during the week.

10. You go to the gym and see the same woman there you’ve seen the last five times you went. You think, “Wow, that lady is always at the gym! I wonder if she has some kind of exercise disorder.” Then you realize she is probably wondering the same thing about you!

Missed the first 12? See You Know You’re a Serious Runner When.

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Seen on Recent Runs

Posted in Marathon, Running, tagged , , , , , on April 27, 2013| 4 Comments »

Week 12 of marathon training is in the bag and THERE IS ONE MONTH LEFT UNTIL THE RACE! Pardon my shouting while I have a minor freakout here. It’s getting real! I got the email from the Mountains 2 Beach race directors the other day with the race packet attached. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a race packet so early — I’m impressed!

Training is going well, if by “well” you mean: doing all the workouts without missing a single one, and putting all the miles in (but not always at the prescribed training pace). Today’s 15-miler was tough, probably due to the fact that I had spinach salad and scrambled eggs for dinner last night because that’s what I had on hand. Carb-loading FAIL.

I’ve reached a point in this training round where I’m not exactly running for the joy of it anymore. I’m hunkering down and putting the time in and hoping it all pays off. I’m cutting myself a break for feeling this way — you know you’re in the thick of serious training when your mid-week tempo run (not your Long Slow Distance run) is 10 miles plus warmup and cooldown.

Thankfully several sights have cheered my way on recent runs. I tried out a new bike path in Diamond Bar, California the other day, and got a giggle thinking about whoever designed the path:

Diamonds for the Diamond Bar bike path!

Diamonds for Diamond Bar!

The city of Diamond Bar was named for the “diamond over a bar” symbol on the branding iron used by a local rancher. I passed a dog grooming shop with this clever name:

D Bar Grooming sign

Around mile 8 of 15 today, the river rocks spoke to me from the dry Santa Ana River bed:

River Rocks say Run!

And this was one of the last sights I saw as I finished up my run, tired but grateful:

Boston Strong

Boston Strong

How is your training going? Have you seen anything interesting on a recent run?

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Winner Winner Mother Runner

Posted in Gear, Inspiration, Marathon, Running, tagged , , , , on April 22, 2013| 5 Comments »

Running emboldens me and humbles me at the same time. I can go from the high of finishing a great race to the low of gutting out a tough training run. Through it all I open myself up to feeling vulnerable, to meeting new challenges, to learning more about myself and the sport. And inevitably along the way I find little nuggets of encouragement, often when I need them most (Thank You Kind Sir, Twenty Mile Run to the Ocean, Twenty Miles on Coyote Creek Trail).

On Saturday I finished up week 11 of 16 weeks of training for the Mountains 2 Beach Marathon. Five more weeks to go. I’m vacillating between “Let’s do this already” and “I can’t believe it’s coming up so fast.” I’ve completed four of five 20-mile training runs. As the training ramps up and up and up, I find myself doubting my plan. Can I complete it without getting injured? Is it wise to follow an advanced marathon training plan for my second marathon? Saturday’s 20-mile run to the beach went well but left me feeling spent (as a good long run naturally should!) As I sat on the beach, warming up after soaking my tired legs in the cold Pacific Ocean:

Note that I am wearing a Saucony running visor. Then read the next sentence!

Note that I am wearing a Saucony running visor. This will be important.

I received word that I had won a Saucony running outfit from one of Another Mother Runner‘s “hump day giveaways”! I had just run 20 miles wearing my Saucony running visor, and I won a Saucony outfit!

Saucony spring running outfit compliments of Another Mother Runner!

Saucony trio compliments of Another Mother Runner!

Would you believe that I do not own any running capris? Or a running top that has a zippered storage pocket in the back? Or a windbreaker running jacket? How lucky am I?! It’s lovely to receive this much-needed running gear. Even more lovely is the encouragement it gives me. I choose to take this lucky win as a good omen, one that says, “You’re on the right path. Keep going! You can do it!”

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Twenty Miles on Aliso Creek Trail to the Beach

Posted in Bike trails, Marathon, Running, Trails, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 20, 2013| 8 Comments »

For my fourth 20-mile training run in this cycle, I sought to mimic the downhill grade of the Mountains 2 Beach Marathon course. I wanted to test out my knees and see how they’d handle an elevation loss of 1,000 feet (which is even greater than the M2B course). So, I plotted a route from Cook’s Corner (an old roadhouse in South Orange County) down the Aliso Creek Trail to Alicia Parkway, Crown Valley Parkway, and Pacific Coast Highway all the way to Salt Creek Beach in Dana Point, California.

I woke up at 6:30 a.m., enjoyed breakfast with my husband, and headed out the door after good luck kisses from each of my girls. In my haste to get out the door before it got too hot though, I forgot my second running pack, the one that had my three gels and my extra Fluid sports drink powder! I had 40 ounces of Fluid with me, but that wasn’t enough for 20 miles. I had to stop at a Stater Brothers grocery store near the trailhead and scrounge up some more fuel. I lucked out and found these sports drink mix packets by Gatorade:

Thank goodness for this find!

These powder packs fit perfectly in the elastic in my FuelBelt hydration belt!

I’m not a fan of red dye 40 but other than that I’d say it’s a decent product (no corn syrup!) and I liked the Fruit Punch flavor. It was only $2.99 at Stater Brothers for a tub of eight packs (enough to mix eight 20-oz. water bottles).

Right at the start of the trail these two looked at me like they thought I was crazy for running in the heat, and I pretty much agreed with them:

Cattle

I stopped at every nearly every drinking fountain along the run. I also kept an eye out for restrooms. The first porta potties were LOCKED so I was particularly happy to see this park at mile 6:

Aliso Creek Bike Trail in Lake Forest

I kept up the pace well until after the 13.1 mark and even stayed strong (if not as fast) all the way through several of the hills as I ran on the roads at Alicia Parkway and Crown Valley Parkway. It got tough as I had to stop at each stoplight though. Every single time it got harder and harder to get going again. Thank goodness at mile 17.5 my husband and girls met me with a gel and some more Fluid (and more kisses and hugs). It was awfully hard to complete those last 2.5 miles after that, but this sight cheered me on my way:

American flag

Finally I saw Salt Creek Beach in Dana Point:

Salt Creek Beach Dana Point

I finished 20 miles, not at as strong a pace as I started but a gosh darn good pace for the heat of 2 p.m., and I met up with my family on the beach. I did a quick “ice bath” in the ocean, warmed back up in the sun, and then helped one of my kids jump rope with the long strands of seaweed she found on the beach. Afterward we shopped at Gelson’s supermarket for popsicles for the way home and steaks for dinner. We bought grass-fed organic beef. As my husband drove me back to my car at the top of Aliso Creek Trail, we passed a sign for local grass-fed beef. I’m afraid those cattle in the first picture … could be future Gelson’s steaks.

Did you exercise this weekend? What did you do? Are you a vegetarian?

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Boston Marathon Reflections

Posted in Family life, Marathon, tagged , , , , on April 16, 2013| 2 Comments »

When 9/11 happened, I watched the news from my 15th floor apartment in Cambridge, looking out over the Charles River to Boston.

The 2002 view of Boston from my apartment side of the Charles River.

The 2002 view of Boston from my apartment side of the Charles River.

Two months pregnant with my first child, I remember feeling vulnerable at being in another large American city, and wondering what kind of world I was bringing a child into.

Fast forward seven more months to April 2002. As my husband and I drove our newborn baby girl home from the hospital through the streets of Boston, we had to follow a detour back to our apartment because some sort of race was going on that day. I wasn’t a runner back then; I didn’t appreciate that that marathon was THE Boston Marathon.

Me and my five-day-old "Boston bean" in April 2002

Me and my five-day-old “Boston bean” in April 2002

Fast forward 11 years to April 2013. From the safety of Southern California I watched the news yesterday of the bombings in Boston, my heart breaking for the people there and for the community of runners everywhere. I’ve come a long way since 2002, and now I am a runner. I ran a marathon in 4:02 and I work toward the ambitious goal of 3:45 to qualify for Boston. I know how hard all those Boston marathon runners trained to get there. It saddens me to see the loss of the life, the injuries, the distress of all those affected. And yes, it saddens me to think that those who finished the race, and were not injured, had their race experience tainted by tragedy. It saddens me to think that some 5,742 runners did not get to finish the race.

So today I will wear a race shirt in honor of Boston.

wear race shirt in honor of Boston

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Gym Etiquette

Posted in Marathon, Running, tagged , , , on April 15, 2013| 3 Comments »

Long story short, I had no desire to run 15 miles yesterday, but I did it and at an 8:55 pace (6.7 mph) on the treadmill (full disclosure — I broke it up into mile repeats with a 0.1-mile walk break in between each mile, plus a cool-down walk at the end, for a total of 15.65 miles). Unfortunately for the guy next to me, I felt a little grumpy as I warmed up during my first few miles. Why that guy chose a treadmill right next to me when there were five other treadmills available I don’t know, especially since he started chanting the minute he got on the treadmill. Out loud. Loud enough for me to hear with my headphones in as I watched endless inane episodes of an Extreme Couponing “marathon” (how apropos, marathon training to a marathon of shows).

I tolerated the guy’s rhythmic nonsense ohms and dow-dows for about five minutes. Then I gave him a pointed look, which he ignored. After another five minutes, I turned up the volume to my headphones. I could still hear him. After yet another five minutes, I snapped. It surprised even me when I turned to him, tapped on the arm of his treadmill, and said, “No more please” and put my finger to my lips. He was horrified. I was mortified. I know the poor man was just trying to get into a zone with his walking and breathing and meditation, and I yanked him right out of that zen state. But the dude seriously put a kink in my zen state. There might not be an explicit rule against chanting while you are walking on the treadmill, but it’s just plain good gym etiquette not to disturb those around you. You don’t talk on your cell phone, you don’t sing out “I’m just a girl in the world” along with Gwen Stefani on your iPod, and you don’t chant! However right I felt about that though, I’m so embarrassed by my reaction that I may never show my face at the gym again on a Sunday afternoon! At least the man had the grace to nod to me wordlessly and to stop chanting.

Have you ever encountered an instance of bad etiquette at the gym? Did you say something (either to the person or to the gym staff)?

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Winter Run in Mammoth

Posted in Bike trails, Running, Trails, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 12, 2013| 7 Comments »

I did a lot of ski runs this past week while in Mammoth for spring break, but my most favorite “run” was a 10-mile loop of running from the ski resort up around Lake Mary and back down to town. I started at Juniper Springs Resort next to Eagle Lodge:

Juniper Springs Lodge Path

The elevation at Juniper Springs is above 8,000 feet so I took it easy with a warmup walk up to Lake Mary Road to hook up with the Lakes Basin Path, a 5.3-mile bike and running path with over 1,000 feet in elevation gain/loss:

Lakes Basin Path

I took breaks to stop and read every interpretive nature sign along the way. I learned that this area stands at the western edge of the largest contiguous Jeffrey Pine forest in the world, and that the resin of the Jeffrey Pine smells like vanilla and butterscotch! I stood at the edge of a volcano and admired the view:

Jeffrey Pines at Mammoth

I’d planned my 10-mile route carefully using MapMyRun and Google Maps, but I hadn’t planned for this:

Lake Mary Road closure

In the winter the city plows Lake Mary Road up to the edge of Twin Lakes. The snow on the rest of the road is then groomed for cross-country skiing, snow-shoeing and walking. Undaunted, I jogged through the snow on the designated walking section of the path to the left of the groomed ski trails:

groomed cross country ski trails

I like to think I was only one of a handful of people who made it out to see frozen Lake Mary that day:

Lake Mary in winter

After the loop around Lake Mary on the aptly-named “Around Lake Mary Road,” I ran down the mountain on Old Mammoth Road, a snowmobile and hiking path to the historical site of old Mammoth City. At the base of Red Mountain, formerly known as Mineral Hill, sat an 1878-79 mining camp.

Mineral Hill in mammoth

A sign explained that for the 1,000 miners in the area there were no less than 22 saloons, with each “saloon” being not much more than a 10-foot square shack with a barrel of whiskey inside!

With all the historical and nature interpretive signs and the gorgeous views, I simply felt joyful for the entire run. Right up until the point that I realized I’d lost my driver’s license when it fell out of my running pack as I removed my cell phone to take a picture somewhere along those 10 miles! Doh! So, on the day we were scheduled to leave Mammoth, I drove back out to the trail and retraced my steps on the snow. Fifteen minutes later I spied my license, sunken in the melted snow at the foot of the historical sign in the mining camp!

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Twenty Miles on Coyote Creek Bike Trail

Posted in Bike trails, Marathon, Running, Trails, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2013| 2 Comments »

Here’s what I want to know: is it considered good luck or bad luck to have bird poop land on your arm during your 20-mile run? I tried really hard to convince myself I should take it as a sign of good luck and not a bad omen. Either way, I ran a steady 20 miles at a 10:32 pace. The training plan called for a 9:05 pace. Harrumph. Burnout? Too ambitious a plan? Injury slowing me down? A little of all three I think although I’m not inclined to dwell on it too much. Twenty miles is twenty miles and 10:32 is a respectable pace in my book. This run marked my third 20-miler in this marathon training cycle and the end of week 9 out of 16. Come to think of it, though, the first two twenty-milers were run at 9:34 pace and 9:20 pace (and my first full marathon was run at a 9:15 pace) so it does rather seem that things have taken a turn for the worse rather than better as my training continues. I will take it easy for my next two runs and see if that’s the break my body needs.

I ran the Coyote Creek Trail which starts at Foster Street in La Mirada, however I hooked up with the trail at Cerritos County Regional Park near the Skatepark (where the parking is free and there are plenty of people — and police cars for that matter). Coyote Creek is not nearly as busy as the Santa Ana River Trail and parts of it run through some sketchy industrial areas that do not feel quite as safe to me in the early morning. For bikers out there, note that the north fork of Coyote Creek Bike Path is nicely paved and fun to ride. By the time you cross the bridge over to the other side though, the pavement deteriorates and you need to be prepared for a flat tire just in case. Mike got a flat there once and I saw another rider walking his bike back to his car. If you can survive the trail conditions though it’s quite fun to ride Coyote Creek until it hooks up with the San Gabriel River Trail which goes all the way down to Seal Beach (and if you’re me and Mike, to Thai food at Thai on Main).

At any rate the trail seemed quite safe to me in the middle of a Saturday morning. That might be due to the recent cleanup effort along the trail. You might have heard about the legal battles of the city of Los Angeles against civil rights lawyers defending the rights of the homeless. There have been five lawsuits filed against the city of Los Angeles over the last 20 years regarding the seizure of personal property “abandoned” by the homeless on city streets and sidewalks (presumably “abandoned” while the homeless went to a local shelter for a shower or a meal). In the latest round of legal battles, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction against the seizure of personal property, ruling that “The Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments protect homeless persons from government seizure and summary destruction of their unabandoned, but momentarily unattended, personal property.” The city has filed a petition to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the injunction. (For more on the cases, see “LA Really Wants to Take Stuff from Homeless People” and “Lawsuit Fights Seizures of LA Homeless’ Property.”)

So I felt a little bit of mixed feelings when I came upon this sign along the Coyote Creek Trail (I’m not sure in what city, but definitely in Los Angeles County):

Homeless property seizure sign

On the one hand I appreciate the efforts to keep the trail clean and safe. On the other hand, I sympathize with the homeless whose needs are not being met and who choose to leave their belongings under bridges along the trail. Yes the sign says that they can recover their property at the LA County Department of Public Works building, but it begs the question, how will the homeless afford bus fare or arrange other transportation to South Gate? And once there, how will they transport their belongings? And for that matter, where will they go from there?

I don’t know. It was a lot to think about on a long run. And then toward the end of that run, as it always seems to happen for me when I’m struggling and pushing myself to the limit with just a few miles to go, a kind soul smiled at me and encouraged me on my way. Today’s kind soul? A homeless man seated on the concrete riverbank next to the trail. He wished me a cheery good morning and gave me the warmest smile.

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Running Naked

Posted in Books, Gardening, Running, tagged , , on April 4, 2013| 2 Comments »

Today I did something I haven’t done in a long time. I ran naked, without my GPS watch to keep pace or an audiobook to entertain me. (How much do I love Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell on Blackstone Audiobooks? THIS MUCH. So awesome. Twenty-five hours of awesome. I’m on hour 22.5. But I resisted clipping on my iPod Shuffle and I headed out earbud-free.) I listened to my body and to the birds chattering around me. I smelled the lilacs and the orange blossoms. I only took my phone out to take this photo of the bougainvillea that are a gorgeous riot of color right now in Southern California:

I defy anyone to spell "fuchsia bougainvillea" correctly without the help of this post or Google

I defy anyone to spell “fuchsia bougainvillea” correctly without the help of this post or Google.

I ran a 10K loop from my house and enjoyed every slow-but-steady minute of it. It’s hilly where I live and I consider the hill work (456 ft. gain over three major hills) good training. It’s nice to shake things up and substitute a little uphill and downhill running for the treadmill and the gentle elevation changes on my usual routes. It wasn’t speedy and it was a little clunky (see: left groin strain) but I covered the miles and made it home in time to have a PB&H sandwich on whole wheat and get in a shower before I had to make it to preschool pick-up. I’d call that darn successful.

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March Miles and April Goals

Posted in Biking, Marathon, Miles Log, Running, tagged , , , , on April 1, 2013| 7 Comments »

A new month begins and that means it’s time to check in with last month’s goals:

Resist racing the La Habra 10K. I resisted and I’m glad I did. I ended up having a cold and ran a lackluster, slow 13 miles for training that day. It’s better for me to focus on my training plan and not get distracted by racing. Racing is fun but it comes with some stress, even if it is good stress.

Heal my darn adductor magnus/groin strain once and for all. Yes! The right-butt-crease-groin-strain is gone after about four months of babying it with massage and hot baths and also strengthening the muscles with weight training. Now I’ve got some nagging hip flexor / inner groin issue going on with the left leg but the nice thing about that little nuisance is that it feels better the longer I run! I don’t feel it during a run and I feel better after a long run, not worse. It’s aggravated by speed workouts though, so I’ve got to be careful during those.

Do two 20-mile long runs, two 18-milers, and one 13-miler. No (April) foolin’ — I did complete all five of the long runs on the calendar for March. I couldn’t do them all at the prescribed pace, but gosh darn it I put in all those miles and didn’t bonk.

March Miles

Swim: 0 miles. I blame the limited open swim hours at the gym. Since I’m not currently training for a triathlon, I’m not willing to go at the crack of dawn or after 8 p.m. in the evening.

Bike: 97.94 miles in 5.57 hours in 7 workouts.

Run: 140.25 miles in 23.53 hours in 14 workouts. *Head slap.* Duh. This is why I’m feeling a little tired and creaky in my joints. That 140.25 miles is about 30 miles more than I’ve ever run in a single month. I’ve only ever run more than 100 miles in a month three times, counting this March. And how incredible that out of the 31 days in March, I spent nearly ONE WHOLE DAY, A WHOLE 24 HOURS running. My training plan is no joke. If I can get through the remaining eight weeks before the marathon, I’ll be in serious shape to run 26.2 miles on race day.

Strength training: 3.17 hours in 10 workouts. I enjoy doing sit-ups, push-ups, and weight machines that work the adductor, abductor and biceps muscles. I think the time I’ve spent on strength training over the past couple of months has made a huge difference in how I feel and it has definitely changed my body shape (even though my weight remains the same).

Random Photo for March

Since my husband’s iPhone is holding my Easter egg dyeing photos hostage, I’m going to share a new billboard campaign I absolutely love:

Metro is running a bicycle traffic safety campaign in anticipation of Bike to Work Week May 13-17, 2013. Under California state law, cyclists have the same rights and responsibilities on the road as car drivers, and that means that they may use any lane and might need use of the full lane to navigate the road conditions safely. Share the road everyone!

Goals for April

Book the hotel for race weekend. Why have I not done this before? Did I have some mental block? Did I not think I’d remain healthy and ready to race? Or do I just hate calling people on the telephone to try to negotiate a discount rate (I do not wish to stay in the host hotel)? The race is Memorial Day weekend. I’ve got to get on it. Put it another way. This is April. The race is NEXT MONTH. It’s getting real, people.

Focus on meal planning. I eat relatively well but could stand to focus more on nutrition. Turning the month’s focus to planning meals will help me improve my diet and make full use of the CSA boxes of farm produce I get each week.

Run two 20-milers and two 15-milers. I just need to keep putting the miles in even if I cannot hit the pace target. Perhaps my pace will improve as I recover from last month and completely get over the cold I had.

What are your goals for April? Do you have any races on the calendar? No races for me this month. My eye is on the big race on May 26th.

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