Eat. Train. Sleep. Repeat.

Training continues for CIM and yesterday our running group did our second to last long run. We went out to the countryside in Salida and ran 21 miles of nothing but hills. A total killer of a run. The hills really did me in but I know I will be stronger because of it. I ended forgetting my Garmin at home and was pretty bummed about that. Terry however, did remember to bring his and so I ran with him the entire way. Great conversation and companionship and he kept me within my pace. Thanks Terry! I'll be sure and check out Journeyman this week.

This course that Karen chose for us was great. We got our high mileage in and worked in hill training and we still have 4 weeks to recoup from it. Next week we're doing 23 miles (our last long run) and Karen has chosen a flat course very close to where we ran this past Sunday. The following week we're doing 10 miles and then 8 and the following week is CIM.

I've been averaging 30 - 40 miles per week so I am confident I can handle this race. I am not running anymore races this month and will keep my training steady until December 2.

Stayed tuned fellow runners ..... this RunnerChik may see Boston yet ....

And She Sets a PR....

It's official ladies and gentlemen.... I set a PR in the Lake Notama Four Bridges Half Marathon! I am just completely psyched! Coming through that finish line and looking at the clock and realizing that I had accomplished my goal of coming in under 2:10 was an amazing feat for me. And what a wonderful day! As runners, we could not have asked for a better day to run.

I got up at 6 am, showered, dressed (I had laid everything out the night before) and was in my car by 7 am heading for the start line. I parked about 1/4 mile away from the start line and walked up the hill to where all the other runners were congregating. I love that feeling of being out there early in the morning when all the runners are stretching,warming up, talking and get psyched up to run. It's an incredible feeling ... as the adrenaline slowly starts building and one breathes in the cool morning air. I had dressed in capris, a tank top and warm coolmax shirt but I soon realized that the cool max shirt was going to be much too warm. I realized I might not make it back to the start line in time if I decided to run to my car and drop it off so I decided to just tie it around my waist. It was a bit bulky and I also had my water pack around my waist so I was not that happy about having to lug that around for the next thirteen miles. But that's the way it is on race day. There are just some things one can't account for and so you just have to make the best of it. I decided that all I could do was suck it up and deal with it.

I was in wave 2 (thank God I got the right wave this time) and so we started 5 minutes after wave 1. As we took off, I realized that we were going to run right past where I had parked my car (I had parked on the street) and so I began untying my shirt as we ran down the hill towards where my car. I also got my key out and had both in hand as I approached my car. I unlocked it, threw the shirt inside, and locked it as I ran away from it. It took less than 3o seconds. Now I felt great...... light and ready to tackle this thing.

I wish I could adequately describe how I felt that morning. I felt light, limber and free. I felt good enough to do a full marathon that day. I had had a baked potato with a small salad the night before and I had been hydrating properly. When I got up that morning, I had had a full bottle of water and had used the infamous porta-potty right before the race. I also felt more rested than I had felt in weeks. My spirits were very high. Life was good and I was happy. Stress free.

With my Garmin strapped to my wrist I kept watch to make sure I was not going out too fast. The race starts out downhill and so it was quite easy to pick up the pace and run too fast. It was easy to do 7:30 and 8:00 min/miles. I held back but several times I noticed I was running sub 8's. The first two miles are down hill and I knew that if I held steady, didn't get too excited and allowed my body to warm up, I had a good chance of setting a personal record. We crossed the first bridge at just before mile 4 and so I knew it was one bridge down and three to go .... oh and 9 more miles ....

Bridges 2 and 3 are between miles 4 and 8 and the course is flat with some rolling hills in between. It is a beautiful course, mostly paved with amazing scenery. Since it is a bike path it is a little narrow in places but for the most part plenty wide enough for all of us. Miles 8 - 12 were uneventful. Almost completely flat and several downhill portions, just like the previous miles. I was getting a little tired by mile 10 but because of the flat course and the downhill portions I found myself at several points running sub 8's again. I knew better and slowed down but invariably I found myself running faster and better then I had in weeks. As I ran mile 11 I knew from studying the course map that the infamous killer hill was just about to start. I tried to prepare myself mentally for the challenge ahead. I knew what I was in for from hearing about it from other runners and from studying the map.

We crossed bridge # 4 just after mile 12 and we began to climb (see my picture with the older gentleman as we climbed it almost simultaneously) at a steady pace. Not only does this hill climb at a serious incline but in winds around and the turns were a bit difficult to navigate. I glanced at my Garmin and saw that I had slowed down to an 11 min/mile. Mentally I was telling myself I could do this. I already knew I wouldn't make it under 2 hours (yeah, at several points I actually thought I might make it) but felt confident I could make it in 2:05. I could now see the tall blue flags indicating I was close to the finish line. I gave it everything I had, but I could feel my calves were begging me to quit (I vowed I would do more hill training after this race). I kept pushing harder, and my breathing got more labored but I kept going, ignoring how I felt. I could now see the mat so I pushed harder and raised my arms, hands and fingers into my now traditional "peace sign." I crossed the finish line in 2:05:48. Yeah baby!!!! A personal record it is!!!!

I will definitely be at the start line next year for the Four Bridges race and I definitely plan to come in under 2 hours. This is one of those races that is meant to be repeated and who knows? I just might place myself in wave 1 next time.

Stay tuned fellow runners ...

Run with your heart ...

It's been awhile and I have not had time to blog. I've tried several times but other things took precedence. Work has been positively insane and there does not seem to be an end in sight. October is usually my busiest month due to CELDT so while that is not too unusual, other work has kept me from getting CELDT done in the time span I had planned and it has put me behind. I may have to ask for a short extension. I have also had late meetings that have kept me after school hours and that has interfered with my running schedule to some extent.

I broke up a fight this week between a Hispanic kid and a black kid. When I came upon them in the quad the black kid was throwing punches at the Hispanic's face. My assistant and I yelled a them to stop. There were Hispanics and blacks standing around instigating the whole thing so I yelled at them them to back off. School policy is that if anyone stands around either watching or instigating a fight they will be suspended too. When we started yelling at them to stop a couple of the Hispanic kids grabbed their friend who was fighting and pulled him away; the black kid on the other hand took off and when I told him to stop he ran off while giving me the finger. Had I not had heels on that day and my expensive bag with all my papers in it I would have run after him and tackled him. I could have outrun him any day. Later the AP asked me why I didn't at least take off my heels and throw them at him. I love San Martin! One of the best APs we have. Takes crap from no kid. I guess that would have worked too. Next time perhaps... I took the Hispanic kid to the office and they said they would track down the black kid..... Life in the day of a high school teacher. ......... Actually that doesn't happen very often. Our school gets a bad rap but it's really not that bad.

I seem to be keeping up my mileage pretty well and I am averaging 25 - 30 miles a week. My long runs are are increasing and still strong. I did 15 miles Sunday before last and 17 miles this last Sunday. Our running group has become tighter now and our training has intensified. We ran hills this last weekend (17 miles of them) and it felt awesome. While I was tired after the 17 miles, I was invigorated and by the next day I was completely back to normal. No pain at all anywhere.

This Sunday I'm doing the half in Folsom. I'm packed and ready to go. My Garmin is already in my bag and so is my Ipod. My Garmin has been amazing! I swear by it and have been able to improve my pace and consistency. I can't imagine running without it now. I have not hooked up the heart rate monitor yet due to lack of time but I will definitely train with it before CIM.

I feel great. The pain in my right foot is still there but not too bothersome and my spirits are high. I am much more focused now than I have been in months and that has made a real difference. I am also getting more sleep which has worked wonders for my training. Carmichael wasn't kidding. Listen to the experts.......

Can't wait for this race. It's a half with a relatively flat course and the only hill is at the end of the race (that's always a killer). I vow to not go out too fast and to pace myself the entire way. This will be my first race with the Garmin and I am excited about my potential results. My best half time so far has been 2:10 (Santa Cruz, 4/2007) soI want to come as close to 2:00 as I can. I would love to break 2:00 but I don't see that happening right now. Thanks for all the support everyone!

Thanks Jim for the encouragement .... it will be great to see you...

Cesar, thanks for the best wishes. Can't wait for Sunday night.... Good luck on your game ....

Betty, I will miss you. Don't forget it's you and me on December 2nd. Remember there's a burger with our name on it.

LB - Thanks for tonight - you have always been true to me. That is so rare these days ....

So.... after stopping at REI to get some PowerGels my next stop is Folsom.

Stay tuned fellow runners ....

What's up with all the divorced runners?

Ever notice how many divorced people are in these running groups? A couple more joined our group this week .... Hey, at least there not out there drinking themselves to death .... I know I'd rather be runnin'.

It's been awhile. I know. As always, I have been extremely busy. Busy. Productive. Happy. I like all three but perhaps the latter is the best. I've been running quite a bit just not long miles. I have mapped out two 5K courses near my house and I run those in the afternoon before going to my second job. I don't have time for much else. This way, I am getting my run in and doing a bit of pacing/interval training as well. I do my long runs on the weekends with the running group and while not receiving the best training ever, I have made quite a few friends and for that I am always grateful. I have learned a lot from them and not necessarily running stuff. It's funny how people come into ones life at the oddest of times....

I went and ran the Cowtown 5K last weekend and am very proud of the fact that I ran it in 26:40:01. That's an 8:36 pace and I am thrilled with my progress. I have been having trouble breaking the 10 min/mile and I may be able to run CIM at a 9:40 pace.

This weekend I ran 7 miles on Saturday just for fun and then went and ran 15.5 today. I feel awesome! The closer it gets to CIM, the more excited I get. The gang is all going to be there and I haven't seen them in awhile so it will be great catching up. I'm being careful not to get injured and am watching what I put in my mouth. With the amount of running that I do I find that I don't have to worry about what I eat as much as when I don't run, but I do find that what I eat definitely affects how I run so I'm watchin'. I'm also getting more sleep which has been a huge benefit.

I'm feeling energized. I ran 22 miles this weekend and both my feet and my legs feel great. A friend and I are going to take our bikes out this week and do some crosstraining. Next weekend we're doing hill training and life is looking pretty good right now. I am also now the proud owner of a Garmin 305 and as soon as I charge it I will be putting it to good use.

Tahoe already had some snow fall and unless it warms up and melts all away we may have a pretty good snowboarding season too. Can't wait to get back on my snowboard ...

Stay tuned ....

Where are my socks?

And so I run .... I have good days and I have bad days .... days where I feel on top of the world and days where I wonder where I will get the energy to get my running shoes on and hit the street. Weekend warriors they calls us. I guess that's appropriate. Running is definitely a whole body experience and I realize that every time I hit the street. I have seen what running has done for my body, soul and mind and I have vowed to myself to never stop running unless I am forced to due to an injury (knock on wood). Nonetheless, some days are definitely easier than others. I find myself paying attention to everything I have done that week or that day. Did I eat enough? Did eat too much? Did I eat the right foods? Did I hydrate enough? Did I get enough sleep? How is my stress level? All of this plays a part in how well I can train and ultimately run on race day.

Despite the fact that I am training for my fifth marathon, I have only been running since May 2006 and I ran my first Marathon in October 2006. I am still a "newbie" at this running thing and I often wonder if I am pushing myself too hard. Back in May 2006 I started training as a Run/Walker for SF Nike Women's Marathon and graduated to the runner's group by August. By race day I was able to run the entire marathon with walk breaks every water station. My overall pace for that Marathon was 13:20 and taking into account that it was my first marathon and that Nike is probably not a good choice for a first marathon, (the endless San Francisco hills), I was happy with my time and my pace. Not even a year later and I have run three other marathons with a best time of 4:33 which puts my pace at about a 10:28. In less than a year I have cut off almost three minutes off my time. I figure that if I continue training the way I am now, and continue to listen to the experts, I will eventually reach my goal pace of 8:40 and qualify for Boston. I want to qualify for Boston by my fortieth birthday (a year and a half away) and while I think it's possible I may be asking too much of my body at this point. I have to continually take into account the fact that I cannot train everyday like a super athlete. I still have to work, care for my children, go to soccer games etc... and still find the time to train. I am not privileged enough at this point in my life where I can just run.... I have other things that are a priority too so I guess I am cutting myself some slack and letting myself off the hook at little bit. After all, I also want to enjoy my runs and my training. Yes, even the intervals.

So here's what going on currently. I am still training with Fleet Feet and I am more aware every time I run with the group, that the trainers are following a schedule that is very likely to get someone injured. The trainer for my group commented today that she is concerned with the schedule as well. Of course that did not go over real well with me. So the bottom line is that I will continue to train with the group (I paid for the registration and I won't quit now) however I will modify what needs to be modified and work on not injuring myself. We received the full marathon training schedule this morning (up to now we've been following the half marathon training schedule) and our miles from week to week go up weekly with no recoup miles in between. In addition to that, the schedule has us doing between 70 and 100 minutes of "interval" training on Wednesday's. The interval training is really nothing more than long miles because we are not really doing intervals but just running "really hard" for 70 - 100 minutes. So if we're doing these long miles on Sundays and then doing between 7 and 10 miles of "really hard" running on Wednesdays, we're really not having a chance to recuperate from the long miles and in addition we are not training our body to improve our pace. Every Wednesday we're just told to go out and run "really hard" for x amount of time. No intervals at all ...

I found out that I paid the registration to have running buddies which in and of itself is not so bad but I was really hoping to get more training ... live and learn.

So ... I'll keep running with the group while at the same time following Galloway's training guide for the 4:00 marathon. I'm going to start going out to the track and following Galloway's and Carmichael's (Armstrong's trainer for New York Marathon) interval training guide. They discuss similar methods so I'm going to give it a try. Stay tuned ...

Today our group ran 12 miles. I came in at 2:02:11. Can't seem to get out of that 10:00 minute plateau. Soon though ... soon. My foot starting hurting pretty bad about mile 9 and got increasingly worse until it was burning again and I began to limp slightly. The new shoes have been great so I don't know what happened today .... I've put about 52 miles on the shoes thus far and with the exception of today my feet have felt great. I laid my running clothes out last night - everything that is except my socks and when I got up this morning I couldn't find my Thorlo's and ran with an old pair that do not provide enough cushioning. I did not like how they felt at all. Perhaps that's the reason for my poor performance.... a pair of socks? That's why they call them "training runs" I guess. Where are my socks? Probably at the bottom of the laundry basket .....

Lack of creativity should be illegal ...

I have developed an obsessive habit which involves reading license plates. Well.... OK ... the personalized ones. It amazes me how people can drive around town with unintelligible words on the back of their cars ... The ones that annoy me the most are the ones that obviously mean something but for the life of me I can't figure out what. I sit behind them at the stop light and read the plate every which way I can think of with every pronunciation possible and still I come up with nothing ... What the heck does it say? There have been times I have been so curious (ok and slightly annoyed) that I have been tempted to follow them just so I could ask what it means. Honestly, some of them make no sense at all! But even worse, are the ones where when God made their brains they forgot to stop off in the creativity line .... These are the people, who for lack of creativity, do the next best thing: they put the car's model name on their plate: my favorite from this week: seen on the back of a Toyota Corolla: Corolla. Perhaps they didn't know any other seven-letter words?

No running today. After a 10K race on Saturday and 10 miles yesterday I decided it was time for a break. I'm going to bed early, perhaps a little TV ... and well ...maybe some ice cream?

Stay tuned ... The Runner Chik will soon be at it again ...

And she keeps running ...

Ok. So it's been a month since my last blog and yes ... I continue to run .... My life has become busier and at times more complicated and trying to manage my time appropriately has been somewhat of a challenge. I crave running and I am consciously working on my pace but I find that it is often a challenge to find the time to run. I continue to run after work which means I am more tired than I would be if I ran in the morning but there is no way around that at the moment. On the weekends I run in the morning and I find that invigorating. I wish I could start every day with a run....

For those wondering, my foot condition has improved dramatically and this is due to rest and new shoes, but primarily new shoes. I only bought the shoes a week ago and I have already seen the difference. Thanks to John at Fleet Feet in Pleasanton I am once again wearing the appropriate shoes. John hooked me up with my first "real" pair of running shoes last June and I ran my first marathon in them. He hooked me up with Brooks that time and they were great shoes. Shortly after, I discovered the Nike + system and I switched to Nike shoes to accommodate the chip. I did well for awhile but in the last three months I have a seen a dramatic difference in the amount of pain I feel in my foot. So ... I paid a visit to John last week and I am now wearing Brooks again. Goodbye Nike + for now (I miss it terribly) but I am checking on a few things that may allow me to use it again. For now, I am back to wearing a watch again and my feet feel great.

Three weeks ago I ran the Disneyland Half Marathon. I was shooting for 2:00 and ended up running a 2:17. Not bad considering my feet were hurting like hell (literally they were on fire because I was still wearing the Nike's) and the temperature in LA was over 90 degrees which did not help at all. The Disneyland people had raised the flag from a yellow to a red before the race even started due to the heat and threatened to raise it to black if the temperatures rose even slightly more. We had a 6 am start time and it was already warm when we caught the shuttle at 4 am. I am used to running races in the Bay Area and the valley (SF, Santa Cruz, Sacramento) and temperatures are usually in the mid 60's to low 70's. I had great time running the Disneyland race but the heat nearly killed me ...

I put 15 miles on the new Brooks right after I bought them last week and then ran a 10k in Mountain House today. I finished first in my division with a pace of 9:15 which put me at the finish line at 57:22. My goal was to finish in under an hour so I accomplished my goal ... Mountain House is located just below the Altamont and there was a lot of wind coming off those mountains today. When we started the race we were running directly into the wind which made it extremely difficult to maintain a decent pace. I tried to draft behind a couple of other runners but was only successful at this for a short period. We were running into the wind for about the first half mile and then we had a side wind which was not as bad. By the end of the first mile the wind was behind us giving us an extra "push." I was at the 1st mile marker at 8:02 so I was not that disappointed with my pace but I also knew I had gone out a little too fast. I had to take two short walking breaks at about halfway through the race and I was concerned about not maintaining my pace. Because the course was a loop (which I hate) we were running into the wind again at mile 3.5 and again at mile 5 'till the finish line. I've run with wind before but usually side winds (especially in the Bay Area) and while not pleasant, certainly do not require such strenuous effort to maintain pace. All in all, this was a great race in an absolutely wonderful community and one which I will definitely run again.... Great people, nice medals, some good post race food, and beautiful scenery (one of my major requirements).

I plan to run Bridge to Bridge in SF at the end of the month, Cow Town Half Marathon in October and possibly Four Bridges half as well. Bridge to Bridge is one of the most beautiful runs in this area and has great pre and post race entertainment. Possibly the best I have seen yet. Bridge to Bridge is a 12k and my plan is to beat last year's time of 1:17:14.

Stay tuned ...

In my last post I mentioned joining a running group. I did and it has proven to be somewhat disappointing ... I will continue to train with them but .... more on that later. I miss Charlie .... you taught me so much.