Tag Archives: Races

Two Race Weekend

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Over the past weekend, I ran two races. It was a little crazy and not just because I ran races back to back but also because both were pretty hilly and I hadn’t run any hills for the previous two weeks. But I still felt like I ran strong both days.

On Saturday I ran the UCSC XC Challenge with five other women from Santa Cruz Endurance. The 4 mile trail course was the season opener to the 2012 PA USATF XC Grand Prix. We carpooled to the race start and a handful of us ran a few warm up miles before the race.

After roaming the trails and stretching a bit, we set up at the start line with 121 super speedy women. I stayed conservative in the beginning, not sure how I would do on the hills. This allowed me to have sweet negative splits (8:12, 7:59, 7:39, 7:17). The course was pretty warm, especially in the non-wooded spots. But I felt strong after running in humid, hot weather the previous two weeks. I finished with a time of 31:29 and came in 75th place (see speedy runners!). Our team came in 6th overall. After the race I ran a few cool down miles with Sho and then we headed to  breakfast.

We ate at this awesome little bakery/coffee shop, Iveta. I had never eaten there before, but it is delicious! I can’t wait to go back.

At Iveta, yum!

On Sunday, I ran Race Thru the Redwoods for the third time in a row. It is a trail 10k (6.2 miles) that climbs over 300 feet between miles 2.5 and 3.5. Last year due to some confusion I ended up parking someplace I wasn’t supposed to and received a pricey parking ticket. The race felt bad and hooked me up for this year’s race (thank you!). I picked up Laura (another SCE member who was volunteering) and we headed to Henry Cowell State Park. This year I got excellent parking and had plenty of time to run two easy warm up miles. SCE members Steve and Dan also ran this race (rocked it too, taking 3rd and 4th places respectively in their age group).

Checking in at registration

Hanging out before the race

Me, Laura, and Steve

Me and Dan

Ready to run!

I ran this race as an opportunity to see how I am feeling on trails and hills. I tried not to “race” it since I had done that the day before. But of course, once I was out there I ended up racing all the same. I started out fast. The first mile is on the road and I wanted to get ahead before I got to the hill climb (mile 1 – 6:57, whoops!). I slowed down a bunch heading up the hills and got passed by several runners. After the turn around my main goal was to pass those runners again and I did pass most of them before we hit the mile 6 marker.

I took a slight detour and might have added .o5 mile to the run but nothing crazy. I finished with a time of 52:29 (a minute and a half better than my best time on this course). I didn’t place in my age group (5th of 51 runners), but I was very happy with the race. And the best was coming up to the finish line seeing Laura and Rebecca working the timer and cheering me on!

Coming up to the finish line

After I ran a two super slow cool down miles and then hung out with Rebecca and Laura as they clocked the time for runners and we cheered them on.

Overall this was a great running weekend and a welcome return to running in Santa Cruz.

Summer Recap

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I know, I’ve been a bad blogger.

It’s been a long, long time since my last post. I’ve logged in and started to write posts but didn’t know where to start. Well, I figure no time like the present to get caught up on my blog. I thought about doing a separate post for all the events/things we have been doing, but instead here’s a bit of what we’ve been doing since May (yep it’s a long entry).

Wedding Planning
Not surprisingly since I’ve been out of my course work for the summer I have been focusing on the wedding. We finally have a DJ (yay!) but still have lots to do. I had my first dress fitting a few weeks back (and will have another one on Friday) as well as talked flowers and decorations. My mom, Susan, Olivia, and Tara have some AMAZING ideas!

Engagement Photos
In June, my amazing friend and mom-to-be Punam took engagement photos of Kevin & me. They are great. Here’s a teaser shot, but you can see her blog post on them here.

Bachelorette Weekend
The weekend after the engagement photo shoot, four of my close friends and I went to Sonoma County for my bachelorette weekend. It was perfect, complete with beautiful views, hiking, dogs (you know I love dogs!), delicious food, and wine… lots of wine! One of my best friends, Tawny, planned the whole thing and I seriously couldn’t have asked for a better time.

We’ve Been Here, There, & Everywhere (yeah, I totally used one of my favorite Beatle songs here)
Kevin & I have been traveling all over the place this summer. I think one or both of us was gone every weekend beginning in mid-June until, well, now. As mentioned earlier, I was in Sonoma County in June, Kevin’s sister and his niece and nephews visited the following few days, then we flew off to Texas (more about that later), then we drove up to Washington (with a pit stop in Oregon to see one of my best friends), Kevin’s uncle visited for a week or so, then I went home to wedding stuff, Kevin went off to Taiwan for work… and now we’re laying low. Of course, we’ll be traveling here and there again soon :) During that time, Kevin also celebrated the big 3-0!!

Showers
While we were in Washington, Kevin’s family threw us a wedding shower. And when I was in So Cal my best friend threw me a bridal shower. Both parties were so much fun and it was great seeing everyone. We really appreciate that everyone came out and celebrated with us. Plus, my mom brought an old high school photo album that my girlfriends and I had a good laugh at!

                                 

Dan & Juliana’s Wedding
As I mentioned earlier, Kevin & I went to Texas this summer. Why? To attend Dan and Juliana’s wedding of course! I love this couple, they are fun and sweet and a perfect match for each other. I also got to catch up with some of my old high school friends, as well as visit some of the best that San Antonio has to offer: Alamo, River Walk (ok we barely did this), San Jose Mission, Cavender’s Boot store, and some serious BBQ (the boys ate it, I just stared in amazement).

The newlyweds

Outside the cathedral

The boys & me outside of the Alamo

BBQ!

Summer School
In addition to traveling, planning, and partying, I also worked as a teaching assistant for the first session of summer school at UCSC. I had the pleasure of working with an amazing teacher and fellow grad student who I definitely look up to. This was a class I had TAed for before, but I learned a great deal from above-mentioned-instructor and her great teaching style.

Cooking/Baking
As usual, I’ve spent a great deal of time cooking and baking. I made a yummy batch of cookies-n-cream/cookie dough ice cream (yes together, in one delicious, sugary bowl!). I failed at my first scone making attempt (that’s what I get for last-minute recipe modifications). And I made homemade pasta for the first time, yum!

Drying pasta

Running
I’ve still been running with a few races here and there. Since my last post, I ran 4 races (see my results here). I did take 1st in my age group for one of them, always a nice feeling! And tomorrow, I’ll be running the 1st half of the San Francisco Marathon. Since running the Big Sur Marathon I’ve been pretty slow on my long runs, so I’m not expecting to be very speedy tomorrow but I think it will be a lot of fun. And I have to admit I’m pretty darn excited about getting an Irish Coffee after the race, now that’s a treat I can look forward to post-run (the run is early, like 5:45am early, so I’ll ready for that warm beverage!). Here are some photos from my recent races.

Silly me, throwing my hands in the hair! Crossing the finish line at She.Is.Beautiful 10k on May 22

Post race at Nisene Marks 5k, very rainy race :)

Coming up to the finish line in the San Lorenzo Train Run 10k

Pre-Race Wharf to Wharf 6 mile (surrounded by 15,000 other runners!)

Well, I think we’re all caught up. I will try to get back into my normal blog routine in August.

Worst Race Ever

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I have just completed what I officially consider the worst race ever (ok at least that I have participated in). Last year, I ran the same race, Go Green St. Patrick’s 10k in Los Gatos, and despite being sick I had a great time. I had looked forward to greatly improving last year’s time. I actually almost didn’t run the race because I have so much school work to complete this weekend, but I decided that I needed to run anyway so I’ll go ahead and run the race (plus I already paid for it).

Unfortunately, both packet pick-up times conflicted with my schedule and I was able to just make the end of the second day. By that time they only had large shirts. I know shirts aren’t the most important thing, but I like getting free running gear and it’s a bummer that I won’t really be able to wear this one. I was more annoyed with the response of the organizer when I questioned how this happened but this morning I decided not to taint the race with bad vibes and focus on having a good time.

Due to the time change, I had a hard time getting up and out the door on time. I worried that I would miss the race start. I got there just 5 minutes before the time my race was supposed to start (there were 3 race lengths, half marathon that started first, the 10k that I ran and started second, and the 5k that started last). Thankfully they seemed to be running late, par for the course with races. But unfortunately their loudspeakers didn’t seem to work and it was hard to determine which race was starting. But not a problem, I figured out and started with the rest of the 10kers.

The race began well, I started a little slower than normal trying to save my energy to speed up at the end. Great, I was right on pace where I wanted to be by mile 2. I started to see a few runners coming back my way and knew I was approaching a turnaround. A turnaround sign sat in the ground but unlike the previous signs did not say if it was for the 5k, 10k, or half marathon. Other runners kept going and I followed suit. But within a few minutes I started to grow concerned. Apparently another runner went too far as well (farther than me) and informed me that I needed to turn around. As we headed back to the official turnaround spot, the 10k runners let others know they needed to turn around. My time was officially going to be off and much slower runners than me had turned around much earlier. This was the first race I didn’t wait to see my official results posted.

After I finished I found that the timing chip had cut my ankle (I have a problem with these types of chips and should have put a blister pad on my ankle). My leg hurt and I was frustrated with the unclear signage. I went to a race organizer, along with some other racers (5k runners who almost ran the entire 10k!). The organizer was unsympathetic to say the least. In fact, she seemed angry with us! I know mistakes happen, that’s ok. But the worst part of the race for me was the organizers’ anger at runners for complaining. That’s just poor management.

On the positive side, my new nike running shoes felt great! Sami even posed with them yesterday :) And the race medal is quite nice. The vendors also had some good snacks for post-race fuel and the first aid tent was great (thanks for bandaging my bloody ankle). My results for this race (and my others races as well) are here.

To see other people’s experiences see the Active reviews.

Racing in the Rain

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A year ago, I had not run more than 6 miles in one outing. Around this time, last year, I thought about running my first half marathon. Last weekend, I completed my fifth half marathon this year (and I’m signed up for my first marathon on May 1, 2011). The craziest part to me is that I completed three of these half marathons in five weeks.

Kevin and I headed in San Francisco on Saturday, Nov. 6. It was a beautiful, clear day and it seemed so unlikely that the weather reports predicting rain for the following day could be accurate. We had decided to take BART into the city to avoid finding and paying for parking. We checked into our hotel and headed out to hop a shuttle to the race expo. The shuttle, expected to come every 20 minutes, took 45-50 minutes to pick us up. By the time we made it to the expo, shirts had already run out (apparently not all the boxes of shirts made it to the expo but they are mailing them out to us), and the shuttle driver told us that his was the last shuttle of the night. Well, we headed into the expo (held at the Sports Basement, a nice sports shop), picked up my bib and timing chip, as well as a pair of running pants (on which I saved 15% thanks to my race entry). Kevin convinced me that it might be better to have them instead of just my normal running shorts (he was right!). The race organizers got the shuttle service to pick us back up and we headed back to the hotel. Kevin and I then headed out for a delicious Italian dinner (carb loading!) and then back to the hotel so I could get plenty of sleep.

As usual, I kept waking up, worried that I would over sleep. With the time change, this probably could not have happened, but nonetheless I worried. I got out of bed at about 5:30 and heard the rain. Dang it! When I got down to the lobby, I saw a few people with trash bags. Perfect! That will keep dry and I can just toss it before the race. I found a hotel employee, got a bag, made a few race friends (Dora & Greg), and we headed out to the wet starting line of the US Half. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting in the rain (wet but thankfully not very cold), the race started and off we went.

I had a good idea of what to expect of the race course,

as the hills seemed similar to those I ran at the NWM. After running up hill for a few miles, we headed out to the Golden Gate Bridge. Running over that bridge equally terrified and excited me. I am terribly afraid of heights and I don’t even like driving over the bridge. I worried that it would be even worse in the rain. Actually, I really enjoyed running over the bridge. What I did not like was the volume of the rain and cars, making it difficult to hear runners behind me and a few moments of bumping into a fellow runner. A quick turn around after the bridge and we headed back.

I had not planned on PRing at this race. I knew that my body was tired, the hills would wear me down, and well the rain didn’t improve matters any. I tried to just maintain a steady pace. However, my race bib had my name on it and along the way random spectators would cheer me on and I couldn’t help but run faster at those moments! I can’t tell you how great it is to hear people cheering you on throughout the course! On the final hill, I allowed myself to walk a bit just so I could conserve some energy. I came over that hill and could see the finish line. Then I saw Kevin and I knew I was almost done. Once I saw him waving and cheering for me, I took off and sprinted to the finish line.

The organizers gave us great medals and a reusable stainless steel water bottle. What I really wanted, however, was my jacket that Kevin had. However, it took me forever to put it on, my fingers had gotten so numb. Finally, I had my nice, warm, dry jacket on and Kevin and I headed back to the hotel. Fast forward through a long, hot shower and a delicious Belgium waffle breakfast, and we headed back home.

This is my last half marathon of the year. I have a 10k Turkey Trot coming up and that will be my last race of the year. This has been an incredible running year for me, and I loved (almost) every moment of it!