Marathon!!!

Ok, a little revision on the race schedule. First of all, I decided not to run the 10k back on October 12th, instead Jim and I went for a run with a local running group on Saturday, then on Sunday I did a 'long' run...I was planning on running 12 miles, but missed the street I was planning on turning down and then I found myself running along the coast in the Presidio area and then Chrissy Field. I had never been running in that area so I just went with the flow. Well, since I didn't know the area well, I didn't know what road to take to get through the park to go south to head back home. Unlike most parts of San Francisco, the roads in that area are not north-south, east-west, and alot of the roads are dead ends or go in circles...the point being that you really need to know the way if you want to cut through the park. So I kept running until I got past the park to Broderick St and ran south until I got to my neighborhood. That was adventurous too since parts of it are among the highest peaks in San Francisco. By the time I got home, the run had turned into 15 miles! Oops! It was fun though!

Anyway, back to the race schedule. I just signed up to run the Avenue of the Giants marathon on May 3rd. The race is run through the giant redwoods and is supposed to be beautiful. Jim and I will probably tack a vacation on the end of this trip and travel up to Seatle for a few days. Should be a good time and hopefully a PR as well!

Running Groups

Saturday we went running with a local running group. The group meets at a restaurant called Crepes on Cole which is about a mile from our apartment. There were about 12 people that showed up for the run and everybody paired off depending on mileage and anticipated pace. Of course after group runs, just like in Ohio, it's time for breakfast! It wasn't Bob Evans, but it was really good. I had pancakes and Jim had french toast and we sat around and chatted with others from the running group. It was a good time and we will be back to join them again.

Last month when we went back to Cleveland for a wedding, we had a chance for one last morning group run with the gang, what a great morning it was for a run at the towpath with a great group of people!

Racing Schedule

Ok, time to set some goals! Here are a list of races I plan on running.

10/12/08 - Golden Gate Park 10k
11/16/08 - Polo Field 5k
12/14/08 - Conservatory 5k
12/21/08 - Christmas Classic 5k
02/01/09 - San Francisco Half Marathon
05/15/09 - Bay to Breakers 12k
06/27/09 - Double Dipsea 13.7 miles, 2200 vertical feet

The first 3 races are low key, put on by a running group in the area. The Bay to Breakers race is a huge race with 33,000 registered runners last year and an estimated 60,000 total runners! If I run a sub 19:00 or sub 21:30 5k before May 1st I can get a seeded or sub-seeded starting position rather than starting with the masses. 21:30 is doable, but it would be nice if I can get the sub 19 ... that will take a lot of work. Well, I guess I have 7 months of training and racing to try to get there, so we'll see. I'll be adding more races for 2009, just haven't picked them out yet. The Double Dipsea is a challenging run and I hope I can get in since registration is limited and sells out fast I hear. Check out this fly-by of the course.

Beautiful Night for a Race

The corporate challenge 3.5 mile race was held last night at Chrissy Field. 41 Employees from my company participated, some of them coming all the way from Sacramento. The race was organized pretty well, they had busses assigned to pick up people from all over the downtown area and transport them to the start and then drop them off again after the race. Our bus picked us up at 5:45pm and we were supposed to arrive by 6pm. That should have been perfect and would have provided 45 minutes to warm up. Of course, nobody factored in rush hour traffic in downtown San Francisco! Well we ended up getting there at 6:30pm!!! Only 15 minutes before the race! Naturally the port-o-potty's all had line-ups, just like they normally do just before the start of the race. Anyway, I didn't have much time to warm up so I did what I could and then ran to find my spot in the starting corral. There were about 5000 people running/walking this race, so making my way up to the 7 minute pace marker was a challenge and I couldn't get too much closer than that so thats where I started. Unfortunately this race was not chip timed, so the closer to the front the better. On a side note, if I do this race next year I will run from the office to the start of the race since it is only about 2 miles! Anyway, as I was making my way closer to the front, I bumped into a co-worker who was going to run a similiar pace so we both headed to the front together. He then told me that last years front runner for our company was probably closer to the front. I was hopping to spot her and hang with her for the race, but couldn't find her and as I said, it was too crowded to try to get closer.

The race started and the first few minutes was spent jockeying for position and trying to avoid the slower runners who started to far ahead. The course was beautiful, it started at Chrissy Field, headed east then looped around heading west towards the Golden Gate bridge. Since the race started at 6:45, the sun was starting to dip over the horizon, glowing behind the bridge, what a beautiful sight!

The course is almost entirely flat which is also nice, they only negative about the course is that for the entire second mile (and a bit more), you are running on a loose crushed stone path which kind of slows you down. The race was a lot of fun, I wasn't expecting to run too fast and I didn't. I was the second finisher from my company, the first finisher also won the most senior women executive prize, good for her! I lucked out though and ended up winning a 50$ gift card which my company was offering up for the fastest finisher. Since our fastest finisher was an HR executive, she didn't take it so I was next in line - lucky me :D

Back to AM Running

This week I started running in the mornings. I used to do this all the time before I changed my hours at the bank to start at 7am. Since I start at 9am now, I found that when I got home at 6:30 or 7pm, I wasn't really too excited about going back out to run. Especially after cycling 6 miles up hill into the wind on the way home! I actually did that a few times and found that my legs felt pretty much like cement when I started the run - which makes me admire all you triathaletes out there who do that in a race! So this week I ran Monday through Thursday at 6:30am. It's nice running in the mornings, I head down to the park and there are lots of other runners out and people walking their dogs. I've also noticed that there are lots of fitness groups that get together in the morning and are usually doing things like stretching, lunges and various other excercises, they also do some running. Seems like a good way to get out and get some excercise and I'm sure the group motivation really helps.

Well, the corporate challenge is on Wednesday and I'm not sure how I'll do since I haven't really put in too many hard workouts, so we'll see what happens. Should be a fun event, there will be 41 people from my company running and over 6000 total runners!

7:30's ???

So today for some strange reason I had a faboulus run! I really shouldn't have since I cycled about 60 miles this week and my legs were dead on Thursday and Friday. Why did I cycle 60 miles? Well, Monday Jim and I explored the city on bike which was bout 15 miles including some good long climbs and Tuesday through Friday I took my bike to work each day which is almost 12 miles for the round trip. The trip home from work is also uphill and into the wind, so it is a little more challenging than the drive in. Anyway, Thursday after work I was planning on getting in a quick tempo before heading home but it just wasn't happening, my legs were yelling at me! So I aborted the run and headed home on the bike. So Friday I decided that I better run in the morning before work otherwise I wouldn't get it done at all. That was a average/good run, nothing special. Today I assumed my legs would still be tired, but after running the first mile, I looked at my watch and I was at about a 7:40 pace. This was weird because I felt like I was running 8:40! Anyway, I ended up running 6 of the 8 miles at 7:30 pace and it felt great! I don't know why since I haven't been running fast lately except for a weekly tempo/interval workout. I have been doing tons of hills, so maybe that is starting to pay off. Maybe the cycling is helping too. Well, about a week and a half until the Corporate Challenge race, hopefully I continue to have good workouts and a good race!

What a GrandView!

On Monday morning I headed out for a run with my Sirius radio and no plan! I guess I was just going to run around the neighborhood to get some miles in. Anyway, I decided I should check out this mysterious hill not too far from my apartment. It's mysterious because it is not very wide and it kind of juts out of the surrounding landscape plus, there are some trees up there but just a few. So I ran up (I mean UP the hill) the road in the direction of this hill and quite easily located the bottom of the huge staircase that goes right to the top. I continued on running up the stairs....had to slow down a bit though as the repetitiveness of the stair climbing was making me dizzy. Anyway, finally reached the top!! WOW, this is the best view yet! You can see everything from downtown to the ocean, as far as Daly city, maybe even further! It was a perfectly clear day as well, so I could see so far into the horizon. This hill is called Grand View Park. I didn't have my camera, but here is a great shot. There is not much on top except for a bench or two, sand and trees. On the other side of the hill, there is another staircase and this one is completely tiled in a wonderful mosiac, check out these amazing pictures.

Unfortunately the camera is now broken due to a little mishap yesterday, but we are actively searching for a replacement and then Jim and I plan on heading up the hill to get some nice sunrise or sunset shots of our own!