Month: February 2015

Marathon Training: Week 7

Weeks until Mountains 2 Beach Marathon: 14

Week seven has come and gone, and it was a really good one. My workouts during the week went well, and I finally PRed in a distance on Sunday! I’ll do a whole recap of the Rose Bowl 10k, but let me just say that I’m still excited about it. AND I placed second in my age group (25-29) and had my named called and received a second medal. I haven’t set a PR in a while and haven’t pushed myself to train this hard ever before, and it’s really paying off so far. Let’s just hope I can break two hours at the San Diego Half Marathon in three weeks!

Monday – 5 miles easy @ 9:38

This was the first run in my new Mizuno Wave Creation 16s… and it wasn’t great. I have been running in the Creations for the past year or more, and I loved the Creation 14 and 15. This new version feels less cushioned, stiff, and just clunky. They feel heavier too, although I don’t think they actually weigh more than the other versions. I’ll do a review of them soon, but this first time using them was not too successful.

My new Mizuno Wave Creation 16s

Tuesday – rest

Lots of stretching, foam rolling and icing my knee.

Wednesday – November Project (5 miles total)

I wore my new Saucony Triumphs and whoa mama are they great. They are super light, cushioned, and just feel like I’m walking on clouds. I ran two miles in NP mixed in with burpees and pushups, then three miles afterward at around 9:40 min/mile.

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The group is getting bigger and bigger!

Thursday – 5-mile Progression Run

Splits: 9:23, 9:48, 8:36, 8:48, 8:11. I wore the Sauconys again, and I was amazed at how much lighter they felt than the shoes I’ve been wearing the past year and what a difference it made in speed.

Friday – November Project (4 miles total)

I wasn’t going to go to NP so I could rest my legs up for Sunday, but of course they decided to meet near my house and I had to go. I ran two miles to meet up with them, slowly ran up and down some killer hills and stairs a couple times, but overall took it really easy. It felt weird not going all out like everyone else, but I’m glad I held back so my legs could feel fresh.

One of the hidden stairs in the neighborhood.

One of the hidden sets of stairs in the neighborhood.

Sunrise ninjas.

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I feel kind of bad I’m the only one not doing the heart-shaped thing with my hands…

Saturday – rest

Valentine’s Day was spent driving to Pasadena to pick up my race packet for the 10k, driving to Venice to pick up food for a picnic, then driving to Santa Monica to eat the picnic on the beach. In theory, this doesn’t sound like much. But as Jeremy and I are slowly realizing, things like this take a lot longer than you think in LA. We left Pasadena around 1pm (we found a taco place to get chips and guacamole and the hugest horchatas I’ve ever seen – road trip fuel to get across the city) and by the time we stopped in Venice to get food then made it to the sand, it was almost sunset. It was crazy. It must have been more crowded because of Valentine’s Day, but we were dead-stopped on the Pacific Coast Highway for like an hour and we finally just pulled over on the side of the road and parked and climbed down to the sand. It literally would have been quicker for us to drive up to Santa Barbara to go to the beach instead of stay in LA. But the food we got from Gjusta in Venice was incredible, and the sunset was beautiful, so all in all it was a success.

Oh yeah and the morning started with a cappuccino from Intelligentsia.

Oh yeah and the morning started with a pretty cappuccino from Intelligentsia.

Huge cups of horchata for our ‘road trip.’

Finally made it to the beach.

Our spread.

It had been way too long since I’d been to the beach.

Sunday – Rose Bowl 10k – 49:37 official time

Oh no big deal, I just PRed this race by like six minutes and came in second in my age group. And ran the last mile in 7:28 (?!?!). I am way too proud to not brag about this.

A well-deserved beer at 9:30am.

After the race, Jeremy and I went to Guisados for my favorite tacos, another big horchata, and some more beer.

Then we went to a place called Donut Friend in Highland Park and got donuts. Their whole thing is that all their donuts and sundaes and desserts are named after emo/indie bands. They also cut their donuts in half and put pretty much anything you want in the middle. We got the S’Morrissey and another one named after Sufjan Stevens.

The S’Morrissey – a chocolate cake donut filled with toasted marshmallows and topped with chocolate glaze and graham cracker crumbs.

Some of their other awesome flavors.

We did it up big this weekend, and now I’m detoxing this week by eating lots and lots of veggies and salads and fish. I haven’t been experiencing super bad runger yet, but it does seem to hit me at night if I’ve had a light dinner. I get painfully hungry as I’m going to bed and it keeps me awake until I have to get up and eat some oatmeal. I feel like full-blown runger is on its way though… any tips?

Marathon Training: Week 6

Weeks until Mountains 2 Beach Marathon: 15

I took a step back this week because last week was a lot. I ran six out of seven days, including three hard workouts. This week, I gave my body a little bit of a break, and my knees thanked me. I didn’t even go to November Project. This week was also the last ‘base building’ week of the training plan Coach Lauren made for me, and next week is officially the first week of ‘marathon training,’ which is exciting. And I’m running the Rose Bowl 10k in Pasadena next Sunday! I haven’t raced since November, and I’m feeling ready to push hard. I’m really hoping to PR, and it will be fun to see how much I’ve progressed since my last 10k in October (my time then was 58:26, and my 10k PR is 56:07). Whenever I haven’t run a race in a long time, I get super pumped, especially seeing pictures every weekend of all the people racing on Instagram. The 10k finishes inside the Rose Bowl, and there’s a 5k and half-marathon as well. I was looking at the race’s website, and I saw the divisions:

Age Groups and Divisions

Age Group-Male & Female: 13 & Under, 14-17, 18-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80+
Clydesdale: Men 200+ lbs
Athena: Women 150+ lbs

There are separate divisions for plus-sized people?! And seriously 150 pounds… come on guys, that is not plus-sized, or Athena, or whatever you want to call it. I’ve never seen anything like that… am I the only one that thinks that is weird?

Anyway, here’s the past week in workouts and life.

Monday – 6 miles with 8 x 400m repeats

I always do my morning runs on the same path, which includes a couple steep hills, making speed workouts a lot harder than they already are. I finally ventured to Echo Park Lake for this workout, and it was so much better. It was about a mile and a half to the lake, then the path around the water is a little over a mile (I think), and then a mile and a half back. The entire thing is paved, also, unlike my other route, so I felt like I could run a lot faster. My 400m split paces were: 7:45, 7:47, 8:04, 8:13, 8:17, 8:12, 7:51, 7:15. Not bad! During my last repeat, an entire class from the local high school started running on the path, and I ended up racing the girl in front (she didn’t know we were racing), and it gave me that extra push to get my fastest interval in. I’ll definitely be returning to Echo Park Lake for my speedwork.

Echo Park Lake.

After work, my coworker and I went to the bar on the rooftop of the Ace Hotel downtown to see our other coworker DJing by the pool. I love the view from the top.

Tuesday – rest

Wednesday – 5 miles easy @ 9:45 min/mile

Normally I would go to November Project Wednesday morning, but I couldn’t fall asleep until 1am or so and had one of those restless nights, so I opted to get an extra hour of sleep and do five miles easy. I also figured it would be better not to push my body too hard, and a little decrease in activity would help.

That evening, I was invited to go to the Avalon Hollywood (across the street from the Capitol Records building, which looks really cool at night) for a presentation on an event called Checkpoints Race. I’ll write more about that in another post, but let’s just say I went to the event straight from work, and I forget that stuff in the heart of Hollywood is usually swanky and I was wearing sneakers and just totally underdressed when I showed up to the bouncers behind the velvet rope. I’m so used to being in Silver Lake or downtown where anything goes as far as clothing, but there’s a whole other side of Los Angeles that I sometimes forget exists. Aside from that, the presentation was really cool and the event sounds pretty awesome.

The fancy bathroom at the fancy club I was underdressed at.

Thursday – 5 miles easy @ 9:48 min/mile

It was nice to have a few easy days of running this past week.

After work, my boss took us all for happy hour and bowling, and I don’t know how it’s possible but the left side of my butt is STILL sore from it. Who knew bowling was such a good cross-training activity?

Friday – rest

I was planning on going to a sunrise 6k race that November Project was putting on, but it was moved from Griffith Park to the Santa Monica Pier so it was too far away for me to attend. But it’s probably better, since I got an extra rest day out of it.

Saturday – 10 miles, last 3 miles fast finish

Lately, it’s taken me a few miles to get into long runs. That didn’t really use to happen, but I think it’s just because I’m working harder these days and my body is still adjusting. The last few long runs, I haven’t started feeling really good until about mile 7. But at least I feel good! This past Saturday, I turned on the WTF podcast and just headed out the door, not expecting anything. I didn’t have breakfast except for a couple Powerbar Energy Chews (they look like Gushers on the package and that’s why I got them, but there’s no stuff that comes out of the center when I bite into them, maybe I got a faulty bag), and then I ate one more of those at mile 5.5, but that’s it. I usually eat something more substantial in the morning, but I was out of bananas and didn’t feel like making oatmeal. This could also be why it was hard to get started. But luckily my energy kicked in around mile 7, right when I was supposed to start my fast finish miles. I switched my iPhone from the podcast to my running playlist, and sped up. I was aiming for 8:30-8:45 miles, and the first mile included a half-mile big hill, so I didn’t quite get there. The last two miles were great though, with 8:29 and 8:38 as the average paces. My legs felt super fresh at this point, and like I had just started my run. That was a really encouraging sign!

After I was done, Jeremy and I braved the weather (it was 60 degrees and sprinkling) and got lunch at a placed called Mexicali in Chinatown. It sounds strange, but it was delicious. We are slowly making our way through Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles. Only about 96 to go. It’s a tough task, but somebody’s gotta do it.

We then went to Frontrunners in West Hollywood, where I got the new Saucony ISO Triumphs, and I had ordered the newest version of the Wave Creations on Zappos earlier that week. My last two pairs of running shoes were the Wave Creation 14 and 15, so I’m looking forward to seeing if I love the 16 as much as the others.

I’ll have a lot more to say about these shoes after I’ve run in them for a week or two!

That night, Jeremy and I watched Gone Girl (I finished the book earlier in the day), and I went to bed nice and early.

Sunday – yoga and stretching and foam rolling

The weather was perfect so I sat outside and read for a while in our backyard, then went and bought some plants for our apartment. I didn’t run, but I made sure to stretch and foam roll a lot and ice my knee, and then did this Yoga for Runners video I like.

Our cute little backyard, with lots of citrus fruits on the trees.

Happy Monday!

Marathon Training: Week 5

Weeks until Mountains 2 Beach Marathon: 16

January was the first month I’ve run 100 miles! Before January, my highest mileage month was August of last year, when Jeremy and I were in Paris and I joined the Let’s Run Paris group and I ran about 77 miles total. Anyway, I feel really good about the past month and super excited that I hit 100 miles. I can’t wait to see where I’m at later in the year. Four months to go until the big 26.2!

Monday – 5 miles easy with 100m strides at the end

Average pace for this run was 9:29, and I finally felt like I got some mojo back after the tough week before.

Tuesday – rest

Wednesday – November Project

The last Wednesday of the month is always PR day at November Project. We do the same amount of stadium stairs each time, and see if our times improve. The Hollywood Bowl is being worked on though, so a lot of the stairs are inaccessible. Because of this, I haven’t actually been able to compare times lately since we have to change it up. But for this workout we averaged about 2 miles of stadium stair sprints. We wore backwards hats to honor the memory of San Francisco November Project member Sam Dweck, who died in a kayaking accident the weekend before.

Incredible sunrise.

Thursday – 6 mile tempo run

I was pretty sore from the day before and my morning route is hilly and half of it is made of dirt, so speedwork is always a struggle. But nevertheless, this tempo run went well! I started with a warm-up mile @ 9:52, and tempo mile paces: 8:46, 8:47, 8:43, 8:41. I ended with a mile cool down @ 10:13. My goal was to do the tempo miles at 8:30-8:45, so I was happy with this one.

I also upgraded my ice game from frozen veggies to a Pro-Tec Hot Cold Therapy wrap for my knee that I ordered on Amazon. Now I can walk around while icing my knee, and don’t have to deal with the veggie bag leaking water all over the place.

I really like Pro-Tec stuff – I use this compression band on my knee on every run now.

Friday – November Project

I didn’t have time to do three miles after NP on Wednesday, so I made it up Friday, by doing three miles of running up and down an extremely steep sand/dirt hill at Griffith Park. It was tough.

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We had to say goodbye to one of our leaders, Angelo (the guy we’re pointing at), who moved to San Diego over the weekend.

I had to complete my November Project homework by running in a place that you’re not really supposed to run, so I sprinted in the rain on the roof of my work building. People that could see out the window thought I was crazy.

Bonus pic: it rained that day and I took this picture on the roof of my work building downtown. The sunset was so cool.

The sunset was so cool after the rain stopped.

Saturday – 9 miles easy

I took it extra easy on this long run, and just tried to get into a good, slow pace. It took a few miles to get into it since I was tired from the week, but I finally started feeling good and the last mile was my fastest. Ended up with a 10:19 average pace.

I had to go to work after my run, but as soon as I was done I met Molly from Also Ran Again in Santa Monica! We shared a gigantic pretzel at a place by the beach. It was so awesome to spend some time with her and finally meet in person after following her blog for a long time now. We had such a great time, and everyone needs to go visit her in Tacoma. Oh and later that night she took a selfie with Amy Poehler and they’re basically best friends now, which kind of makes me best friends with Amy Poehler too (pretty sure that’s how it works).

Funny, sweet, awesome Molly!!

Sunday – 3 miles easy

My legs felt super heavy for this run, which I expected. I usually take two rest days in a week, but didn’t this time and felt the effects. I’m proud of myself for working so hard all week, though.

Later in the day, my parents came into town and we went to lunch at Ledlow downtown, a restaurant Jeremy and I had been wanting to try. I got a mac and cheese croque with a fried egg on top, with a house-made chocolate root beer on the side. We all shared warm pumpkin bread with pistachio butter, and potatoes cooked in duck fat. It was all delicious.