Race Optimism and Goals

Just a quick post about what I'm looking at and what I'm wanting in terms of races this year. Entry fees have been paid, but who knows if I'll make it to starting lines. Looking forward with Optimism, as I said in my post the other day, I'm operating as if :)

Kaiser 5K February 3...I ran this for the first time last year when I was struggling in so many ways and still managed to run it at an 8:15 average pace (the course is officially longer than 5K so that's how I like to gauge my performance at this race). This year I'm struggling less. I'd like to finish it with the speed I had in my 5K in November...7:30 average pace. My training plan is structured as if this is going to happen.

Last year looking like Stone-cold Steve Austin

Oakland Running Festival half-marathon March 24...I've only run the relay, both last year and the year before. This year all of my relay teammates decided to try the half. I was kind of annoyed because I like routine...and running less. Running Leg 2 of the Oakland Marathon had become part of my March routine...amazing how doing something twice makes it feel like 'routine.' Anyway...I said, FINE. Half-marathon... whatEVER .... Goal on this one...start healthy and finish happy. I give myself full permission to shamelessly not start. And in the event that I start and things go sour, I will unabashedly not finish. But in the vein of Optimism, I'm operating as if it will all be sunshine and roses :)

Leg 2 of the 2012 Oakland Marathon Relay

Bay to Breakers May 19...I've run this one three times, last year,  the year before and back in 1994. Seeing the naked people is not a highlight for me (click the links if you want to see naked B2B people). My favorite part of the race is, surprisingly...or perhaps in my case, not surprisingly, Hayes Street Hill. Overall, this race gave me a hard time all three years, and with the gleam of Optimism in my eyes, I look forward to me giving it a hard time this year :)

O, the irony of this parting gift...

Sonoma 5K Turkey Trot November 28...my yearly return-to-running barometer, I ran this one last year and the year before and the year before that. Since the fall of 2010, I've improved my 5K time by 5 minutes and 40 seconds. This year I'd like to set a real 5K PR by knocking another 2 minutes off my time from 2012. If I can stave off bloggermarathonhighmileagemania, I have confidence that I can stay healthy enough to at least come close. Am I the only blogger who has a 5K for her 'A' race this year?

First woman...yeah, I won. Go figure.

I'm looking at a few others, among them the San Francisco Second Half, but I'm curious about how things will pan out with the first three listed above before committing.

And there's always Hood to Coast in late August...I'm planning my Nuun team application already ;-)

I'd love to hear about your race plans and goals for 2013 in a comment below!

Miss Congeniality? Maybe. Miss Photogenic? Never!

Ever notice how some people always look good in pictures? I mean regular people...not photoshopped, over-made-up supermodels or movie stars. Some people even look good in their race photos! I am not one of these people. While I've never looked as bad as some people do when they're racing, this weekend finally yielded race photos where I don't look scared sh!tless or like I'm about to puke...

The only thing I'm really not loving about these pictures (other than the fact that black is not appearing to be very slimming) is the bizarre underarm fat undulation thing going on... see it? I know you didn't necessarily see it until just now when I pointed it out, but now you do, right? I am posting three nearly identical pictures so that you can see it. I think it's a carry-over from the armpit vagina thing I had going on before. I thought it was the scar from my lung surgery, but that's on the other side. 

Fat undulation... 's'what it is.

I could bring the elbows in a little tighter, but I've got a good 'ZoneFace' going on there. And my BICBands headband did an amazing job of keeping the Einstein hair at bay ;-)  I do wish they'd gotten a good shot of how my foot hits the pavement so I could verify my new footstrike (or not), but they didn't. My feet look to be doing a little splay action as they push off and then draw through, but things look pretty good for coming into the finish.

And here are the frightening images of races gone by for the sake of comparison...

Looking miserable last fall in Long Beach...

How can we only be 6 miles into this thing? 

see?... scared shitless.

And then there was Vegas...

early on in the race...

ooooo...cleavage :)

...and will ya look at the bottom of that shoe? 

Example: lost art of slamming all of one's body weight into the heel-most edge of one's running shoe.

I really want you to see the bottom of my shoe!

And though I look like I'm about to puke, I totally chicked the guy in the red shirt.

I think it's a guy.

And see that chick in the orange behind me on the left? here's a story I forgot from that race...

She was super pissed at me. I was running behind her starting right after the Incident at Denny's. I paced off of her while I got my post-evacuatory bearings. At one water stop (or rather, nastyass bacterial refueling stop) we were side by side and I said something really obnoxious but not intending to be...something like "I'm planning on sucking the life out of you by letting you drag my depleted, sorry ass all the rest of the way in this stupid, god-forsaken race." I didn't use those exact words, but it must've been something similar because she glared real live daggers at me. And then about three miles later I had myself pulled together...right about here where this picture was taken...and I smoked her ass. Well, I passed her anyway. I guess a 9-minute mile pace isn't really capable of 'smoking' someone's ass.

This is my "You finished up at Denny's. There's nothing left in there. It is all in your imagination. There is no possible way there is anything left in your system. You do not need to stop for any reason. Keep running. Do not pick up those quarters you are looking at in the street or whatever it is down there that is so freaking interesting...and how can you not see that HAI-YA karate kick thing you're doing, you heel-striking hip-injurer, you?" face. In case you couldn't tell.

Do you take good race photos? Are you photogenic in non-athletic situations?

– I am quite possibly one of the least photogenic people ever...when sporty or regular. But I think that the photos look like I do in real life...so yeah...kind of a bummer. Especially when you have an awesome photographer for a husband. 

Do you wear make-up when you race and/or work out?

– Hahahahahahhahahaha! Unless you count cherry Chapstick as make-up, I never wear make-up. Ever. I don't even know what to do with it :P

"Sedate" is NOT my middle name...

The alarms were set for 5:30 and 5:45, respectively. 

The plan was to leave the house at 6:30 which would mean arriving at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco at 7:00, allowing plenty of time for parking, shuttling, sweat-checking, and peeing before an 8:00 race start. Having a good 45 minutes of prep time before leaving the house was going to be positively sedate. Everyone else would be asleep, and all I'd have to do would be get dressed, brush my teeth and put in my contacts. And take my arsenal of daily supplements, fill my water bottle, grab a banana, put on my shoes, and fix prepare my hair. You know, the stuff you do before you leave the house in the morning. 

But we all know that "Sedate" is not one of my middle names.

I operate more like this...

source

...and not always intentionally.

The first alarm went off at 5:30. I turned it off and lay there until the second one went off, and at that point I got out of bed. I went downstairs to start my prep routine and I noticed that the kitchen clock showed

source

How did it take me 45 minutes to walk down the stairs? A conversation later with Cupcake's boyfriend yielded the possibility that I had slipped into a wormhole. That was much more interesting than the reality...the batteries were low on the clocks (yes, both of them!) and they were running 40-ish minutes slow :(

Anyway....

Sedate morning over. Assume hyperspeed.

I was out the door by 7 and in SF by 7:30 and watching a whole ton of runner people walking toward Golden Gate Park. At this point I didn't have time to park in the designated lots and use the designated shuttles...I was on my own. In honor of Superb Owl Sunday, I'll say: It was time to punt ... or Hail Mary ;-) Somehow I superscored a proximal-ish parking spot and high-tailed it, arriving at the gear check just as they collected up the barrel with my number on it! Wooo hooo! Skidding in successfully ... see pic above.

Valuable Race Lesson #1 from today's experience: If you wait to use the portapotties until they've begun to sing the Nat'l Anthem, there are NO lines! No lines = no waiting. Genius. Must remember.

Valuable Race Lesson #2: If running in a mob-scene-type race with a timing chip set-up, don't worry if you miss the gun because you are using the portapotty...your start is registered when you cross the mat and the crowd might even be a little thinned out :) Since I run for fun, keeping the stress level low is important. Reducing worry = less stress.

Valuable Race Lesson #3: People who tell you a course is 'all downhill'...or even 'mostly downhill and the rest flat'...are liars. Okay...maybe they aren't liars, but never assume a race is going to be any easier than it might otherwise be based on these sorts of statements. Bolded and italicized because this is important!

On to the race...

I had no real idea going into this how it would be for me. I hadn't run 'hard' since my timed mile on December 8th and had run maybe a dozen times since then. I'm running physically differently now and in a new kind of shoes. My spirit has been tested and I've had some really low times lately. Yet today, I went into my race unafraid and bubbling over with curiosity.

Starting out, I was behind walkers and strollers. It was a combined start of a half-marathon and a 5K with a split about a quarter mile up the road. There were far more people entered in the half-marathon than the 5K, so at the split things thinned out pretty nicely. I was feeling fairly spry but running conservatively, waiting for that perpetual downhill to begin at which point I planned to fly...as best I could, anyway. I surmised about a mile into things that the course could be better described as 'rolling' and I'd better just listen to my body and forget about that whole 'downhill' thing.

Additionally, I knew that this course would be long. The website said so. This is not just the ramblings of a Garmin whiner. The course for the 5K is not a certified course and runs long...and who knew just exactly how long 'long' would mean? They claimed 3.2, but I decided I was going on Garmin distance as far as calculating my pace.

Once I settled into a rhythm, I passed a few people and got passed by fewer...which felt nice. I only remember one woman passing me for good...the others I re-passed. I chicked a couple of guys, and got duded by a few. I negative-split every half mile. This last point pleases me greatly. But what pleases me even more is this:  My hip did not hurt. Bolded and italicized because this is important!

Official chip time:  27:10 over 3.3 miles, which works out to an average pace of 8:15/mile.

I finished 19th out of 628 in my age group. I was the 76th woman out of 1978. I placed 249th overall out of 2883.

The best part of this race, however, aside from the 'hip not hurting' part, was meeting up with Tricia and Cupcake and getting to meet Cupcake's boyfriend. As her West Coast Mom, I needed to check him out. Based on our super long walk back to my car, he passes the XL Test of Awesomeness. But he'll never know I said that and really, who cares but me?

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend :)

***Missie guessed 27:08... only 2 seconds off! She wins the prize! Missie, tell me in an email where to send it :)  ***

The Industrial Athlete

Currently a very busy port, this harbor sees a huge number of automobiles shipped in from overseas that are then loaded into trains for transport across the continent.

One thing I am really enjoying about being injured and needing to rely on the bike for training is... you can go a lot farther in a given amount of time and see a lot more of the world during your workout.

Last week, we turned our heads to the east and rode the bike looking at  The Semi-Urban Athlete's  view in my 'hood. This week, we take a trip north and west along the trail and discover some of the 'hood's industrially scenic past and present...

one of the Victory ships that was built here is now open to the public

Several days ago, I introduced you to the Rosie the Riveter Memorial, which is here because of the Kaiser Shipyards from WWII, but the area's industrial past began before that. Stepping back to the Great Depression, there was the largest assembly plant on the West Coast... the Ford Motor Company Assembly Plant shown below...

The Ford Plant was used for military purposes during the War Effort and was recently turned into an events venue... someday I want to go to a party here... it is beautiful!

Before automobiles were commonplace, there was a thriving brickmaking industry along my route...

Beautiful waterfront homes across the street from the Brickworks pay homage to the area's thriving shipping history...

There is a very important history of railroad here as well. At the turn of the 19th century, it became the westernmost point in the Transcontinental Railroad...

Below is the ferry terminus... the end of the line. 

From here, people and things were ferried over to San Francisco. 

The Bay and Golden Gate Bridges made this service obsolete in the 1930's.

This whole loop is somewhere in the vicinity of 8 or 9 miles...and yes, for real, all of these things were easily photographed on my ride :) The ride was equal parts historic interest and scenic beauty AND just pretty gross junkyards and bombed-out looking warehouses. Maybe I'll show those things next time :)

And just over this bridge...

is the real ghetto.

I'm still too scared to go in there on my bike or running even though I do drive there often.

This activity in an adjacent parking lot reminded me to stay on this side of the bridge...

They did all of a sudden race over the bridge with sirens blaring... and there was a helicopter circling over head, too.

I was a little worried I'd get in trouble... or hurt... by taking this picture :P

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And if you're looking for my oblivious observations from Sunday's San Francisco Marathon, you'll want to click here.
But if adorable children and their adorable antics are your thing... definitely hit this.
And the gadget was late last week, so if you missed it and want to see it, here's your link.