Walnut Creek Turkey Gallop

If I had to sum up the Walnut Creek Turkey Trot in one word, I know exactly what word I would choose. Cold. As usual, we both woke up and arrived on location way too early. We may have actually been the first participants there. But, on the positive side, we had no problems finding parking and the non-existent packet pick up line moved extremely quickly.

We did have to wait a few extra minutes for Kelsea, who had a surprisingly difficult time with the Scantron form, to register. Despite the time and effort, Kelsea still went down as first name - Kelsea, last name - Ks. What can I say? We engineers aren't known for our spelling.

As soon as our bibs were in hand, we ran back to the car to warm up. And there we stayed until the time came to summon up the courage to get out of the car, take a few pictures and make our way to the start.

Now usually I feel like, "the colder the better," when it comes to running. But I have changed my mind! Now I say, "the colder the better, unless it's too cold." By the time the race started my toes were completely numb. Yes, actually numb. And the running gloves that I had taken off my Amazon wish list because, "How often do I really need gloves while I'm running?" are now back on that list.

But my frost bit extremities were nothing compared to my lungs and lip. Which I'll get to later. First, let's go over the race.

Those of you who read about my pre-race anxiety know my strategy was to try and keep up with Kelsea for as long as I could. Well, after about 30 seconds I figured I had reached my max. I was full on ready to slink back into the pace group where I belonged when Kelsea turned around. And slowed down. Forcing me to continue to try and keep up with her.

After about another 30 seconds I found myself thinking, "Screw getting a good time. I need to SLOW DOWN because THIS SUCKS!" But somehow I managed to hang on and maintain my three foot lag behind Kelsea. I checked my watch at the first turn around at 1.15 miles, and it read 9 minutes and change.

I realized we were running around an 8 minute mile pace and figured I had room to slow down. It was around this time that I tried to get Kelsea to leave me behind again. She refused, telling me, "We're almost done. You can do it." Or something like that. I thought back, "Almost done?! Are you (insert choice word here) kidding me?! We're one mile into a three mile race! We're just starting!" I replied verbally by saying, "Okay." Probably because that's all I had breath for.

I figured as long as I was stuck with Kelsea I might as well make the best of it. I tried to remind myself to relax and breathe. And I have to say, for as much pain as I was in, at least I didn't sound like I was having an asthma attack. I cannot say the same for one lady running near me during the second mile. If I had had the energy I might have turned to her and said, "I know how you feel. I feel the same way."

I checked my watch the second time at mile two. It read 15:50. I must have said something to Kelsea about, "go ahead," or, "I'm dying," or some combination of the two. I can't remember exactly. I do remember her saying, "You can do anything for 8 minutes." I thought back, "Wow. How did Kelsea know we're running at an 8 minute mile pace?" I also thought, "I don't know about anything for 8 minutes. I don't know if I can run a whole other mile in 8 minutes." Instead, I replied verbally by saying, "Okay."

Towards the end of the third mile Kelsea saw the finish line. I could tell she wanted to pick up the pace, but my legs just wouldn't move any faster. I told her I would meet her at the finish, but she wouldn't stray from my side. I thought for the last time, "Dammit Kelsea! Just go ahead!"

I finally picked up my pace with about 50 feet to go. I mustered up every last bit of energy and pushed it into the finish for a (my) watch time of 24:37 and a gun time of 24:42. I came in 7th out of 128 in my age group and 134th out of 1654 overall. Needless to say, I am super excited about completely bulldozing my goals. I'm also pretty excited that I don't have to run another 5K for time for a LONG TIME.

Kelsea came in 4th in her age group (we're in different groups) by 9 seconds. Prizes went to the top three, which means I now feel especially bad for holding her back. Can you say good friend? If it weren't for Kelsea, there's no way I would have finished in the time I did. And let's not forget about Jason who actually ran this race and finished, coincidentally, in my old PR time of 28:53.

As soon as I finished I noticed two things right off the bat. My lungs hurt. My lungs actually hurt. And they didn't stop hurting for probably another hour. It also felt like I had taken a shot of Novocain to the upper lip. I could barely form the words, "I need to throw up," without slurring my speech. And I worried that I might actually be drooling. When does summer start again?

Pracing with friends and dinosaurs

I have a Turkey Trot 5K race recap to write up. But first I'm going to write about a 5K I haven't run. The Pteranodon Ptrot.

A few weeks ago I told one of my best friends from college, Elsha, that she should run a race with me. See, I have a tasty habit of trying to get everyone I know to run races with me. But I mostly figured Elsha would scoff at me the way she did every time I ran out the door in college saying, "Want to go for a run with me?"

But then a curious thing happened. Elsha caved. She agreed to run (specifically) the Pteranodon Ptrot on the condition that I travel to Grand Junction, Colorado, the town in which both Elsha and the race resides. And let me tell you what my first reaction was...

"How the hell do you pronounce Pteranodon?!" In case that was your reaction as well, it sounds kind of like tyrannosaurus rex, only replacing "saurus rex" with "dawn." Also, make sure to (mis)pronounce the "tyran" more like "teran". And so I went, with phonetic confidence, considering Elsha's proposition over the next several days.

I even told Kelsea, "Elsha has suggested I fly to Colorado to run the "Ter-an-o-dawn P-trot."

"Are you going to do it?"

"I'm considering it."
"Where is it?"
"Oh my God, the other P is silent!" Genius.

Now here's my dilemma. As much as I would love to run the Pteranodon Ptrot, I'm having trouble justifying a trip for it. I could see buying a plane ticket for a half marathon. Maybe even a 10K I've always wanted to run. But a 5K? I don't know. And if I fly out to Colorado I should see my parents, right? Only problem is they're in Denver. Not Grand Junction.

So ELSHA. After much diliberation, I have several counter offer options for you to ponder.

1) Why not just run a half marathon instead? Now before you immediately trash this idea, know that you can totally do this. I'm going to throw out two races that are almost a year away. That's plenty of time to build the endurance, and we can go as slow as you want. I've already talked about running one with Stacey next fall/winter, and she's only running 1 mile at a time now. We could have a college reunion!!

There's the Rock 'n' Roll Denver Half Marathon on 10/9/11. It's $85 if we sign up before 5/31/11. Or we could run the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon sometime in August. Early registration for the 2010 race cost $35.

2) I have always wanted to run the Bolder Boulder. It's a 10K on Memorial Day. Shorter distance, but less time to prep.

3) I will probably travel back to Denver to recruit at Mines sometime next September or October. We could run a 5K around Denver while I'm in town. I'm not sure how things will line up next year, but this year I was in town the weekend of Race for the Cure.

4) I will run the Pteranodon Ptrot if you wear a dinosaur costume like this one.

Let the bartering begin.

Slow and steady wins the race

Ay, caramba! The Oyster was HARD! I think the best way to drive that point home is to recap a few quotes from myself and my teammates (in chronological order):

• "I hope we get a good workout."
• "I think we're definitely going to get a good workout."
• "You know, I think this might actually be the equivalent of running a half marathon."
• "This is more like the equivalent of a full marathon."
• "All I care about at this point is finishing!"
• "We're definitely not going to make the cut off." "How do you know?" "Because we're already past it." "Maybe it's a fuzzy cut off...?"
• "Okay! If we account for the 20 minute late start we just might finish in under 8 hours!"

That's right. IT TOOK 8 HOURS!! Well, 7 hours, 52 minutes. But I'm pretty sure you round to the hour at that point.

The Oyster calls itself an "urban adventure" race. In a nutshell, that means you get clues, figure out where to go, go there by running or biking and do other things when you get there. Some of the things we did were:

• Took pictures with Yoda statues
• Biked across the Golden Gate bridge
• Kayaked in the ocean
• Made quacamole
• Walked a tight rope
• Ate a raw oyster
• Guessed a bunch of song artists
• Played beer pong

(Sorry about all the bullets. It's been a busy day and I have to get up early and catch a plane tomorrow morning. Needless to say, I'm trying to get myself to bed.)

Oh yeah. And in between all of that we ran 9.5 miles and biked 22 miles. Before I go on and on about how hard it was, I'll stop to say a few positive things and share some pictures.

Here we were before it all began...so naiive...

This picture was taken halfway through the first bike leg. Yesterday was the third time (exactly) that I've ridden a bike since I was 10. And I only crashed once! Ha... We ended up biking through a tunnel (for cars) with a super narrow bike path. At one point the path narrowed even further and I think I mostly just freaked out. I had a minor run in with the guard rail, and now have a bit of road rash on my arm and a bruise on my calf. I think I fared pretty well, all things considered.

This was my favorite part. At one point a seal popped its head out of the water right next to our kayak and looked around with an expression that seemed to say, "What's going on here?"

I thought about getting a picture at the end, but (quite frankly) I was too tired to pull out my camera. Instead, I'll show you a picture of all the loot I got. I got the third shirt for winning the race! Did I say race? I meant raffle.

Now back to how hard this thing was. Part of the trouble was you had to know the city. Or have a smart phone. Or, preferably, both. About 10 minutes after the race began we went and bought a map. And even though we never got too terribly lost, I would be willing to bet we weren't the most efficient team in getting from point A to B.

And the longer we were out, the more people came out. (By people I mean tourists and traffic.) The more people we had to maneuver around, the longer it took to get from point A to B. And the longer it took, the longer we were out. The longer we were out, the HOTTER it got. Allow me to be more specific. Yesterday's high was 90 degrees. Did I mention we were out for 8 hours?

And the hotter it got, the more hills there were! Okay, that isn't true. I just needed a way to incorporate the hills into my story. Just think San Francisco and you'll get the idea.

But WE DID IT. As we were biking in to the finish after the last leg I told Kelsea, "This is the feeling of accomplishment at the end of a marathon." And it was.

The ugly

P from Adventures of an Average Athlete has inspired me with this hilarious post. I'm following suit and leaving out the good and the bad.

At first glance this one might look good. But what you don't know is that I crashed in that dirt patch very shortly after this picture was taken. Oh yeah, and it was about 10 ft after the start line.


This is my standard race photo face. The face of pain. This photo was taken near the finish line, and this lady did beat me. As she should have. I decided to pace myself against her and breathed down her neck the whole race. How annoying.


And my favorite.

Eat Sleep Run

Our trip to Portland was awesome! Full of very little sight seeing and much eating* and nap taking. My kind of vacation. I also happened to bump into a sorority sister I haven't seen since college. It was a quasi planned bump. Soon after I posted my traveling plans Katie informed me that she not only lives in Portland but also happened to be signed up for the Pints to Pasta 10K. CRAZY!!!

So we caught up after the race over a cup of Ruby at the McMenamins Edgefield Brewery. That's right. We did the Pints to Pasta and then back to Pints race.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Race day started way too early as usual. We were out the door and headed to the bus stop (via Starbucks) by 6:00 am. I don't typically eat before runs and my nerves weren't interested in starting. But I've struggled some with fueling in the past and decided to force down some oatmeal anyway.

I caught one of the first shuttles to the start and had almost an hour to sit around and wait. This was good and bad. On one hand it was a tad lonely. On the other hand it gave me time to stretch and go to the bathroom twice.

The line took 20 minutes the second time through and managed to double in length while I waited. This line, in and of itself, was okay. Runners, after all, can't seem to get enough of the Port-O-Potties. What didn't work was putting half the Port-O-Potties right next to the start line. This meant that half the crowd was headed the wrong direction when the gun went off. Once I made my way through the peeers** the rest of the run was pretty uneventful.

Pints to Pasta brags that it was voted Best 10K in the Northwest for the past 6 years. Well, I can tell you why. The first mile to mile and half are downhill and the rest of it is flat. If you checked out my Personal Bests section you already know this translated to a 55:36 finish time. A few solid minutes less than my old PR and goal time of 59:00. I even felt GOOD at the end. Check it out (in the race photo I didn't purchase).

Truthfully, the course was so easy I kind of feel like I cheated. Thanks to the opening downhill I finished the first 3 miles in 26:16. I can't actually run that fast. But a few minutes of math geekery tells me I still would have finished under 57:00 if I ran the whole thing at the mile 4 to 6.2 pace. So I'm feeling pretty freakin' good about it.

Now time to work on that stubborn 5K time...

*In summary:

Park Kitchen - Nice vibe, disappointing service and food that's trying a bit too hard.

Nel Centro - Perhaps the best Italian I've had.

Cool Moon Ice Cream - Awesome. Particularly the chocolate orange sorbet.

**Yes. Peeers. As in "those who pee."

Pints to Pasta 10K

It's 11:00 pm Monday night, and we're back from Portland. I'm telling myself to go to bed and get some rest before rejoining the real world (i.e. work) tomorrow morning. Oh sadness.

A more comprehensive Portland post will follow at a later date. For now I will leave you with a spoiler. Check out the right side of the page...

Will run for chocolate and zucchini

The San Francisco marathon weekend started Saturday morning, with a haircut. Okay, so the haircut didn't have much to do with the marathon, but it did place me down around Union Square. And because it was a nice day and I wasn't planning on a run, I decided to walk the 1.5 miles to the race expo on 7th & Brannon.

It wasn't the first time I walked through those parts, but it was the first time I did it alone, and I think it will be the last. I almost re-configured my workout schedule to include a run around 7th & Market in order to get away from The Crazy running in a figure-eight-like pattern and screaming, "I NEED A DOLLAR!! PLEASE!! I JUST NEED A DOLLAR FOR BART!! I JUST GOT OUT OF COUNTY JAIL AND I NEED A DOLLAR!!!!!" I'm pretty sure by BART he meant drugs. And by jail he meant, well, he probably meant jail. (And yes, his outburst warrants all five exclamation marks.)

Fortunately, I made it to the expo unscathed and quietly slipped into one of the two lowly 5K lines. Here I learned a valuable lesson. No matter how good you feel about yourself for running a 5K, you will still feel like a poophead when surrounded by 5942 people running 8.5 times what you are. But we all have to start somewhere, right? So I scraped together my pride and took the plunge into the "expo pit".

I would compare the "expo pit" to the Arvada West High School lobby, which should paint an accurate picture for about 50% of my readership (i.e. my mom probably won't get it, but Laura should). Yay Laura! My Saturday morning also included a very lovely visit from Laura who was in town for work. That doesn't have to do with the marathon, but is important to note.

This zucchini doesn't have much to do with the marathon either, but Jason just brought it in and I cannot NOT comment on it.

But I digress...my whole reason for even mentioning the expo is to provide free advertising for One More Mile running apparel. I walked away with one running shirt...

...and a wishlist. Among my favorite slogans were:

• In my dreams, I am a Kenyan
• I'm only doing this so I can post the pictures on Facebook
• My race strategy: Start off slow, then back off

And from there I will fast forward to the race itself. As I stood shuffling my feet at the start line, silently complimenting the genius of Mark Twain ("The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco), the race official gave us the run-down (no pun intended). We were to run about 0.5 mile and turn around. About 1.5 miles into the run we were to turn around again and stick to the left. Easy business. Off we went.

I started at what felt like my typical pace. Maybe just a little bit faster. That was my plan. Mile 1-10:00 min. Mile 2-9:30 min. Mile 3.1-9:15 min. That would leave me with a few seconds to slack off and still finish under 30:00 min. So I was hoping to see 5:00 min when I checked my watch at the first turn around (0.5 mile). Instead, it said 4:00 min. What? I figured it had to have been less than 0.5 mile. I would just have to wait until the 1 mile marker to check my time.

Except for there wasn't a 1 mile maker. Or I missed it. Either way, the next check was at the second turnaround (1.5 miles), and this time my watch said 14:33 min. Okay, that made more sense. I was right on schedule. At least that's what I thought until I reached the 2 mile marker. 20:30 min. The reality of my defeat set it. I would have to run the next 1.1 miles at a pace of about 8.5 min/mile in order to finish under 30:00 min. I was already tired, and that wasn't going to happen.

So I quickly made my peace with the situation and settled on a new goal - 31:00 min. I would still have to pick up the pace a bit, but I had just been recently inspired by the 80 year old woman running in front of me. I repeat - 80 YEAR OLD woman running IN FRONT of me. No, I don't know for a fact that she was 80. But she was definitely under 5 feet tall, weighed about 90 pounds, and had a head of short, permy, white hair. The same hairstyle my Grandma, and your Grandma and every lady WHO IS 80 sports.

So I kicked it up a notch. And when the finish line was less than 100 yards away, I kicked it up another notch (as seen in the photography feat displayed below - props to Jason!).

And then a wild thing happened. Just before I crossed the finish line I looked at the clock. Not my watch. The race clock. It read 28:47 min. I'm still not sure how it happened, but I finished under 29:00 min. I beat my best 5K time.

(Note: Much to my dismay I don't know my actual finish time, and therefore don't know my new PR. My gun time was 28:53 min, but that doesn't account for the time it took me to get to the start line. I started my watch right when I crossed the start, but, of course, forgot to stop it when I crossed the finish.)