The Detour

We started out earlier than usual this morning not knowing how hot it was going to be and also not knowing exactly how far we were running. Based upon our last run together at Central Park on Thursday night, we weren't very hopeful. Patty had a busy schedule so she opted out of our run. However, we think she really just ditched us to run with her hubby at the beach and who would blame her. It is promising to be a scorcher all week, but the earlier start time really kept our run rather cool and shadier along the route. We decided to start our run the same as last week from Lowes and headed towards the Iron Horse Train Bridge. We figured we would adjust our route based upon how we were feeling. After we crossed the train bridge, curiosity got the better of us so we decided to check out how far the trails goes west under the 5 freeway. There were a lot of cyclist coming from that direction that we had not passed already so we began to wonder where they were coming from. As it turns out, the paved portion of the trail stops under the freeway as before, but there is a nice leveled dirt trail that actually continues next to the water treatment plant all the way along the Old Road under shady trees up to about where the Del Taco is. The view wasn't the greatest, but it was shady and the dirt was a welcomed change. We think it goes even further, but decided to head back since we had already hit 4 miles out and didn't know how much further we wanted to venture. We needed water on the way back so we decided to head to Heritage Park before heading back to Lowes. I knew we would be close to 9 miles, but it turned out to be exactly that. I don't think any of us planned on running that far, but the detour was a nice distraction that we really didn't notice the miles.

Train Bridge Trail

We finally got to run from the Iron Horse Train Bridge Trail in the direction we wanted to without climbing any fences. When we started it was so nice and cool, the perfect running weather, but I knew it wouldn't last long. By the time we were headed back down towards Peets, the weather had warmed up and we were looking for shade along the route. Shade wasn't the only thing we were looking for on the way back. When we stopped for water at the turn around, Patty realized she was missing one of the nose pieces on her Oakleys. If one looks at the pace and sees dips in the pace, it's because we were stopping at anything that looked small and black. We even came close to picking up a dead fly. Now wouldn't that be someting if Patty actually tried to stick it on her glasses? Oh the trouble we get ourselves into! Our runs are never without some adventure.

Train Bridge Run

The Train Bridge is finally re-opened, which will save us precious minutes, standing at the gate, trying to decide whether to climb the fence, and trespass to be able to run across it!! We will just have to look back fondly at all the times we squeezed through the fence, actually jumped over, and nearly fell into the ditch underneath, ran through the brush, braving the homeless, and the coyotes who live in the riverbed, and the time we tried to get Caryn to convince the city workers to let us just run around their gigantic hole in the ground:)Today was the grand re-opening of the historic bridge, and we joined the SCR's in a run that began at the bridge and continued on the trail to Copperhill, and then back to the bridge to cross over for the finish. We decided to park at Peet's and run to the start, which gave us a mile each way, then we took the trail to Decoro and back to the bridge, which we figured gave us a total of at least 7 miles! The city had a nice ribbon cutting ceremony, which we did not stay for, but instead, ran back to Peet's for Lattes and Egg McMuffins. The new trail is very nice, and will let us legally run across the bridge without risking arrest, or worse a broken hip!! Happy Father's Day to my Dad and Hubby, and yours:)

No Regrets

I absolutely dread the thought of going to the track to do intervals.  Even while doing the interval workout, I'm cursing myself and the people running it.  So why do I continue to go?  I go because I know that when the workout is over, I will never regret going.  I have never said, "I wish I didn't do intervals tonight", but when I didn't go and had no excuse for not going, I ended up regretting it.  Tonight was especially tough with the heat and of course wouldn't you know it, mile repeats. 

We started out with the usual infield warm ups and then 12x100's with easy, fresh, easy, good.  I really don't know the difference between fresh and good though. We then did 3-mile repeats with a 200 meter recovery in between.  The only thing I skipped were the 200m recoveries.  My recovery was walking over to my water bottle and catching my breath for a bit. I then finished with a couple of cool down laps.

As the school year draws to an end, I know my friends are looking forward to running in the cooler morning air. Perhaps then, they won't mind an occasional evening interval workout at the track.

Finish Line Footage

It took me a while to find video footage of us finishing.  Unfortunately, I think the guy had to change the tape soon after I finished so I think footage of Patty, Bonnie, and Caryn is MIA.  Marisol can be seen at 1:16:20 into the tape and I can be seen at 1:21:09.  Patty was about 10 minutes behind me and the tape ends at 1:30:17, which means he was busy changing the tape when the rest of the girls were finishing.  I looked on the other videos, but I couldn't find them :(

Ojai to Ocean Half Marathon

I had trouble with my Garmin in the beginning because I couldn't quite read the smaller print with my contacts on. I don't think I started the actual GPS until around mile 1. Official results are as follows: Caryn 2:15:24 Bonnie 2:12:30 Patty 2:10:07 Kwan 1:59:58 Marisol 1:55:11

Gone in a Flash

We were all very fortunate to have this Monday off to get in a morning run. It was already hot by 7 a.m. and my friends and I were glad that we were only doing a shorter run before it heats up even more. We ran 4.2 miles at just over 10 min pace, although my friends keep telling me there's something wrong with my GPS because it feels much faster. Ya right!

As we settled down for our post run coffee and C was washing up in the restroom, the rest of us suddenly felt a "flash" of heat in Starbucks and decided it was way too hot to sit inside. The warm temperature inside was made more stifling by the fact that there was a line of people standing right next to our table.  Before you know it, the three of us pick everything up and move outside.  Unfortunately, we forgot to tell C who was still in the bathroom.  I guess when she came out, she didn't quite know what happened to us or where we went.  She did eventually figure out where we went and we were comfortably sipping our coffees outside in no time.

It was a great way to start out this Memorial Day, but let us not forget why we have the day off.

Memorial Day

Tapering Down

I really thought that tapering down our miles to get race ready would feel easy. It really didn't feel easy at all. My friends said it was because of the pace we kept. I don't know, it still felt awfully slow to me. I thought our overall pace would have been under 10 minutes. At least mile 4 was under 10 min/mi and the last mile we ran under 9 min pace. I guess I keep thinking about our previous race times and think how in the world are we going to get even close to it on our upcoming race. It's really hard to guage what our real pace is because we do stop often and that slows the overall pace down too. Oh well, I'm looking forward to an easy week of running.

Round and Round We Go

I went to the SCR interval training again tonight despite the high heat and the winds. It's rather funny seeing the map on Garmin after the fact, but during the workout, all I kept thinking was "when is he going to blow that damn whistle?" The workout started out with the same 12x100 warm up, which I missed by spending too much time in the bathroom. The rest of the workout consisted of 20 intervals of 1 minute fast/good and 1 minute recovery with no stops in between. For me that amounted to about 5 miles of back and forth. I was rather happy about this because it meant no one would be waiting for me and I could continue running at my own pace, which was rather slow. As luck would have it, when the whistle was blown to run hard, I would be running into gale force winds and then the winds would be at my back during the recovery. Why couldn't it be the other way around? Patty and Caryn were supposed to run together on the trails and hopefully they had better luck with the wind.