Dana Point 10k Turkey Trot

4 days after the DNF at the Santa Monica Mountains 50k trail race, I was hoping my legs were good enough for a 10k race. I think this was only the 3rd time I've ran a 10k. I drove down to the expo on Wednesday. I said hi to my friends with RunRacing. I love the cotton race shirt. It was a simple, clean, and colorful design. And it was cotton, the fabric of our lives. Personally I'm tired of having so many tech shirts. We got everything in a yellow goodie bag.

Chicrunner working

Race shirt and bib

I drove down early Thanksgiving morning and rolled into Dana Point at about 5:45am. I parked in the marina parking lot. I got out to use the portapotty and noticed that it felt colder than the low 40s that was in the weather forecast. I believe it was in the high 30s. About 20 minutes before the start, I warmed up in the parking lot. I wore a singlet, my short shorts, and a pair of gloves for the race. It didn't feel too cold after warming up, but it was definitely chilly.

Goal A: sub 45:00
Goal B: sub 48:00
Goal C: sub 50:00

It felt great to run at a 7 min/mile pace. I have been doing more 5k/10k specific workouts lately and it definitely felt a lot easier to maintain the pace. The mile markers were way off, but I knew roughly how fast I was going. I ran based on my breathing. I was running for the most part around a really fit girl. She had no body fat whatsoever. She looked like she was jogging. Right before we got to the halfway mark, she took off.

5k split: 22:35, 7:16 pace

Somewhere around mile 5 I was most likely passed by Skinnyrunner. I sped up and passed her to take a look to see if it was her. I quickly developed a side stitch and she subsequently dropped me like a rock. She probably thought I really didn't want to be passed by her. :) I should've just followed her to the finish line. Instead I spent the next mile trying to work the stitch out. It was painful to breathe and running through it was not fun. Up until the stitch, I was on pace to finish at 45:xx. For the last .2, I kicked it in passing more than I was being passed.

Finish: 46:30, 7:29 pace

Well today I had a taste of the pace that I need to hold for 26.2 miles in order to qualify for Boston. My marathon maniac farewell tour is coming to an end soon and I'm really looking forward to fully recovering. Then I could start building a good base to train for my BQ. I'll certainly start volunteering more since there's no way I can keep myself away from the racing atmosphere.

Dana Point is a nice place to visit. It reminds me a lot of Carlsbad... same coast, just not as far south. I love visiting Carlsbad. The Dana Point 10k Turkey Trot definitely has my approval. They have a 5k and a 1 mile kid's run if the 10k is not your thing.

Santa Monica Mountains 50k

The weather forecast all week leading up to the race was 70% chance of rain on race day. So believing the weather-woman I packed my rain gear and drove out to La Jolla Canyon in Malibu for the race through the Santa Monica Mountains.

Driving along the PCH

I got there around 7:30am, pickup my bib, and went back to my car to get ready. The weather kept getting better and better. But I still wore the rain jacket just in case. We took a group photo a few minutes before the start of the race. The first start at 8:30am was just for the 30k and 50k.

My trail running friends

Orange Loop (La Jolla Canyon) - 1:39:23
I kept it slow from the beginning. There was a huge bottle neck early on, but I didn't mind because I just wanted to survive the 50k. It got hot really quickly wearing the rain jacket. I took it off and tied it around my waist, but it was so annoying. Eventually I tied it around my neck like I was a yuppy or wearing it as a Superman cape. I tried to make sure I didn't pass anybody. But there were a few times where runners moved aside and I was allowed to pass. I first rolled my left ankle on a muddy downhill area. I almost fell but I caught myself in time with one of my water bottles. I was able to run it off. 2 handhelds were too much for this race especially with the Powerade that I was drinking. I took my first salt tab about 1 hour in and 1 every 30 minutes. I rolled my left ankle again coming down a rocky area as I was almost to the La Jolla aid station. I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and had the volunteer water down my drink. I thought about dropping out, but the adrenaline had me heading out on the pink loop. I dropped off my jacket before heading out.

Pink Loop to Sycamore Canyon aid station - 1:21:09
Everything was manageable until I reached the downhill part on the fire road. I was very demoralized as I could barely jog the downhill. Walking the downhills was not fun. I was hit with maybe 3 drops of rain. Thanks weather-woman. At the aid station I had a peanut butter and banana sandwich and fill up one of my bottles with water. If I wasn't running, I might as well work on my biceps.

Pink Loop to La Jolla Canyon aid station - 1:31:43
I pretty much walked all of the uphills. I even stopped on the fire road for my friends to catch up. I had them go ahead of me so I could use them as rabbits. As we got to the top of Ray Miller, a group of about 5 runners were lost and found their way back. They told us that the ribbons were blown off to the wrong side of the road. I stopped to fix the ribbons. I then ran a little to catch up to my friends. From then on, I pretty much had them pace me to the La Jolla aid station. Along the way we were passed by the first place 50k finisher. And for good measure, I managed to roll my left ankle yet again when we were jogging down. I knew my day was definitely over.

DNF at 30k - 4:32:16

Humbled and hobbling into the aid station

Ultras are not for me! :/

I could've continued on and hiked the other 20k, but the ankles were shot to hell. I had a pretty good plan to survive the 50k, but I showed up in new shoes and rolled my good ankle too many times. My other trail shoes sucked and I wasn't about to run in the mud with them. I would've taken the time to break them in, but I just never thought we would be running in mud or rain. I may give ultras another try, but I'm thinking that I'd head back to running my favorite distance, the half marathon. After I train for a BQ, I'm going to give marathons a break and run shorter distances. Of course, I'll have to give my body some time to recover before I do any of that.

In this race, I learned that I can drink Powerade and skip the gels. I think for Vegas, I'll leave the handheld at home and just use the provided aid on the course along with my salt caps.

Rock n Roll San Antonio Marathon

Pre-race travel, expo, and food
I took a very early flight out of Ontario to San Antonio on Saturday. I sat next to Rafael from New York who was also running the marathon. Once I landed, I headed over to the car rental office to pick up my car. I drove over to the Alamodome to attend the expo. The instructions said to park at the Alamodome, but it was closed off. I ended up parking about 2 blocks away for $10. There was a bet on how many races I would sign up for... I signed up for 0. Sorry to disappoint. Speaking of signing up for races... I picked up my Rock Legend medal at the RnR booth. I asked one of the girls there if I get an extra discount if I show up wearing the medal at future expos. She jokingly said I should get a lifetime discount for earning that medal. Just as I was about to leave the expo, I bumped into Sam. I would see him later again at the tweetup.

The Alamodome

After leaving the expo, I started heading towards Downtown over to the Riverwalk and the Alamo. I ran into Dave, a fellow Marathon Maniac, down at the river. Weird how we keep bumping into each other. I took a couple of pictures at the Alamo. I was kind of tired so I didn't go in. It was nothing spectacular from the outside. Besides reading about it in history books, I've only remember seeing the Alamo in the movie, Cloak & Dagger. I hoofed it back to my car and drove over to my hotel.

The Riverwalk

The Alamo

On my way to the hotel, I stopped by a HEB supermarket to pick up my usual drinks and snacks. I stayed at a Red Roof Inn. A nearby street was Emil Street. I only saw the street when I was mapping out my driving routes for the weekend. I'm sure I looked odd to the drivers when I was taking the picture. The hotel was not located in a very nice area. It kind of seemed like a poor part of town.

Emil Street

I headed back out later for a tweetup at Chris Madrid's for burgers. It was touted as having the best burgers in San Antonio. The locals recommended the macho sized cheddar cheezy, but I was afraid too much cheese might screw up my GI system the next day. So I got the regular cheeseburger with sliced American cheese, fries, and a Coke. I've made a thing lately to never "super-size" any meal and to always order the small size. I met a few new tweeters, people that have been following OperationJack. Yes, the burger was good... but I still prefer a burger from Island's or a six dollar burger from Carl's Jr. I'm not a big fan of In n' Out either. To each their own.

Chris Madrid's

Regular cheeseburger with sliced American cheese & fries

Shortly after I got back from dinner, it would appear that the room next door was having a party. From the peephole, they looked like a bunch of highschoolers that chipped in for a room. But thank goodness it looked like they were only using the room for a pre-party. They were pretty tame and ended around 10pm most likely to go to the real party.

Race day
I woke up at about 3am to get ready and checked out at about 4:30am to go park at the AT&T Center. I took a quick cat nap in the parking lot before riding the bus over to the starting village. I walked over to corral 7 where I would wait for the pre-race maniac photo. I sat at the curb listening to music on my iPod. The UPS gear check trucks were parked diagonally in one of the narrowest streets in San Antonio. The street was packed to the gills with runners trying to check their bags. A few of us noticed that the sidewalks were pretty open and was able to bypass the crowd. I checked my bag and barely made it back for the maniac photo. After the photo, I hit the potty one last time and entered corral 4... the 3:40 corral.

Goal A: sub 4:30
Goal B: sub 5
Goal C: go home

1st half
I was at the front of my corral. When they released our corral, I knew I was going a bit faster than 3:40 pace. But it felt easy and I did not accelerate. I also have walk breaks built in, so everything would eventually average itself out. There were walkers and joggers that we had to pass... seriously with chip timing, WTF are you guys doing in corral 1, 2, and 3? I already feel bad starting in corral 4, but at least I can hold the pace until the halfway mark where the crowds have long thinned out. Anyways the usual ankle discomfort came at mile 8. It was hard to start back up when I took my walk break. The 3:40 pace group caught me at around mile 10. I ran with them until my next walk break right during mile 13. The right foot was not good after reaching the halfway mark at around 1:51:xx.
1: 8:09
2: 7:51
3: 7:53
4: 8:25
5: 8:18
6: 8:12
7: 8:18
8: 8:55
9: 8:47
10: 8:45
11: 8:52
12: 8:52
13: 9:20

2nd half
As usual, I went into my longer walk-jog 2nd half mode. I just wanted to see if the ankle could hold a 3:40 pace for at least the first half. I'm pretty sure I went to use the potty at miles 17, 20, 22, and 23. Muscle cramps kept creeping in and I kept drinking my Nuun water. I'm thinking that I've mixed it too thin. It tasted way better when I added an extra salt packet. The right leg was pretty useless when the ankle starts to hurt. I did a lot more real running in the last 2 miles or so just to get it over with sooner. I like the finishing chute at RnR races. They set it up so that spectators line both sides of the chute. The cheering really made me run hard even though there was a noticeable climb near the very last turn.
14: 10:22
15: 11:12
16: 12:16
17: 14:32
18: 13:36
19: 12:36
20: 14:38
21: 12:51
22: 15:56
23: 17:28
24: 13:27
25: 12:15
26: 11:32
26.2: 1:49
Finished: 4:45:08

Rock Legend!

Post race food
After I changed out of my running clothes, I took the bus back to the AT&T Center to get my car. I drove over to a McDonald's to eat something. I ordered a McRib sandwich meal. They had sweet tea. I don't think I've ever seen that at a McDonald's. I love sweet tea. I think the last time I ate a McRib was 8 years ago... probably also the last time I ate at a McDonald's.

McRib sandwich and fries

Sometimes the race is the easy part
I tried to find a gas station near the car rental area, but I couldn't find one. I ended up driving around for about 5 miles before I found a gas station. After I returned the car and hopped on the shuttle to the airport, I had thought that the hard part for the day was over. Instead it turned out that the marathon was the easy part of the day. Most of what happened in the marathon I could control, but a super long flight delay I could not control. They said it was a mechanical issue... most likely BS. I fly American Airlines enough to know that that's their standard answer for practically every delay. Instead of a 3 hour layover at DFW, I ended up missing my connection to Ontario... the last flight out to Ontario. They gave me two options: 1) stay overnight in DFW and fly out on 1st available flight next morning. 2) fly out to LAX and take a shuttle to Ontario. I went with option 2. The flight was one of the most uncomfortable ones I've had. They put me in the middle seat on the bulkhead row. There was very little leg space and I'm not that tall. Anyways, it took another hour ride in a Prime Time shuttle to get to the Ontario airport after making 2 other stops. By the time I drove home, it was a little past 2am. I could've showered and gone straight into work with no sleep... but no way! I slept and went in around lunch time. From now on, I'm only booking direct flights.

2010 Hoover Dam Marathon

I'm not really sure why I decided to run this marathon. Probably because I like the races that Calico Racing puts together. Also I love eating in Vegas. Forget the gambling... they can have my money, but in exchange I want some good food! I took Friday off from work and drove up early in the morning. I got to the Strip early enough for a breakfast buffet, so I decided to head for the Bellagio Buffet. I wasn't planning on hitting a buffet, but what the heck... poor decisions are to be made in Vegas! :) Here's what I ate with a plate by plate breakdown:

1. smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, bacon, and sausage.
2. more smoked salmon, cantaloupe, watermelon, strawberries & cream.
3. cocktail shrimp, lamb, skirt steak, St. Louis ribs, spinach salad.
4. California rolls, rainbow sushi, sliders.
   

Last plate of food. The sliders were good!

I usually eat that much over 2 days. Oh well. I headed over to my hotel and stopped at Albertson's to pick up some snacks and drinks. This time I stayed at the Hampton Inn by the airport. It was pretty nice and quiet. I always try to stay away from the Strip whenever I'm in Vegas. From my room, I got to see a constant stream of airplanes landing next block over. You can hear the planes but it wasn't noisy enough to bother me.

My strategy for this race was to run as many 9:45 - 10 min miles from start to finish. My right ankle has been bothering me more as of late. Most likely because I've been running a race for 3 consecutive weekends. Our final race instructions stated that the full marathoners were to run the half marathon loop twice. This was because parts of the full marathon course was messed up by the recent rain storms.

My soon to be retired singlet :)

Goal A: 4:30
Goal B: sub 5
Goal C: don't hurt any more body parts

1st Half
I started off just as planned. The first 2 miles was a steady climb. A little after mile 2, we ran mostly on gravel fire roads. This was actually bothering me because my gimpy ankle was not liking the uneven surface. The tunnels were fun for the most part to run through, but I was getting somewhat disoriented in a couple of the longer ones because it was pretty dark. We reached the highest point of the course around 4.5 mile. The "switch-backs" down to the Hoover Dam parking structure was a pain in the butt to run down and up. The dam was the turn around point. It was getting kind of windy as I headed back to the starting area. I completed the first loop in about 2:10.
1: 9:34
2: 9:44
3: 9:45
4: 9:57
5: 9:33
6-7: 19:21 (9:40 avg)
8: 9:52
9: 10:29
10: 10:29
11: 9:42
12: 9:46
13: 10:59

2nd Half
The ankle took a beating on the gravel trails, so I decided to start taking my usual walk breaks at every mile marker. This was working fine until I started having GI issues around mile 17. Usually I stop taking gels when this happens. I also stopped taking my salt tabs as frequently. I don't know what else to do, because I'm not going to crap my shorts. But I started cramping all over going into mile 19. I stopped at the aid station right before Hoover Dam and took about 2 more salt tabs. One of the volunteers kept trying to give me stuff to eat. But I had to refuse because my whole GI system was going nuts. I finally left the aid station after sitting for a while and started walking or hobbling down to the Hoover Dam parking structure waiting for the salt to kick in. Something was not right and I asked the next volunteer if he knew where I could find the closest portapotty. He told me to take the elevator down to the first level and use the restroom. My goodness that was the best restroom break I've taken during a race. I almost had to DNF, but the potty break and endurolyte pills were good enough to revive me. I took another salt tab and grabbed a couple more when I returned to the same aid station. As I was trying to rally and finish in one piece the Miley Cyrus song, Party in the USA, popped into my head. Hey whatever works. The tunnels on the way back in were like wind tunnels.
14: 12:41
15: 12:54
16: 12:57
17: 13:21
18: 14:43
19: 24:41
20: 25:05
21: 13:26
22: 16:04
23: 13:27
24: 13:02
25: 11:36
26: 11:58
26.2: 1:50
Finish: 5:26:57

I guess this is my power song when I'm having a crappy race :)

After I crossed the finish line, I grabbed a towel to clean the salt off of my arms and face. I went back to my car to grab my camera to take pictures of my friends. One of them finished her 91st marathon of the year!

JQ to the finish line!

Yolanda finishing up her 91st marathon of the year!

Garlic Shrimp at Ohana Hawaiian BBQ

I continued to have GI problems for pretty much the rest of the day. I'm still thinking it's the gels that I'm taking. I've got to figure this out because it's not fun to deal with during a marathon. I'm definitely going to cut out buffets the day before a race. But I really don't think it was the buffet since things didn't go south until around mile 17.

The next day I was feeling better, so I walked from the Palazzo up to the Sahara. The legs felt ok, but the lower back was very sore when I got into the car.

I should stay here one of these days

Later that evening, I returned to the Palazzo to eat at the Carnevino. The hostess asked what brought me into town. I told her I came to run the Hoover Dam Marathon. She asked me how long was the race. I told her marathons are always 26.2 miles. She said she can't even run 1 mile. They always say that! I ordered the pre-theater 3 course meal. I was eyeing the bone-in New York strip steak, but I didn't know if my stomach could handle it. I had the calamari for course number 1. Then I had the filet mignon with the giant Madagascar shrimp added a la carte for course number 2. And to finish things off I had a small lemon cheesecake for dessert. I also had a couple of Gulden Draak Ales... described by the waiter as a couple steps below syrup.

Calamari, I love it when they include the tentacles!

Filet mignon with giant Madagascar shrimp

Gulden Draak Ale

I went for a walk down the Strip to work off the beer before I drove back to my hotel. Apparently what I drank was one of the stronger beers out there. I went from casino to casino, just looking at some of the action at the craps tables. Looks like a fun game but I never took the time to learn it.

Walking the Strip after dinner