Stellar Night

At the waning of the day, the air began to cool.  It was a nice kind of cool, while the sun still hung, rich and gold on the horizon to the west.  I arrived at Elings Park early, an hour before the race.  I was unfamiliar with the park, the course and the routine.  My legs were heavy from a long 14 mile run the day before, and a spirited effort at the Cbad a few days before.  I wondered if there was much wisdom in running the Stellar Nights Trail 5K on tired legs, but a trail always beckons you.  A trail is always a good idea.

The Stellar Night Trail race series had been going on each Wednesday for over a month.  My training schedule and race preparation plans kept me from participating but I put April 10th on my calendar, thankful to partake before the final opportunity passed.

There is most definitely a uniqueness to trail running, and trail racing, and I had done very little of either here of late.  I ran a short cross-country series the previous fall and a few of those courses were challenging, off-road adventures that I never quite felt prepared for.  Then there were a few wonderful, blissful ventures out on our local trails with John over the winter-time.  Those were great ... except for the endless hills.  What is it with trails and hills around here?  When someone mentions a trail run, what registers in my mind is a 4000 foot elevation gain in 10 miles.

The Stellar nights 5K (oh, and let me be clear here, it was farther than a 5K), is what I would call a "killer" course and I mean that in both ways.  I was indeed lucky to come out the other end mostly unscathed, but it was mere luck.  There were plenty of opportunities to fall off the mountain, suffocate in the sand pits of hell, pop an ankle in a ground squirrel hole, inhale a big bug, tumble down stairs, slide off embankments of bark chips, and exactly how many sports fields did we have to traverse, because every time I thought we were done, there was another soccer field in the way.  But most everybody eventually finds their way to the finish unscathed.

I intended to run with moderate effort because I didn't have enough in me for much more than that.  Oh, and I was hoping not to paint the trail with my recently eaten salmon patty.  But I soon discovered that it is impossible to run this course with moderate effort.  It required everything.  I discovered that my Hoka's were a bit on the loose side and rounding all the hairpin turns caused some unauthorized movement inside my shoes and my feet took some kind of insane battering.  It was not a course for the faint of heart or the weak knee'ed.  What were all these kids doing out here?  Are you kidding me?  This is a grown-up course.  Or maybe the reality is that it is a kid's course - kids run for fun, grown-ups run at your own risk!  The kids are crazy and fearless - perfect for such a race.

The starting line was upon one of the sports fields (a softball field I think), and we gathered in a

crowd near there for instructions.  When it was time to start, I wasn't quite sure which way we were headed.  Have you ever gotten into an elevator and instead of facing the door like everyone else, you turn and face toward the other passengers?  Well that's how I felt when all the veterans who had run the race 5 times were facing one way and I was facing the opposite way.  Um, hm.  But I eventually figured it out and we were off.  Watch out for that big hole in the middle - the one with the garbage can on top of it.  It was a narrow area around the field so unfortunately I ran harder than I otherwise would have liked, just to get a clear position.  We headed all the way around the field until we popped out onto the roadway and headed up.  There was a lot of up, and this was just the beginning.  We followed the paved road (I should have appreciated the even ground when I had the chance) up toward a trail-head and of course went onto the trail from there.  The sun was vibrantly bright and shining directly into our eyes as we wound up in one direction, then switch-backed toward another direction, and I think we did that a few more times before finally cresting the top.

The top was my favorite part of the whole course.  It was a spine along the mountain and we followed what became a narrow single-track trail which compassionately sloped slightly downward.  The spine became treacherous though as it narrowed and descended along a down-ward switch-back pattern.  There was the incessant need to slow your pace in order to stay on the trail when you hit the turns.  My feet were in pain and I feared my knees would not make it through the next mile, and this was the "easy" part.  Down, down, down we wound, and I had trouble staying on that single-track.  Toward the bottom, where spectators had gathered to watch the suffering, I almost launched myself into the crowd like a drunken concert-goer (although I've actually never been drunk).  The trail turned but my body had a delayed reaction.  Then it was back up again, not quite to the spine and then back off the trail onto, ahhhhh, pavement.  That was loop #1.

The pavement lasted only a short while and then it was off onto more sports fields.  We first ran by the starting line, and then in cruel fashion, we ran past the finish line, around a field (softball again I think), then around another field (soccer I think) and then another field and some kind of BMX bike course.  This part was flat or slightly downhill but the footing was rough.  After the final sports field (more sports fields to come later) we came back out onto the main road, making a sharp right turn (which of course I was unprepared for so I ran way out into the road instead of turning onto the sidewalk) and down a bit until we cut into a final loop.  By now, I was fully fatigued from both the uphill effort and the downhill pounding and my legs were beginning to feel gelatinous.  I thought maybe I had one more hill in me but being that I didn't know the course, I could only hope that it was doable.  What I soon discovered is that there is a beach in Elings Park.  Why is there a beach in the middle of a trail?  It wasn't actually a beach because that implies "flat."  This was more of a dune.  Yes it was a sand dune.  At the base of the sand dune hill I thought "ok, I can get through a little sand.  As long as it doesn't swallow me, I'll be fine, and it will soon be over."  But the base of the sand dune was like the tip of the iceberg.  It was a sand hill that just wouldn't end.  If I had any energy at the moment, I would have laughed.  It was like, "just keep moving because if you don't move forward, you will surely go backward."  Backwards into the sinking sand of doom, mua ha ha ha.  And getting to the top and over the top didn't really help that much because you had to go back down the sand hill and on Jello legs that doesn't work.  My saving grace was my clown sized Hokas.  I swear those shoes were made for sand ... or snow shoeing.

I desperately looked at my watch.  Is it 3.1 miles YET?  It almost was but not quite.  Back down off that beach loop and then it was back up toward the sports fields again.  I caught up fairly even with the guy who had been running just ahead of me and I focused on what I thought must be the finishing stretch.  According to my watch, we were past 3 miles so the finish line had to be just up ahead.  He grunted out something like, "great job.  Now all we have is heartbreak hill."  Heartbreak hill?  Aren't we mostly done with hills?  And before the thought fully formed in my mind, there lay before me some sort of embankment of loose bark which was worthy of being crawled up, and above that was the "stairway to heaven."  I would rather refer to it as ankle-break hill, and not only that, but also we were running up while other runners were still running down.  Collisions were eminent.  I managed somehow to drag my body up the bark, up the stairs and back onto the nearest sports field.  Ah, this is the field around which must lie the finish line.  I picked up my pace, seeing as how I was already over 3.1 miles, and prepared to gut it out around the back of the softball field.  When I came around to where the finish line was SUPPOSED to be my every bit of strength fell flat.  There was no finish line around this softball field.  Wrong one.  They all look alike to me.  I had another one to go around before reaching it and I had totally misjudged the entire finale.  By the time I reached the actual finish line, my legs were barely functioning and I might have staggered a bit after stopping.  I'm not sure what words came out of my mouth but I don't think they were pleasant words.  You want to be always appreciative of the volunteers and organizers, but as I wrestled to rip off my race tag (I had accidentally removed it before the race, so had to pin it onto the rest of the race number) I was looking for someone to strangle.  MUST HAVE OXYGEN.  And an Americano.

And people do this race week after week.  They think it's fun.  I limped around, breathing as much as possible, reminding myself that I ain't gonna be back next week.  Yah, that's what I said after my first Camp Pendleton Mud Run, and I ended up doing at least 10 of them after that.  That's sort of what I said after giving birth to my first child, but somehow I managed to have another.  It's funny how we soon forget the pain and begin to see all the beauty in the challenging things.  It's like a cream that settles on top after the agitation stops.  That was a Stellar race on a Stellar night and as I cooled down in the warm sunset I was so glad I'd done it.  I began to wonder ... what if?  I knew the course now, what if I did it again - could I do better?  What if I gave it a go on rested legs in tighter shoes?  The Stellar Nights Trail Series gets under your skin.  I think I'm going to get a Stellar Nights tattoo.  It would say something like, "I lived to tell the story."

Thanks to Zack Bertges and Nancy Kaplan for all your work and effort in creating this event and offering such a unique opportunity to our running community.  You and your many volunteers did an exceptional job week after week and with such a great turn-out of runners, it's clear Stellar Nights is here to stay, etched into running history and a new tradition.  I'm going to be back next year and take back the part of me it claimed.

The Carlsbad 5000 in the Master Book

I'm from north San Diego County, just inland of Carlsbad and I have run the Carlsbad 5000 many times.  All of those occurred during my less competitive, family focused years and they were fun.  But that's what they were back then, fun runs.  In 2009, the year I would be able to compete in the Master's race, I opted to do the Oceanside Half Ironman Triathlon instead (which occurred the day before the CBad that year). So no Masters Carlsbad race in 2009, however my full-on competitive years came back to me and I began to train again as a serious competitor.  I eagerly looked forward to running my first Masters Carlsbad race in 2010.  But in 2010, I was injured.  So I eagerly looked forward to running my first Masters Carlsbad race in 2011.  But in 2011, I was injured.  So I early looked forward to running my first Masters Carlsbad race in 2012.  Yes, in 2012 I was injured.  I watched from the side-lines each of these years, feeling like my best Master years were torn from my hands and I didn't get the opportunity when I really wanted it.  In 2013, I finally competed in my first Masters Carlsbad race.  It is rare to be able to compete in a solo, masters female race against the very best of them.  They come from far and near to run in this iconic, historical race and to compete for a Masters prize purse that's worth the effort.

I'm 44 years old.  I was toeing the line with other over-40 women, but I couldn't help reminding myself that many of them are yet younger than me.  I set goals for myself as the race approached.  You never know how your body will react on the day and you never know how everyone else's body will react on the day.  You never know who will show up.  So I set "hopeful" goals and "satisfactory"
goals.  Either way, I was going to give it my all.

My goals were:

Hopeful:  Break 18:00 minutes
Hopeful:  Finish top 3 overall
Satisfactory:  18:20 or better
Satisfactory:  Top 10 overall

I rarely set up a big "Focused" race that I taper for and gear every bit of my training toward, but this was one for which I did these things.  I laid down a steady set of preparation races, each of which got progressively faster and felt better.  After the Agoura Hills race two weeks prior, I had a huge week of hard training and laid out full effort.  Then I followed that up with a week of gradual tapering right down into the lap of Carlsbad.  I wanted fresh legs, fresh lungs but a steady, confident mind at that starting line.

The nerves were relentless.  It had been so many years of wanting and waiting and it was a bit surreal to finally be at the CBad starting line, healthy, ready.  But I was there.  I had already witnessed the men's master race early in the morning and was inspired both by my husband's huge course and master PR of 18:39, and Rusty Snows ridiculously fast second place finish overall.  And the announcer was insistent that we were all going to set PR's today so the nerves, blood and adrenaline were flowing.

Our start was unhindered.  How refreshing to actually have a race where organizers don't let slower runners steal the best spots on the starting line.  They put space and time between the "elite" group and the rest.  I really can't remember when I've ever actually had my toe on the starting line and to be able to look forward and only see the open road.

Our race began and there was that really quick bunch that darted out, many of whom I recognized.  There was Grace Padilla, Michellie Jones, Tania Fischer, the Canadian lady from my last race, Julie Ertel, and a few others.  Wow, look at them go.  But I don't like to over run the first mile and I chose to hang back a bit.  It was an odd thing to watch that group up ahead, and the group behind me dropped back.  There I was in no man's land within the first mile, maneuvering the headwind on my own.  Even still, I made the first mile in around 5:38 (depending on if the clock was in the right spot or my watch was off).  I happened to know that once you drop down around the hairpin at Tamarack, you begin the uphill slope.  It was my expectation that some of those ahead of me would begin to slow, and that is what happened.  I felt steady in my pace and effort and although I'm sure my pace did slow a bit going back up the slope, I felt strong and I loved seeing myself close in on Grace who began to struggle on that stretch.  My second mile split was 11:39, which was just at 5:50 pace and meant I couldn't slow down.  I passed Grace and aimed for Tania and Michellie who were so close up ahead and yet so far.  In order to catch them, my pace needed to quicken.  I knew from experience that Tania goes out fast and dwindles down so I kept my glare on her.  We rounded the final hairpin and had about 1200 meters to go.  I kept the pressure on my body, and even began making odd grunting sounds.  I was really about done and having a difficult time telling my body to kick it in.

That glorious final bend onto the home-stretch was heavenly.  I passed the 3 mile clock and must have looked at it because I knew that if I were to have a chance to break 18 minutes, I needed to be at around 17:25 at that clock.  I can't recall what my 3 mile split was, but I know it occurred to me that I was missing the mark.  I tried only to focus on the blond hair ahead of me and just finish.  Over the railroad tracks, across the finish line.  And done.  I missed my hopeful goals but achieved my satisfactory goals.  I finished in 18:19, 8th overall.  I beat a few tough competitors, came in just a few seconds behind others and marveled at the top finishers.

It was relief and fun after that.  We watched some of the other races and cheered for fellow Santa Barbarians, and topped it off with the Elite Races as they went for a world record.

I am grateful that in 2013 I finally got to run in the Masters race with my friend Anita!  I had hoped for some better results but what I always really hope for is that I just do the best I can on the day and finish with no regrets.  I had no regrets!  And I plan to be back next year!

The Great Race of Agoura Hills

Here's where my mind goes in any 5K right around mile 2 - "Oh crud, I think I'm going to die.  I'm going to literally pass-out right here and now, they'll be scraping me off the pavement."  Racing on a fast course is no different.  At mile 2, the same thought creeps into my mind, as my face is turning blue from O2 debt.  Such is the pain in a 5K.  Last weekend, seeking one last build up to the CBad 5000, John and I, along with a talented handful of Santa Barbara runners, ventured south about 1 hour to race in The Great Race.  The Great Race is really a lot of great races as it features 6 different options, including a 5K (known as the Deena Kastor 5K), a 10K, two different 1/2 Marathons (Road and Trail versions), and a family fun run and kids mile!  They put together a very well organized event, with each race starting from a different location, but all culminating at one finish line at Chumash Park.  The expo is fabulous and the post-race activities are worth hanging around for.  For our race day, the weather was exceptional, as in sunny, no wind and temps in the 60's.

The Deena Kastor 5K course is considered to be PR friendly.  A "fast" course.  Let me emphasize that this in no way means it's easy.  If you want your PR you better arrive willing to work for it, dig deep and hurt.  There are a few key downhill portions but they are nicely off-set by uphill portions, making it essentially a rolling course.  The race begins on a very significant downhill (significant enough that it requires energy to hold back), and ends on a nice downhill slope.  I love reading race reports with lots of "during the race" details so I thought I'd write this race report in similar manner.

As there are thousands of participants in the events, it is important to arrive early to the venue.  We arrived at 7:30 am for our 9:00 am race and still had to park a mile away.  This works well for me though because I prefer a nice walk as a pre-warm up.  So we found our parking spot in the neighborhood of Agoura Hills, and walked with the masses toward Chumash Park for packet pick up and a look at the finish line.  We picked up and pinned our chip-timed laden race number, switched into our racing flats, checked in our bags to be baby-sat in our absence, and began our warm-up.

The 5K starting line is about 1/2 mile around the corner and up the hill so we jogged our way in that direction, along the course of other races that were already in process.  The race starting line was perched up at the peak of a hill and we jogged over the crest, down the hill, around a portion of the first mile and then made our way along the end of the course back to the park.  The air was still chilly, particularly in the shade.  I was finding it difficult to work up a sweat.  Unfortunately, because our bags and gear needed to remain locked at the finish line, and we needed to be up the hill at the starting line, we had to take off our warm clothing earlier than I would have liked and hoped to stay warm with movement.

Off we went back up to the starting line where we did our strides and drills and kept in constant motion until the "go" went off.  Thankfully they do the 5K in two waves which allows for fewer accidents at the start.  With a steep downhill start, my expectation was that too many people would be pushing forward at the start and it could be easy to be tripped.  Then also there were the speed bumps to be aware of.  But our start went off without a problem and down the hill we proceeded.  It wasn't too difficult to get into a rhythm and it seemed that most runners were making a reasonable effort to not overdo it on this first section.  Very smart.  I tucked myself in behind Rusty and Drea to help me gage my pace.  Clearly the first 400 to 600 meters were going to feel fairly easy, but soon after, the course would take a slight uphill slant and reality would ensue.

Because of that initial hill, I expected the first mile to be faster than usual and it was.  I came through the first mile in around 5:30, but at that point my pace had already headed back the other direction.  We were on a long gradual climb and the runners in front of me were beginning to thin out, most falling off the pace and dropping behind me.  There were a couple of younger looking females that I soon passed but up ahead remained Drea and another woman (the woman in orange).  Picking and using your pace at this point is important.  By running my own race I am able to gage whether those ahead of me ought to be ahead of me or whether I should be aiming to pick them off.  Drea began to pull further ahead, which was not at all a surprise, but I noticed too that the woman in orange also began to put more distance between us. 

We continued slightly up through the neighborhood and passed around a hair-pin turn which more or less marked the 1/2 way point.  Glances at my watch indicated my pace had slowed but still remained under 6 minute pace.  In my mind I focused on getting through the middle mile as I knew that the final mile had more downhill than uphill and I looked forward to that.  The second mile passed by in 5:56 which was both expected and a bit distressing.  It meant that my pace needed to pick up considerably from here on in but I felt like I was basically done, ready to pull off the course and suck in oxygen.  As we turned onto the long straight away that made up most of the final mile, we began encountering 1/2 marathon participants that were headed to the same finish line.  Thankfully they were fairly thinned out and although it required more mental energy than I had to give, it wasn't too difficult to make my way around them.  It did make it more difficult however to keep the woman in orange directly in my sight.  I had caught up to the man running ahead of me (a 5K'er not a 1/2 marathoner) and he and I competed from that point on.  We hit the sharp right turn both having to take a different line due to slower runners blocking the best path and then up the final hill we pushed.  This hill was, hmmmm, hard.  It lasted maybe 400 meters, crested and then shifted with a left hand turn into the final decent to the finish line.  I ran this hill as if the finish line was at the top waiting for me.  In doing so I was able to pull ahead of my male competitor, breaking him mentally.  He must have been focused on the length of what remained whereas I tried to forget that more remained.  I came up over the hill and more or less fell forward into the downward slope.  My mind was elsewhere looking for a happy place and my body seemed to move in a detached feeling.  A final turn onto the grass finish, with 1/2 marathoners all over the place, I gave it one last effort to the finish line. 

I have to be honest, I had hoped to finish under the 18:00 minute mark and without a finishing clock to look at, I had no idea what my time was as I approached the finish.  But as I strided toward the line I heard the announcer talk about one of the men ahead of me finishing just under 18:00 minutes, and it registered in my mind at that point, before I had crossed and checked my watch, that I didn't quite make my goal.  I ended up with an 18:06, which is my fastest true 5K ever.  Chip-timed on a USATF certified course, my watch confirmed the distance as 3.16, meaning it was very accurately measured.  I wanted to be really, really happy but I just took it for what it was.  I didn't feel elated but I felt satisfied.  My first thought was toward Drea who had finished up ahead of me.  If I ran 18:06 I knew she must have thrown down a keeper, and she did!  Way to go!  And the woman in orange whom I never caught up with, who was she?  Rumor was that she is a former Olympic triathlete from Canada.  I was impressed.  She was older than me and faster than me.  This always gives me hope that there are strong days ahead!

I had only a short time to wait for John to glide through.  His finishing time was excellent but didn't reflect the advantage of the beginning hill.  His journey down the hill was with caution and therefore he wasn't able to fully take advantage of it.  But he ran a solid race and has been consistently finishing in the low 19 minutes.

So that was The Great Race!  It was fun after the fact, painful during!  It was great preparation for what's to come.  On our journey back home we stopped along the way to "ice" our legs in the Pacific ocean.  Thankfully we remain injury free, mentally fresh and looking forward to the next race.  But first, one more hard week of training and then a taper.  Carlsbad 5000, Sunday April 7th.

Advice from the Front Runner

Steve Prefontaine had a philosophy about racing that I love.  He was a front runner in his track events because he didn't believe in sitting back on someone's heels and then stealing the race from them at the end.  He felt that if he was going to win, he needed to earn it. He ran with his heart from start to finish.  Could this be one of the reasons he is still relevant and admired?  I realize that strategy exists, especially on the track, but I have to admit:  I hate watching the best in the world running a slow race because everyone's saving it up for the last lap.  Pre had it right. 

Likewise, for me, I don't want to beat someone because they ran a bad race and I ran the same as I always do.  I don't want to win a race because the faster people didn't show.  I've always said, I'd rather run well and lose than run poorly and win.  I had one of each over the past month.

Run Poorly and Win:  After taking some time to recuperate mentally and physically in my short off-season, I came back to running with a couple of goals.  1. Do NOT get injured  2. Increase mileage and endurance above what I was doing last year   3. Get faster.  A part of accomplishing this plan was my purchase and use of the Hoka overstuffed shoes, which I raved about in the past few blogs.  These shoes feel so good to run in and I used them exclusively for 2 full months.  During this time, I ran two short races, a 4 miler and a 5K.  My fitness level is good and solid, so my expectation was to be able to run comparable to what I typically do, keeping a sub-6 minute pace while controlling the race and not let it control me.  Race #1 caught my attention when I failed to run even close to my past speeds.  I was well over a minute slower.  I felt confident that race #2 would fare much better with the additional weeks of training and speed work.  For race #2 I decided not only to train in Hokas but to also race in them.  After all, I discovered that after wearing these shoes, switching back to normally cushioned shoes was painful.  Race #2 was Roses en la Playa and I knew very well that I could and have run 18:18 or better on that course.  This was going to be a real test.  A test to see if my speed was returning; a test to see if the Hokas make good racing shoes; a test to see where I am in preparation for the race that matters.  The result:  I ran poorly but won the race.  I hated the race and I hated how I felt as I dragged my body up and down the hill.  Crossing the line as the first female yet knowing I shouldn't have is really not a good feeling.  That day, I really didn't win.  I ran 18:53, over 30 seconds slower than my previous efforts on that same course.  I felt inefficient, like I was fighting my body, fighting the ground.  And I finished shaking my head and wondering "what was going on?"

Hoka on the Left; Regular Reebok on the Right.

I made some discoveries that day and this is why we race and practice and train and know our bodies.  We have to listen to all of it and adjust.  What I discovered was that as much as I love the cushioned ride and feel of the Hokas, they were slowing sucking my running efficiency out of my legs.  The shoe does way too much of the work.  They take tremendous pressure off the calves and Achilles tendons but in doing so, they also weaken these essential tools.  My strength as a runner has always been my strong, efficient foot strike/push-off.  I am a mid to fore-foot striker naturally and therefore I use my calves and Achilles tendons a lot, which is why this tends to be my area of injury.  The Hokas were weakening my stride and I even noticed muscle atrophy in my calves, and the muscle definition was becoming blurred.  Additional evidence that this process was happening was the pain and difficulty that came every time I gave my old shoes a go.  Without the thick marshmallows doing the work, I felt all the pressure again on my body.  It was a shock and made it impossible for me to easily switch between shoes for speed work and racing. 

It took all of one second of realizing this to decide I would immediately switch back to full-time in my regular shoes.  I'm not totally forsaking the Hokas, but I am reassigning them to recovery days and extra long run days.  Once I made the switch and got through the initial soreness that ensued, I found my strong stride again.  My running began to feel more efficient again and every stride felt strong.  Best of all, I felt my body doing the work.  I felt the pressure in my calves, and the strain against my tendons.  I felt the muscles in my feet firing.  I felt the ground again.  And thus is how I have been training over the past month.

Run Well and Lose: Last weekend John and I traveled down to Newport Beach to compete in the Newport-Mesa Spirit Run 5K.  For me it was another big test.  It had to be different for me this time.  There was no reason for it not to be better, with the exception of the fact that we were going into the race fatigued from hard training.  There isn't any tapering for these lead up races so we have to factor in the possible effect.  Other than tired legs, I felt this was going to be a better experience.  I also had the opportunity to compete against a phenomenal Masters female who beat me 5 times last year.  I chased her all year but she was just a bit stronger than me every time.  Maybe this year would be different.  I planned on it being different.

The weather was cool, overcast and calm, even a few drops of rain on the starting line.  The course was neither difficult nor easy.  The first mile and a half was a gradual uphill, and the journey through the remainder was some down, some flat, some up, and many turns.  But nothing too drastic except one unfriendly hairpin.  As is always the case, my blond master adversary took off from the start running, in my opinion, too fast.  Knowing this I didn't panic nor feel like I had to go with her.  I was not planning on draining myself needlessly on the uphill portion of the race, so I economized.  I was rather more focused on how good my stride felt and how completely different I was feeling as compared to last week's race.  Although it was the toughest mile of the three, my first mile clicked off at 5:52 and I felt fine.  There she was, blond ponytail bouncing up ahead of me but I felt in control of myself.  We turned up a new street, still no reprieve from the hill and made our way around a block.  I put no mind to what place I was in because often it is hard to know.  I was running for some prize money in the masters category and unless it's obvious, to me everyone looks young.  I had no way of knowing of the few women I saw up ahead, who was over 40.  I just focused on the one ahead of me.

After our go around the block, we were into the second half of the race, and heading down a slope.  It wasn't a dramatic slope, just slight, just enough to allow a pick up in the pace or a moment of recovery.  Mile two came and went in 5:53 and I still felt in control of myself.  I was getting closer to her.  My pace stayed the same while hers had slowed.  We turned off the main road again for another loop and when we finally came back out onto the main road and she was just ahead of me.  At this point I knew I could catch her but the question was, did I want to catch her yet?  We still had three-quarters of a mile to go.  Was I ready to battle?  I decided to let my pace dictate itself regardless of who was in front of me.  I eventually caught up to her and ran on her shoulder, waiting for her to pick up the pace.  I didn't want to pass only to be passed up again.  Our course turned uphill again and we approached one more excursion off of the main road onto a short out-n-back on a side street. I pushed it, passed her and put some yards between us.  By the time I got to our side street I knew I had her.  She couldn't respond to my move and I pulled away.  Somewhere in here, the third mile clicked off in 5:55.  Once back onto the main road we had but a few meters to the finish.  There were two women just ahead of me and I watched them cross the line, and soon joined them in that heavenly place of the finishing chute.  I took a moment to pose for the photographer and shook the hands of the women ahead of me, and waiting for her to finish.  She doubled-over and then managed a handshake.  She ran a decent race, I ran a better race.  I didn't beat her because she ran poorly, I beat her because I ran well.  This time.  I'll meet her again in a few weeks.  We'll see how that goes.  I respect her because she has been at the top before and she is fierce.  Incidentally, I was the fourth overall female, and third overall master female.  Masters women took four of the top five top women's spots in the race.

This was a USATF sanctioned event and the course was certified and chip timed.  I ran 18:34 on this day.  But the extra difference is this.  On this course, my Garmin showed that we ran 3.16.  On the Roses en la Playa course, which is not accurately measured, nor certified, my watch showed 3.09.  The difference between the two courses was .07 which is around 112 meters or about 20 seconds.  Taking this into account, this weeks race was almost 40 seconds faster than the race the week before.  Running with accurate timing, on an accurate course is so important if you want to know what you are truly capable of.  I have to say that because of this I am often frustrated by approximate courses  and old school timing techniques.  The inaccuracies make a big difference to me.

So I had a better race, beat a particular opponent for the first time, got a realistic idea of where I am.  We have one more build-up 5K in Agoura Hills in a few weeks and then it's on to the Carlsbad 5000.  I'm hoping the CBad brings the best out of me.  That's really what I'm chasing.  To just be the best I am able to be.

Off-Season

A beginning and an end.  A starting point and a finishing point.  Races have a start and a finish.  You warm up into your start, and after you cross the line you get to have coffee.  Seasons have a beginning and an end.  Sport seasons, though some can be lengthy, have a beginning and an end.  An on-season and an off-season.  A time to build, taper and peak, and a time to let go and recover.  In high school, our entire track season was built around peaking at the State Championships.  Everything leading up to that was preparation.  And after the championship concluded, a period of rest awaited.  The rest was even sweeter after a State Championship trophy was hoisted.  Our high school girls track team won 4 state championships in a row (Freshman thru Senior year for me), and our girls cross-country team won 2 state championships in a row (my Junior and Senior years).  I loved the idea of a track "season" or a cross-country "season."  There was always an end in sight and as long as you knew that off-season was there, you could push through the tough part for just a little longer.  Wouldn't it be some kind of hell to have to run a race to which there was no end?

So what is it with us runners.  It occurred to me some time ago that adult/post-collegiate runners, ultra-runners, road racers, often don't have an off-season.  There isn't a time each year when road races occur and a time when they don't.  There isn't a road racing season per say, at least in Southern California.  If a runner is not careful, they may find themselves on a treadmill with no "off" button.  One race leads into preparation for the next, and the calendar fills up with options too plentiful to refuse or naviagate.  The mind, always looking forward, thinks, "I want to do it all."  No plan.  No relief.  No release.  No coffee after the race.  No off-season.

For a few years, I opted for the treadmill with no "off" button.  After a while though, my body decided to create off-seasons for me.  Only these off-seasons, thrust upon me as they were, came in increments of 8 months.  A "not my choice" off-season is not the same thing.  It was not planned and it most likely came because I was too foolish to admit that I needed an off-season on my terms.

Hopefully as a sign of growing wisdom, I planned an off-season on my own terms this year.  However, I regret to point out that I was one week short of reaching my off-season on my terms.  Instead, pushing my tired legs when I shouldn't have, an injury occurred, cutting the end of my planned season short by one race.  But, the timing was indeed almost perfect so I was able to embrace this off-season with joy, relief, allowing myself to let go mentally.  It helped too that the winter temperatures were no fun for runners, so it was easy to find my way to the gym.

I couldn't run for a bit while getting through the impinged ankle nerve (see my last blog for details), but I wouldn't have been running anyway.  Instead, I filled my time with Stairmaster, Elliptical, Swimming, weight lifting, and all of it was done without pressure.  The workouts were nice and friendly.  I didn't worry about losing fitness, though inevitably I did.  I looked at it as my off-season and I was supposed to be recovering, both physically and mentally.  It wasn't about grinding through the rotations in intervals of oxygen depletion.  It wasn't about visualizing my goals, my opponents, the race courses, feeling the drive.  It was pure, no pressure.  I needed it.  I badly needed it.  And I took it.

My off-season lasted 8 weeks.  By the time I was ready to begin building into a new season, my body was healed and my mind renewed.  It wasn't long before I began feeling fresh again.  I wasn't chronically tired and sore.  I wasn't dealing with nerves as races approached.  I put no pressure on myself.  And I was looking at a new year, as a new year.  Not as an extention of the past year.  That's one of the beauties of having an end and a beginning.

I was hungry for training again.  The cross-training and sweaty gym was ok, but I wanted to feel the ground again and to hurt.  To begin training and to be reminded of how brave and gutsy I will need to be in my upcoming endeavors.  Goals were roaming all over my brain.  Excitement. 

My good friend and running buddy Jeff, already a highly accomplished masters runner, smashed his 1/2 marathon PR (at least his PR since being a master), running 3 minutes faster than his typical, already ridiculously fast, times.  This has motivated me.  Jeff is training for Boston so he's loading on huge miles.  My body probably can't handle as much as he does, but I know that those base miles are hugely important.  As I head into my new racing season, that's my first order of business.  My runs are averaging out to be 10 miles per run and I'll keep building until I find my happy place.  Endurance is a good thing.

My other good friend and running buddy Dax recently achieved a huge running goal.  He broke 40 minutes in a 10K before his 40th birthday (he's a waning 39 year old).  Dax is an ultra-runner but he's been doing speedwork.  This has motivated me.  My next order of business is a good speed-workout.  I'm three weeks back into speed work again.  I'm not where I was when I ended last season, but I'm not so far off.  I remind myself daily that the fitness will be back, strong and bold.  Stay fresh, push through the tough parts of the workout, and keep the excitement.

I love watching master runners who keep getting faster.  It inspires me.  My sweet husband John has been training and running and his race times are on a nice downward spiral.  He's never quite satisfied because he was a very fast young runner, but when he compartmentalizes his running career into the "then" and "now," he finds hope that he can still keep going.  He races against some of the most competitive guys around.  Man ... old people are FAST!  This has motivated me.

I threw in a fun race a few weeks ago.  The Super Bowl 4 Miler.  I really never race when I'm not ready to but it was used as a marker so that I knew what I had and where I was as I began my new season.  I struggled with being disappointed that I was over a minute slower than my last race on that course (2 years prior) but I didn't come into it race ready.  I had done no speedwork and really hadn't pushed myself.  So it was all in all a nice race on Superbowl Sunday.  And I won a totally cool full sized football!!

I have one more fun race planned next week, and then I look to the Carlsbad 5000 in April.  My first serious race this year.  The season's begun.  Things are slowly building.  Challenges?  Yes.  Always challenges.  Poison oak is apparently hard to recognize during the winter.  My body was recently ravished by poison oak of which I am super allergic.  It looked as if I rolled in it.  I'll not go into the horrid details except to say that this was not the kind of pain I was hoping to put my body through in training but it was how it played out. 

Ahhhhhh.  You can't have beginnings if you don't have endings.  Thank you "off-season."  You make me feel like I'm in high school again.  Watch out - I feel another state championship coming on.

I've Got Nerve!

Last week I found myself on the torture table; on the slab of punishment; the table of terror; I was asked to endure and participate in this torture -

The journey to this point began just before Thanksgiving.  After a fairly uneventful running season which included 14 races over a 7 month period, something crept up.  Well, really is just jumped me when I was looking the other way.  Just one more race to go and then the "off-season" would bring lighter training and mental recovery, but I just needed to get that last race in.  It was our sweet Turkey Trot 4 miler and it didn't need to be the race of my life; it just needed to be a race.  A few days before the Turkey Trot, a sharp pain began to nag in the infamous right side, void of my ankle.  Surely it was nothing so I put in a few gym workouts and laid off the run until the morning of the race.  I let the warm-up dictate how I would approach the race.  If there was still pain, I'd hold back a bit; if I felt fine, I'd push it.  One mile into the warm-up things looked promising as there was not much discomfort, and bit of a relaxed spring to my stride.  However, the next half mile revealed that indeed things were not fine.  The pain increased, became sharp and stinging, undefined, radiating, moving about my ankle.  Then came the mental struggle.  What do I do?  Run the race anyway?  Was there any point at all to do that, no.  But still, surely I can push my butt and drag my leg 4 miles.  I already paid, picked up my t-shirt, pinned on the number, carefully selected the outfit.  Jordan, my 17 year old son looks at me and bravely suggests, "Mom.  You shouldn't run the race.  If you run and hurt yourself you might not ever be able to run again."  Blink blink.  Think, ponder.  I think I'll race anyway.  After stretching for a long time, trying to find the right area to focus on, I rose again to do my final preparation of strides and drills.  Five steps into the stride, my body informed me that I would NOT be doing the Turkey Trot this year.  I actually couldn't even run.  The pain was so intense, so unreasonably cruel.  Why now?  Resigned to the inevitable, I dealt with it, put it away and decided to cheer for the 900 others that were able to do the race, including my husband (whom I love to cheer for).  But the dread and disappointment was hard to shake, and it lingered.

So I was sentenced to the wretched gym workouts again, day after day.  As the air grew colder outside, I decided it wasn't such a bad thing.  I would have been doing this anyway.  It was my plan to hit the cross-training anyway.  I just didn't like the fact that it was again thrust upon me rather than being on my terms.  And there was the added lurking fear that something was really wrong and I was looking at another year of rehab'ing a stupid running injury.  How many sidelines would I be sitting on this time around?

My visits to my sports Doc increased and he did his magic, and I didn't run.  However, every week I gave it a go on the treadmill to see if things were getting better.  Every time I strode slowly on the treadmill, about 1 mile into it, the "sharp, burning, impossible to endure, non-descript" pain hit me and I rolled to a stop in frustration.  Week after week for 4 long weeks I refrained from doing anything to aggravate the area and my visits to the Doc continued.  I was beginning to get desperate and was considering that I might need an MRI.  No matter how much therapy I got and no matter how much I laid off running, it did not improve, and in fact got worse.  Whereas it was taking about a mile before the pain hit, how it came after 1/4 of a mile.

One Friday night, just before Christmas, I set aside another "trial" to see if I could run without the stabbing ice pick doing a tattoo on my ankle.  I should have known something was even more "not right" than usual because the area had become increasingly "tight" in feel, even when I walked.  But ... you know ... I needed to give it a go.  The first step hurt, with an immediate stab of pain, burning, radiating, sharp pain and a sense of something pulling inside.  I jogged on to see if it would improve as I warmed up and I tried to move my foot in different ways and land differently, but no matter what I tried, indeed it got worse.  How can this be after such a lay off and so much work to get it resolved.  I sat by the track, and dropped to the ground to stretch and to probe and try to pinpoint what hurt.  There was no area that hurt to the touch, no swelling, nothing notably tight.  After a stretch I decided I'd just push through it and jog a few laps.  No more than 10 steps later, probably fewer, in an excruciating burst of pain, something literally "popped" or pulled away, or gave way.  I couldn't tell which but when it happened I knew "something" just happened.  I assumed my Achilles ruptured but as I dragged myself back around the curve to my stretching spot, I thought about how my Achilles has not been the issue this time, so why would it rupture?  I sat down, and as the pain subsided I dug my fingers into my ankle and the tendons and muscle all around it trying to feel what just happened.  My Achilles was still fully intact and not at all sore or painful.  Still there was no swelling - that was a relief, but there was a significant radiation of pain when I pressed my toes against my hand.  I was pretty sure it was time for an MRI, but my doctor was out of town for Christmas so I didn't want to do anything until I checked with him.

In the meantime, I was sore for days but I continued to hit the gym to keep my fitness and my mind in check.  The first thing I began to notice as I emerged from this fog of soreness was that the tightness I had been feeling was gone.  Another week of cross-training in the gym passed by.  Hello stinky people, noisy equipment, stale air.  I wanted out of the gym and the more I wanted it the more I became afraid to test out my nimble, fragile leg on the treadmill.

Enter ... Hoka.  You know Hoka.  As in Hoka One One.  As in Hoka One One Bondi.  The overstuffed lightweight training shoe that is raved about by the Ultra-running community.  I don't think it's caught on that much yet with us road-runners, but I began researching the shoe.  I needed pillows to run on and if I was going to test my nimble, fragile leg on a run, I didn't want to do it in the same shoes that I was using when I incurred the injury.  So.  I read, and read, and read about the Hoka.  I read reviews, I read stats, I watched videos and I had a runner friend against whom I bounced the idea.  His reply - I am on my third pair of Hokas.  Love them.  Plain and simple.

They are not cheap shoes.  Thank you, thank you Santa Barbara Running, for donating gift certificates to the Santa Barbara Grand Prix.  Without that generous prize, these shoes might have been out of reach.

As soon as I could after Christmas, I went to SB Running and nabbed a pair of Hoka One One Bondi B Low road running model shoes.  I had to test them out on the treadmill before purchasing them of course so I was now going to once again test out my nimble, fragile leg as well.  The first few steps on the treadmill were exactly what I was hoping for.  I was running on pillows that were as light as fluffy, puffy clouds.  My foot strike sunk into the shoe and it took the impact that my foot usually takes.  The shoe flexed easily, was freakishly light, encouraged proper foot strike and was literally mind blowing.  I was so taken by the feel of the shoe that I forgot to notice that I was running and not having an ice pick hacking away at my ankle.  I'm running on the treadmill and it hardly hurts!

In hinds sight, it was determined that I had a nerve, a significant nerve, impinged in my heel/ankle.  My doctor continued to work on the tight muscles that could have been the culprit, but it was now improving since on that fateful day before Christmas when something "popped," the reality was that the nerve was finally released.  And healing began.

So, with my new Hokas in one hand and my ability to finally get out of the gym and into the fresh air to run in the other hand, my son Ryan and I hit the city college to do stadium steps.  It was the stadium steps that landed me on the slab of torture that I mentioned at the beginning of this post. 

With tight, sore hamstrings and a doctor determined to not let the nerve become impinged again, he informed me that I wasn't going to be too happy today.  You know what ART is?  He does that, he invented that.  So I endured and even participated in my own torture as I had to move my leg back and forth while he applied ... um ... pressure.  It's like purposefully keeping your hand in a flame, or repeatedly kicking your shin bone against a piece of sharp metal.  But it was magic.

For me it's hard to write about running when you can't do it.  As I write this, I am running again and feeling just fine now.  The healed and released nerve is part of the blessing, and the new shoes are the other part.  I believe that Hokas were made for me, and are made for anyone who has to spend so many miles on hard surfaces.

I'm finally able to look at the Spring and plan the races I will do.  This year will also include some triathlons so I am enjoying great bike rides with the SB tri club as part of my ongoing cross-training regimen and also am looking forward to the Carlsbad 5000 which I haven't been able to do for several years.  But this year it's going to happen.  John and I are populating our calendar with our race plans and it just feels good and right and I am not looking ahead with hesitation and having to wonder if I will be healed by then.  I am healed now.

SoCal USATF Cross-Country Grand Prix

Cross-country is not road racing.  Characterized by varying distances, often in between specific measurements, all sorts of surfaces and terrain, elevation gains and dips, run in seemingly remote locations, nature under you; over you; all around you, no worry of a PR because every race is a PR.  I took a break from the roads and did a small cross-country season and loved it.

The Southern California Association of USA Track and Field offered a sweet cross-country grand prix.  They compassionately offer prize money for the master's division and I always appreciate that.  As it turned out though, some of the toughest competition was in the master's division.

As previously reported, the first race for me in the series was a few weeks ago in Ventura, the Twilight's Last Gleaming 4 miler.  It was an awesome race featuring a long, steep climb in the first mile, the "Wall" in the 2nd mile, and an irate, dis-compassionate, unsportsman-like lunatic of a coach in the finishing mile.  That was last week's news.  The past two weeks brought a final qualifying race and a championship race.

The qualifying race was held last weekend at Will Roger's State Park in Pacific Palisades.  This spectacular park sits up in the Santa Monica Mountains and features an almost continuous view of the Pacific Ocean.  The park also possesses the only remaining polo field in LA.  When I arrived on the crisp, dry Saturday, I was first greeted by a herd of grazing deer.  No matter how many deer I see in my lifetime, I will always find them breath-taking to behold.  They paid no mind to me and I watched them buck around, drink and graze while I began my warm-up.  The air that morning was too dry, too hot and I knew that regardless of pace or effort, it was going to hurt to breath.  Dry air is a nemesis of mine and causes my bronchial tubes to rebel into spasm and chaos.  Unfortunately, this tends to begin with my first hard breath, and in this case, lasted a whole week following the race. 

I got a nice verbal course description from one of my fellow competitors.  She told me the 4.5 mile course is two loops up to Inspiration Point.  What?  Two?  Up?  Yah, so basically you go 1 mile up, 1 mile down, 1 mile up, 1 mile down, and then you drag your butt around the polo field to the finish.  See, cross-country is so cool.  It is fully unpredictable. 

The races were run by gender, so our race featured the 8 female competitors who needed this race to complete their two race requirement for the grand prix.  There were 4 open women (39 and under) and 4 master's women.  Need I say I began to worry about having to bring up the rear? 

There was no gun.  There was simply a "go."  What is it with these LA women - they have no sense of pacing.  Everyone took off like they were running a downhill mile and there's only 8 of us so you have to hang.  It's hard to run your own race in such a setting.  But it wasn't long before everyone began to slow, string out along the course in a particular order, and breath with much difficulty as the course wound up onto the first loop of the switch-backs to the top.  I settled in somewhat near two of the other master's women, but didn't keep track of anyone else.  I had no idea what place I was in, nor did it matter that much to me.  I knew a few were behind me and a few were ahead of me.  I was in pain.  Every breath hurt from the beginning and the 80'ish degree air at 8:00 am in the morning might as well have been 100 degrees in Death Valley.  The only race urge in me was to simply keep moving in forward motion hoping for the elusive "top of the hill" to come very soon.  I tried to put out of my mind the fact that this was only loop #1.  Up, up, up we strode and I may have passed someone, I'm not sure.  When we crested the top I saw a few ladies not far ahead, striding into the long, gradual downhill.  They were right there, yet they were so far away.  I had hoped the downhill would bring recovery and relief but though the pace naturally quickened, my lungs still screamed for mercy.  Dry, hot, dusty air and spasming bronchial tubes.

On the next loop, the female directly ahead of me finally gave in to the relentless climb back up and doubled over for some gasps of air.  I passed her feeling the urge to encourage her but having no strength of voice to force the words.  I could relate to the pain she must have been feeling but in my mind I reminded myself to just keep moving - once I made it to the next top, it was downhill from there.  So I journeyed on with painful breaths, saw the gap widen between me and the other "old lady" ahead of me.  Finally to the top of the second loop, I fell into the downhill with grateful loping strides but still found it difficult to push and to breath.  I did my best to let my body do most of the work using gravity instead of power.  I held my own and finally found the finish chute in 4th place.  Beaten by only one Open woman, I finished as the third master.  Old ladies rule.

My lungs were very unhappy and I struggled to breath for a while after I finished.  Each breath remained painful for the remainder of the day and into the next.  From there I suffered with a lingering sore throat while coughing to remove stuff that shouldn't be there. It was like I had this awful chest cold, only I didn't have a cold.  I just had all the symptoms. This lasted through the week and unfortunately followed me into the final championship race.

The Championship race was held this past Saturday at Kenneth Hahn Park in West LA.  This park has a reputation.  The reputation is ... gophers.  Randomly in the days before, three different people mentioned to me the issue of gopher holes at this particular location.  This park features a crater-like grass oval that can only be described as a gopher and ground squirrel's best friend and a runner's worst nightmare.  The course was of European design which meant, all grass, and was a 3 loop 6K distance.  To say that there was no fair footing to manage on this course would be an understatement.  It was fully riddled with trap-doors of collapsing tunnels, tufts of crab grass mixed with thick soggy areas, random holes and to make it all the more fun, a steep climb up a root infested hill onto a gruesome false flat.  And this was to be done three times.  It was awesome!  Like, true cross-country with the real threat of bodily harm.  John and I laughed audibly many times while warming up and trying to do strides on the opening 25 meter stretch had me almost rolling on the ground with "you gotta be kidding me" belly giggles.  The funniest thing though was listening to the other master's runners, especially the men - in fact only the men.  They were like the biggest weenies, complaining about the injuries they were sure to get.  The "I'm too old for this" cross-sectioned with "well, I'm not going to be able to do more than 10 minute pace on this junk."  "Should I keep my bi-focals on?  Can't see the contour of the ground as well with my bi-focals."  Then the guys tried to psyche themselves up.  One coach called his old guys together for a huddle and pep-talk.  "Shoot.  I didn't come to this race to get injured."  "Huh, you should have seen last year's course - it was even worse." 

So the master's men and women toed the line of this championship course while the race director, who was also running in the race, explained the course.  "The red flags are always on your Left, and the green flags are always on your Right, the blue flags just mean go straight on either side."  Wait a minute, the red flags are on the left, or right, can't remember.  No gun, just a "go."  And we were off like a limping flock of albatross trying to catch flight but unable to muster the speed.  The first thing I notice is a couple of orange cones ahead of me.  He didn't say anything about cones. Which side should I take to go around them?  That lunatic coach is watching.  Oh heck, I'll just jump over them.  Oh, is that a big hole - out of my mouth comes, "Um, I guess those were there for a reason."  But no broken ankle yet.  What is it with me and the orange cones?  Dead on, I hit the next orange cone, like I'm attracted to them or something.  Cones, I discovered, mean "hazzard".  They needed about 500 more orange cones out there.  Down the grass, around the big tree, back up the grass, arms flying all over the place, around the next bend, through the sloshy, thick, wet grass section, up the steep ground squirrel mountain, over the roots, yes, lungs burning already and it's only loop #1.  The best footing was up along the rim and we actually had the option of jumping onto the pavement up there for a short stretch.  Ah ankle and knee relief, but back onto the grass for the "if you make it down without breaking something it's a miracle" downhill portion.  From there it was through the desert of gopher holes (and this is where the tunnels will cave in under your feet so step lightly), around another tree, but make sure that green flag is to your right, um or left, can't remember.  Back up through gopher hole haven (must have been a resort area for them) around another bend and back to the start for the beginning of loop #2.

Three of those and then finally, and although it was only 23 minutes, it felt like an hour so when I say finally, I mean FINALLY, I make some sort of effort to finish strong, or at least to finish standing up.  The finish always means one thing first ... Oxygen.  They placed the medal around my neck while I was leaning forward shamelessly on my knees.  My predecessors were lying around in heaps so I know we all had a similar race.  Three seems to be my lucky number.  I was yet again third master's female.  With this concluding race being worth double points, I also secured third place in the grand prix.

Cross-country as I said, is unpredictable.  That's what makes it so fun.  I enjoyed my short little cross-country season.  It was a fitting end to a long come-back from a year of injury and to make it through these last three grueling races without re-injuring myself must be a good sign.  Challenges strengthen us.  I feel stronger.

While in West LA, John and I visited the Nike store in Santa Monica.  We saw a replica of Steve Prefontaine's track shoes made by Bill Bowerman in 1969.  It had "Pre" still visible on the heel and featured sandpaper for added traction. How cool is that.  A real piece of running history.  Oh how far our shoes have come in just a few short decades.