13.1 marathon LA recap

I officially completed my 3rd marathon!

Best birthday present to myself ever!

To make the long story short, I broke 2 hours and came in with a time of 1:58:59. So for the rest of the year, I can slack off on half marathons, since I already met my resolution! :P And this was also the first race where I ran the whole time even through water stations. But now let's back up to the beginning. 

Yesterday morning, I was not feeling the race at all. I had gone to bed past midnight and didn't want to wake up at 5AM in order to make the 7:00AM start. 

So I snoozed until 5:30AM and grabbed a quick breakfast of pita bread with cheese and headed out the door. I had never had pita and cheese before a run before, but I figured it would be fine. 

When I got to Venice Beach, the whole place was packed. It was quite an experience, since I've only really done small local races before. But I liked the atmosphere and seeing all the runners. Before the race started, it wasn't quite light out yet, but I decided to wear sunglasses just in case it brightened up. The real reason was that I have never worn prescription sunglasses before, and I wanted to try them out. Probably not the best idea to try new things like a new breakfast and new glasses on race day, but it turned out okay. 

You know you're cool when you have sunglasses on even though it's dark. 

The worst part of the morning was trying to decide on a race strategy. I thought I might be able to hold a 9:15/mile pace, but I didn't know what my pacing strategy should be. So I did what I'm not supposed to do. I decided to try and hold a 9:00/mile pace for as long as possible and then positive split to a 9:30/mile or so pace later in the race. I figured, this would average out to a 9:15/mile. 

For the most part, I stuck with the plan. I did end up positive splitting when I got tired. 

I started really struggling around mile 9. I was tired and just wanted to walk. I also ended up throwing out the free GU that they were handing out at earlier miles. I don't take any energy gels during the race, but I wanted to try out clif chocolate cherry flavor after the race. That was the saddest moment of the race, when I no longer had the energy to hold on to an unnecessary item. 

Right at the end when I looking at my medal and also for a trashcan where I can throw up. 

After mile 10, I really wanted to walk for a bit. But since there was a clock by every mile marker, I knew that it was in the realm of possibility to make it under 2 hours. Whenever I wanted to quit, I reminded myself how sucky it would be to have to hold to a 8:55/mile ish pace for the first 9 miles all over again in a future attempt to come under 2 hours. 

So I just gritted my teeth and pushed on. By start of mile 12, the balls of my feet were so sore that I couldn't pick up the pace at all. In a last ditch effort, I started heel striking. I'm usually a ball striker (hee hee). But seriously I prefer to stay on the balls of my feet to prevent knee pain, but I figured a mile of heavy heel striking wouldn't hurt. 

There was a really nice downhill in the last 0.5 miles, which was awesome. So I came in under but close to 2 hours, heavily heel striking, but I remembered to raise my arms up in the air at the finish line. I also smiled and waved at all race photographers I saw. 

A brand new PR! 

In conclusion, I think I should take this as a sign that I should race every year on my birthday. Thanks for reading this super long recap. And I also loved all your good wishes on the race! Definitely helped. Have a great Monday! 

You know you're a runner . . . (Part2)

When you decide to celebrate your birthday by signing up for a relatively expensive half marathon that's held right on your birthday. 

Tons of my non running friends thought I was crazy. Now I'm starting to think maybe I was out of my mind. It was super great to sign up for it in November thinking I was going to beast training and set a super speedy PR. 

Nothing like a shiny medal to say happy birthday. Even better that it spins! 

But then Thanksgiving and finals rolled around where I did zero running. Now I'm having serious misgivings about the race. Maybe I'll end up being slower than my very first half and end up ruining the whole day with a bad race experience. 

But I'm hoping that I can at least PR even by a little bit. All I have to do is keep a faster than 9:40 pace. Easy, right? One thing that's totally great about this race is that it should be mostly flat at sea level elevation. My other races were in upstate NY and had tons of rolling hills. 

One thing that I am worried about is the heat. I know that it's crazy complaining about it being too hot in the middle of January. But I've noticed that it's actually quite hot around the time that I'd probably be starting. Hopefully, if I rein myself in from starting off too fast in the beginning, a PR is attainable despite the heat. 

Dante is totally telling me, "Please woman, you can totally PR. Stop freaking out." Or he's asking for personal space. I like to think it's the former. 

Those are my goals for the half. Hopefully, when I feel like giving up, I'll remember how I told everyone who reads my blog that I can PR. 

Now comes the main reason for this post. I wanted to get everyone's opinion about tapering. The race is this Sunday. And my last long was the weekend before last. I actually didn't run last weekend, because I didn't feel like it. Also, I could sort of feel a beginning of shin splints coming on and didn't want to chance an injury so close to the race. 

This is what i did instead of running. I tortured my dog and forced it to hang out with me. 

But now I have no idea what to do about the rest of the week. Today, I covered 4.6 miles at a relaxed pace. But now I feel like maybe I should have ran faster or longer. 

Should I squeeze in a speed workout? Should I cover 4 miles? 5 miles? Maybe 6, 7 or even 8? And what should I do on Friday and Sat? Should my last run be on Friday? Or should I rest Friday and go for a really relaxed run on Sat? Any advice would be helpful. Thanks and I hope everyone had a great start to their week!

Birthday Gift

I wish I was writing this post telling you guys that I just bought myself the best birthday gift ever. But I didn't . . . yet. For half of December and most of January, I'll be back in sunny California for winter break. That also happens to be when my birthday is. And my birthday happens to be the race day for 13.1 marathon Los Angeles. It would be awesome to be able to run a PR on my birthday.

But, the race fee is around 85 dollars including processing fee. And I still can't bear to part with 85 dollars to run the race. That's almost a new pair of running shoes. There's another race a little farther away from my home and a week earlier that's around 60 something dollars. But I really wanted to run on Venice Beach. Decisions, decisions. And even 60 something dollars seem very expensive to me.

I was totally prepared to do this on January 15th on the Venice Beach boardwalk.

True that

But I guess, now I'm not sure. I have five days to decide util race fees increase again.

Am I crazy for thinking a half marathon is an amazing way to spend my birthday? Should I shell out the bucks?