Johnny's Run Like Hell 5K Race Recap

I did it! I ran like hell and set a brand new, sparkling PR.

You can see me running across the finish line as the clock shows my time. 

My new PR for the 5K is 23:28 which is a 7:34/mile. It was good enough for me to get third place in age group out of 21! My overall place was 67/523.  And I also got a bronze third place medal. First time in my life I got anything other than a participation trophy for a sport. Did I mention that the second place girl was four seconds before me? I wish I had pushed to the front of the pack before the race, because I spent a good part of the 5K fighting to run ahead of all the slow people in front of me. I may have been rude darting in front of people whenever I saw even a small opening, but a girl's gotta do what she's gotta do in trying for a PR. But at least I placed and got a medal. This just means next time, I'll do even better. 

Unfortunately, I don't have any mile splits for you guys. After I crossed the finish line, I couldn't think. I didn't see the timing people scan me in. I just stumbled toward the water. I even forgot to stop my garmin! Then I spent the next hour or so trying not to throw up. I think it's the full bottle of water I foolishly chugged after the hardest race of my life so far. But totally worth it.

This time, my bfriend ran with me. He was able to fight the crowd better and was in front of me for a while, but when I caught up, he shouted, "Go Rena go," which really sent me off.

Here we are looking really happy before the race. Btw, the shirts we are wearing are the race shirts. It was colder than we expected and those were the only long sleeves we had. 

Here we are looking really tired after the race. The bfriend clocked in at 27:03. 

Did I mention that this was a costume race with six pack runners? I didn't realize that so many people would be dressed up, or I would have tried to find something. It was a lot of fun to watch all the runners. And the bfirend's mom was nice enough to take tons of photos with her iphone. 

This lady with the stroller was really fast. She was easily in front of me with a stroller, in costume. But then she decided to wait for her daughter. And I passed her. 

There were also a group of really fast looking guys in underwear and capes. I passed them in the last 0.5 miles. Booyah! There was also a man who tried talking to me in the last 0.5. I grimaced and panted at him. He must have thought I was a weirdo, because he didn't say anything else. 

I am coming up in the back in front of Alan from the Hangovers. He had a baby carrier with a teddy bear strapped to him. And the Fred Flitstone in front of me ran the whole thing barefoot. No vibrams or anything. Just plain old foot on asphalt. 

The green guy had his whole body covered even his eyes. The only thing he had was a hole for his mouth. I can't imagine running like that. 

There were some funny six pack runners. (Six pack is a group of six runners all connected by something running together.)

You can see the mario cart racers. And the guy in a big white  ball next to the mario carts was an egg. He was connected to five other runners in the back who were sperms. So It was a pack of sperm chasing an egg. 

Next time I do this race, I'd definitely dress up. And the best part about this whole race was that according to McMillian Running Calculator, with my 5K time, I could run an equivalent of a sub hour 50 min half marathon! I will be posting my training schedule for my birthday race soon! 

I hope everyone's weekends went well. And for everyone who raced, please share! And what really helped me mentally for this race was that I didn't look at the distance screen of the garmin. I just kept my eyes on my pace. I think if I kept on looking at my mileage, I would have lost heart. What works for you when you're trying to run fast? 

Random Things Thursday/Saturday Morning at 1:30AM

So as you can probably see, I've been playing around with the template for my blog a lot. So my random things Thursday is quite overdue.

1. Thanks to everyone who commented about the whole birthday race thing. 
So, I just did it. I registered.

I am still cringing a little thinking about the price. 

Now I will promptly try to erase the expensiveness of the race from my memory. And now there's this additional pressure to not walk and keep my pace. I better PR on my birthday after all this. And the money too.

2. What do you think about my new template?
I've been playing with the template a lot. What took a long time was that I'd find a good template that I wanted to start out with. Then, I had to edit it for hours and hours to make it fit my needs more. In retrospect, I should have taken a basic web design course during my undergrad years since it's handy. But I took the hard way and edited it . . . very painfully. One of the main reasons I chose chemical engineering was that no advance physics or programming course was required. Little did I know that Physical Chemistry is Quantum Mechanics in disguise! It was a bad year full of wave functions and particles in boxes.

3. Sort of freaking out about the 5K tomorrow
I am totally not ready. I haven't done nearly enough speed work. I'm just trying to tell myself that it's all about enjoying myself.

Wild and fun. Gotta remember that. 

4. Weird injury in my Achilles tendon area
The reason I took such a long break from running (my last run was on Monday) was that I developed this weird pain in my Achilles tendon area. I don't know why. It just started hurting one day after class. I am not sure if it's running related. It happened randomly on Wednesday so about 48 hours after my last run. Regardless, I've been resting it so I hope it feels better for the 5K.

This guy died from getting shot in the Achilles. And actually had the tendon  named after him. Troy wasn't the best movie, but very easy on the eye. 

5. I can't believe I just spent like 85 dollars in one shot!! 

It will all be worth it when I PR on my birthday. As you can see, I'm still shell shocked about the whole paying for an expensive race thing. I think part of it is that I've only been running small local races that are <$40. So now I shall go on a diet to save money. I spend so much money on snacks, it's not even funny. Cutting off snacks will make me healthier. Considering I probably spend about <$20 on sweets per week, cutting them out for like a month will pay for the race. 

And what's on you guys's thoughts? Good luck to everyone who's racing! And for the rest of you who aren't, I hope you get in a good run or two. 

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? 

How Much is Too Much?

I am a competitive person, and I like thinking of myself as a runner. Call me vain, but it feels nice to think "I'm a runner," whenever a run gets hard or I'm out there alone chugging away. And because of my competitiveness, I can never find the right middle ground. Races are often horrible (from pushing too hard), or not as fast as it could have been. For 5Ks, I usually try to give it my all. And so far for half marathons, I lose mental edge in the middle when it gets hard. Because I figure, why did I pay $40+ dollars to not have fun, so I slow down.

Definitely my problem for a half. 

Now the reason for my post. Whenever I start adding tempos and interval runs, I get the same nagging shin pain. It's not serious, but annoying and makes me wonder if I should cut back. But with school, I barely get in 20 miles a week, so I don't know where I could even cut back. And I figure that it's reasonable to have some pain and soreness with working out regularly. I guess I'm just not sure where to draw the line.

On a happier/stressful? note, I signed up for my second 5K. I signed up thinking that I would try to PR, but that thought was stressing me out last week, so I decided to shoot for a time around my last 5K's time or slightly faster. I will just give it my all and remember that I didn't do any speed intervals while training for my second half.

I WILL run like hell. And I WILL have fun with it. 

Fun fact: The race starts at a bar. And it will have six pack runners which are group of six runners all connected together somehow. If I had five more runner friends, I would have definitely been up for that.

I am excited. And I will now go contemplate whether the shin thing is too much and I should rest or not. And of course the first pic is from fb I <3 to run. Love that page!

Have a happy Monday tomorrow! And what should I do? Where do you guys draw the line when it comes to running pains?

And because everyone who runs/reads my blog is a sexy beast . . . 

Let's go eat some sexy beasts!

Random Things Thursday

1. Garmins are expensive
I had  24 hours of panic mode yesterday when the garmin refused to work after a 5 mile run. So I spent a good part of today looking at every website for a new garmin or a good timex stop watch that can lap. But magically, the garmin started working today in time for a good interval workout!
One garmin forerunner 405 costs about $200.
Forerunner 405 = 2 good pairs of shoes = about 1,000 or so miles of fun
Forerunner 405 = 3.5 moderately priced half marathons
Forerunner 405 = 8 reasonably priced 5Ks
Forerunner 405 = 100 cups of java chip frap from Starbucks.
You get the point.

2. There's a pretty tree on my way from classes that makes me want to run. 

It's a very pretty tree. And my phone did a decent job at capturing it. 

I don't know why it makes me want to run. But it does.

3. Running is good but training is even better.
When I don't have a training plan, I can't muster enough motivation to go out and run. I ran intervals today because I'm debating on signing up for a 5K next weekend.

Just think of my face instead of the cat's. Totally what I look like.

Found on google images for a lazy cat. Training rocks, because it makes me do speed workouts and while they hurt, workouts make me faster. And faster is always good.

4. I really want to run a 5K.
I am DYING to run a 5K. After two half marathons, I want to feel fast again. But since September has been a dismal month of no intervals or tempo, a fast 5K may not be possible. I want to try though.

5. I have thunder thighs.
But all the better to thunder down the course with. I've always had a body type with bigger thighs than my waist (annoying when buying pants), but lately I realized that when I look in the mirror, I appreciate them more than I used to. Especially true when I looked at my race photos from the bread run. My face was a scary grimace in the last sprint to the finish, and my legs are awesomely strong and springy looking.

Bam! Finishing strong. 

 I told you my thoughts. Your turn.What are you guys thinking about? 

Bread Run Half Marathon Recap

I finished my second half marathon! 

I don't know why I'm twisting so hard. But that was me sprinting to the finish. 

Unfortunately, I was mislead into believing that I'd get a medal for the half. Nope! I got a lapel pin with the 5k finishers. But at least my bib says half marathon. 

A photo with everyone that I know who ran the 5k. the small thing that i'm holding up is the lapel pin. 

But the race was excellent. Despite no medals. There was post race chocolate milk handed out by a pageant queen. Milk tastes better when it's handed to you by a pretty person. :) And I also got a post race massage, which ended sooner than what I needed (all afternoon). And despite it being a small race, 85 people ran the half, the organization was excellent. There were digital time displays at about four locations, and I was able to run and drink because they handed out small water bottles rather than cups. The course was also completely closed to traffic. One bad part was that because the race was so small, I was mainly alone most of the time. 

So coming in to the race, my main goal was to have fun. I would have liked to beat my time from the Oak Tree, but I had no high hopes since I barely got in one day of running per week in the days leading up to the race. But I finished at 2:07:23 which is 9:44 min/mile  and a PR by about 6 minutes. I was very surprised since the day was so hot and the race started at 10:30AM. Running 13.1 miles in the blazing sun with no shade = not so fun. 

Look at all that sun. And see my bike shorts peeking out from underneath my usual running shorts? Best idea ever! No chafing. 

Did I mention that I started off slowly than I normally do? That was frustrating but awesome. I started wishing I was dead a lot later than I did at the Oak Tree. It started getting super hard around mile 9.

Look at the girl right behind me. She was also in my age group and came in 3 seconds behind me. 

Overall, I feel awesome and can't wait to do another one. I even feel less sore than I did after the Oak Tree. Actually, yesterday, I started getting a headache (probably from exerting myself in the heat) so I took two Advila. After an hour or so, I noticed that I had no soreness in my legs. I was so happy, thinking that my foam rolling and my superior physical shape has reduced the soreness. But that night as the soreness came back, I remembered the Advil. :( One day, I will be fit enough to run a strong half and also not feel sore. 

And to help you guys have a great Monday, here's a pic from I<3 to run on facebook. It's the story of my life. 

Long Run Sunday

For some reason, I seem to always need an extra day to get used to the idea of a long run. I schedule all long runs on Saturdays. Then I make up excuses, go back to sleep, and have to do the long run Sunday. Yesterday, I planned on getting a 12 miler in the morning, then going to the apple festival to reward myself. Well, it was very cold and rainy all day, so I convinced myself that I was getting sick.

But that clearly did not stop me from going to the apple festival and getting pumpkin funnel cake and deep fried oreos. 

As a side note, I wasn't a big fan of deep fried Oreo. The Oreo gets too soggy, but the funnel cake was awesome. 

Then I got some veggies and fruits to make a balanced diet. 

I would have taken picture of my corn and hot chocolate, but it was gone too quickly.

For fruit, I chose to have caramel coated apple with white chocolate chips, m&m's and nut toppings. 

Great fueling for the long run. And it must have worked, because despite the chilliness, I logged 10 miles in 9:06/mile pace with the last two miles at my Oak Tree Half goal pace.For the Bread Run, I am just aiming for something less than 10:10/mile. It was a great confidence booster that maybe I would be able to finish the half marathon this coming weekend despite a sad lack of training. 

Oh and I finally got to try cliff shot blocks. I didn't get that magical boost in energy, but it didn't disagree with  me. A step in the right direction!

All in all, it was a great way to start October. A great run along with tons of junk food. Hopefully rest of October stays awesome. 

And just to start your October with awesomeness, here's a picture from i<3 to run on fb. I found this sacrilegious since I'm Christian, but it still made me smile. And I sort of think of it whenever I do a long run on Sundays. 

Please don't be offended.