More Running = More Baking

Remember this? The bootie buster? I am still working on it! If you have not signed up yet, you still have time. You can go to THIS website and the information is on the sidebar! It is a great way to keep track of your activities during the holidays, when we sometimes tend to slip up!

Luckily I ran a marathon in this week's set of points! December 3-9. I ate 7 servings of veggies and fruits each day. This is accomplished quite easily actually, since I have been eating 4-10 mandarins a day, as well as the fact that I always have a banana with my breakfast and a salad or veggies for dinner (and others as well)! Besides, apple pie counts as a fruit serving!

Dec 3: 2 points
One mile walk (Sacramento -- we walked to the expo and back)
7+ servings of fruit and veggie

Dec 4: 28.2 points
Marathon (26.2 miles)
One mile walk from race finish to brunch
7+ servings of fruit and veggies

Dec 5: 1 point
Rest Day! No activity.
7+ servings of fruit and veggies

Dec 6: 1 point
Rest Day. No activity.
7+ servings of fruit and veggies

Dec 7: 1 point
Rest Day. No activity.
7+ servings of fruit and veggies

Dec 8: 5 points
4 mile run
7+ servings of fruit and veggies

Dec 9: 7 points
6 mile run
7+ servings of fruit and veggies

Now, I am off to make cookies. If you put Craisins in them and eat enough of them, it will count as another serving of fruit.

Are you staying active during the holidays? What is your trick to getting exercise when it's cold outside? What is your favorite holiday treat?

California International Marathon: Race Recap

As I said before, this was a great race. The course was beautiful and although there were rolling hills, there were no incredibly steep ones. And, like the sign on my back said, this was my first marathon. But, I am getting ahead of myself.

The expo was great. As I said in my Pros and Cons post, there were plenty of things to buy, there were discounts and there were samples. It was set up well and easy to find.

The race started at 7 am. I was ready! I struggled with what to wear. I was posing in front of the mirror for hours! Just kidding, I always have problems figuring out how to not wear too much and still avoid turning into a Popsicle. It was in the 30s in the morning. I wore shorts, a t-shirt, arm sleeves, a beanie, gloves and a fleece. I opted to not leave my fleece at the sweat check because I was still cold 20 minutes before the race. I actually did not end up warming up until about mile 8, so I am glad I decided to keep it. My goal was about a 4:20, so I started between the 4:10 and the 4:25 pace groups.

Obligatory blurry camera phone photo

The first few miles were fine. I felt great. I was running at about a 9:00 - 9:15 pace. I was a little unsure whether I should slow down and try to keep my energy or just keep going at this pace and see what happened. My fastest race pace is about an 8:11, so this would not be "all out" but it was a faster pace than I had been doing my training at (more like a 9:50 for long runs). I kept it up until mile 6, when I finally had to stop to pee, even though I really did not want to because there was a line. I lost a few minutes there, but it gave me a chance to take off my sweatshirt and readjust a little.

The best thing about this race is that since I am from California (and usually NEVER run races IN California) many of my family and friend came to watch me. They made signs and wore Santa hats and shook cow bells! I felt so loved! Here is my favorite one.

My biggest fan, Mom.

The plan was that they would be at the 13.5 mile marker, then once I passed, they would get in the car and drive to the 20, then once I passed, they would go to the end. I almost missed them at the first stop. Remember the Relay I was complaining about? My family and friends were mixed in with all the relay runners and spectators. But I did get a chance to give them a high five and hand over my jacket.

But back to the race. After the pee stop at mile 6, I maintained about a 9:10 pace. I still felt great. I had to stop (again!) and wait in line (again!) but except for the stops, my pace was pretty steady. I took my first chew at mile 5 and then pretty much took one roughly every two or three miles after that. There were a few hills which kicked my butt but I really did feel good. Miles 11 - 13 kind of dragged by, because I was antsy about seeing my fans (!!) and I also had the San Juan hills to contend with. There was a nice point right around mile 10 where you run through old town Fair Oaks, which is really cute! You also have to dodge chickens.

At the Half Marathon point, my time said 2:05 (but it took me about three minutes to get over the start line). I felt good about this, since my goal was 4:20 and if I could keep up my pace, that would be easy to achieve. I actually kept up my pace until about mile 20. I passed my family again, gave them another wave and a smile and I remember thinking, "what wall?" Right around mile 21, my knee started hurting and I slowed down and I felt pretty darn tired. I had to pee again and after that, I couldn't get back up to speed. My pace was around a 9:50.

Around Mile 23, as I was struggling to keep my pace under 10 minutes, the 4:10 pace group caught up to me. I thought to myself, "I will just run with them until the end". The pace leader said, "How is your first marathon treating you!?" I told her that my knee was hurting but my spirit felt good. She told me that it would all be worth it, that you only have your first marathon once, and that when I got to the finish line, I needed to make sure I raised my hands in the air and smiled at the camera.

I am not sure why, but that was exactly what I needed to hear. I quit telling myself that I would settle for hanging with the 4:10 group, and I picked up my pace a little.  The rest of the race was run at about a 9:20 pace.

Running down L street - Mile 26

I ended up beating the 4:10 group by two minutes. And Oprah, of course. My knees were a bit stiff but I felt good overall. I took the advice of John and drank a chocolate milk and two waters in rapid succession. 

Finally earned that sticker

Capitol Mall, downtown Sacramento

Final time (still as of yet unofficial) 4:08:27
Pace overall: 9:27 (gosh darn potty stops!)
Potty stops: 4
Family and friends cheering me on: 20 +/-
My first marathon: Priceless

It was pretty good. I was pretty tired for a little while, but felt good physically and mentally overall. Will I do it again? I think so. Afterwards I walked 18 blocks (I needed to walk out the stiffness in my knee) to brunch, where I met up with my family at Cafe Bernardos and we gorged ourselves on Amaretto French Toast with Almonds. Okay, maybe it was only me.

To hear about other people's fitness journeys, stop by Jills for Fitness Friday!

Have you run a marathon? How was it? Have you ever set a crazy goal and accomplished it? What should I do next?

Ben Lomond Hike

A while ago, I went on a nice hike with some friends of mine. The peak we hiked was called Ben Lomond, which according to what maps I have seen, is somewhere around 6500 ft high. The trail is (according to the forest service website) 4.8 miles each way. I am lucky to be in a place where you can literally just step out your door and take a hike. This one was a little bit of a drive, but what's fun is that I have never tried this trail before, even though it's pretty close to the house. So it was a new adventure!

Unfortunately, there was a fire in the area about 5 years ago and so many of the trees are gone. There are a few left standing and some smaller ones have grown back, but it is strange to see the mountains looking so naked. However, the good thing* about this is that you can see all the really cool rock formations that were covered by the trees before.

*silver lining

Sometimes the trails in this area are not well maintained, but this one is set up for equestrian use, and so was pretty clear up until about mile 3 or 3.5. Then we had to bushwhack our way through some scrub brush to get past a certain area, but it was worth it. The views from the top were amazing. I will let the pictures tell the story.

Trail signage

Bear print

Does it look like this? Yup.

Looking up at the mountain. See all the cool granite boulders? And the burnt trees?

More granite. And a bit of foliage.

View from about 2/3 of the way up.

Granite awesomeness. Can you see those tiny people in the foreground (wearing purple)?

View from the top

View of the mountain from the bottom. We climbed to that very tippy top point.

The day after our hike, it snowed.

Which means that we have really good timing, because we would have been slogging around in the snow instead of just bushwhacking! I love living in a place where I can hike every day if I want to! Hiking is not only a great way to cross train, but it is probably one of my favorite activities!

Where do you like to go hiking? Have you ever hiked in the snow? Do you like rocks?

California International Marathon: Pros and Cons

First off, let me say that I did what I set out to do…I beat Oprah! Hurray! 

source

Now, let’s talk about race pros and cons. The California International Marathon, held in Sacramento, starts at Folsom Lake and ends at the Capitol Mall downtown. It is a net elevation decline; however, this does not mean that it does not have hills! In fact, according to my Garmin, the total ascent was 3600 ft. and the total descent was about 3900 ft., which pretty much matches up to the course profile. 

The course itself is a beautiful course. There is still fall foliage. It runs mostly down Fair Oaks Blvd, which is a tree lined and sometimes winding road. The weather started out in the high 30s/low 40s and got up into the high 50s/low 60s by the end of the race. The race started at 7 am and although you could not drive to the start, there were free bus shuttles from several areas nearby. You could also pay to get the bus from several hotels. If you paid, you got to sit on the bus until the start of the race; if you took the free shuttle, you had to get off and wait in the cold. 

PROS:

Plenty of port-a-potties at the start of the race. In fact, there were probably near to 300 of them. This is a huge pro for me, since I have a bladder the size of a pea, especially on race day, when I am nervous and hyper hydrated.

Plenty of aid stations (17 total). There was an aid station pretty much every one and a half miles serving both water and Ultima Replenisher. There were three places where they were handing out Gu as well (miles 13, 20 and 23). They had the Gu stations right before the water stations, so you could take your Gu and then have a nice swig of water to wash it down, which I have found is critical. I carried my own water (24 oz) because I like to have more control over when I can drink, but I would have been fine without it.

Great race swag. The t-shirt for this race was a long sleeved technical tee. It came in both women’s and men’s sizes, which is great because the men’s shirts just don’t fit me quite as well. It’s light blue (the men’s were dark blue…what the heck), which is not that exciting, but at least it’s not white.

The Expo. The expo was huge. There were tons of vendors there, both selling and giving away things. There was a lot of information about other races in the area. REI was there, giving away money (I still don’t know if I won anything…fingers crossed!) It was well organized and easy to manipulate. I did not buy anything, since I pretty much have everything I need right now, but if I needed anything, this would have been the place to get it!

CONS:

The Relay. This race was not only a marathon, but also a marathon relay. What I did not quite understand is that they don’t split up the four legs evenly; it’s 5.9, 13.1, 20 and the end. Strange. Anyway, I wish that they had this as a separate race. The areas where the relay runners had to swap over was so congested. I think there were something like 1000 teams, so hundreds of people were lined up, ready for the exchange at the transfer points. At each transfer point, there were corrals and the relay people went one way while the marathoners went another. It was just a bit confusing and was a little too much hubbub for me.

Bivvys on the course. As I mentioned before, this is a very personal con for me, since I use the bathroom a lot. I had to go 4 times during this race. Each time I waited as long as I could, because all of the port-a-potties had long lines. At each aid station there were only 4 or 5 potties, therefore making this a con in my book. I think that without the bathroom lines, I may have been able to shave 5 minutes off of my time, maybe more! Or maybe I just need to learn to pee on myself, like the pros.

Walkers. This may be of no fault of the CIM, but what is up with the people walking in front of me when I was corralled in the 4:10 – 4:25 area? Shouldn’t they have started farther back? The race start was not corralled per se. There were only signs telling you what pace should be starting here, but no actual cordoning off of people (like when I ran in NY). I am not fast enough that it really made a difference to my time, but it is still annoying that people slower than me must have started way up at the 3 hour pace mark, when they are obviously not going to finish in three hours. I admit to sometimes corralling myself in a 30 second per mile faster than I normally run, but not HOURS!

SOME STATS:

Before the race started I asked a lady at the port-a-potty line how many people had signed up. She said 25,000. I remember thinking, “Holy &^%$”. Once the race started and I had been running in a pretty thick pack of people for about 2 hours, I assumed she must have been right. The crowd barely thinned; even by the end I was still running alongside a lot of people. Afterwards, we checked online. Here are the official numbers.

Marathoners signed up: 7909

Marathoners finished: 5900 (not official)

Relay Teams signed up: 1056 (x 4 people)

Course Record: 2:10:06, Jerry Lawson, USA, 1993

This Year’s Winner: 2:11:50 Erick Monyenye, USA

All in all it was a great race. I was pretty tired at the end, but I made it. I finished. Stay tuned for the race recap on Friday!  

Have you ever been to Sacramento? What did you do this weekend?

Ashes, Ashes, We all Fall Down

Lisa started a tradition of looking back each season at what things were like when we were kids. She calls it When I Was A Child. You can see my Summer list HERE.

I love this idea, and even though I am just barely squeaking in for Fall, I am still within the limits! When I was a kid, there are specific things that we did every fall. On top of that, there are many things that when I see them, hear them or smell them, completely take me back to being a kid.

Raking Leaves: To be more specific, raking, piling them up and then jumping in them. Or sometimes just what seemed like hours of raking. 

Leaves...and a dog in my sweater.

Firewood: The bane of my existence as a kid was the wood stove. There were endless hours of chopping wood, hauling wood, splitting kindling and stoking the fire. It seemed hard for me at the time, but now I look back and realize what little I actually did. I never had to get up at 5 in the morning to start the fire at least! Thank goodness I was a kid then!

Oranges and Cinnamon: My Mom used to put orange peels and cinnamon in a pot of water on the (wood) stove (and sometimes cloves etc) and it would give off such a homey smell. I loved coming home from school to the smell of that.

Apples: I mentioned before, and you have probably noticed from the Apple a Day series, that we had trees in our backyard (and still do!) Funny enough, I remember apple pies and always was a fan of eating apples, but what I mostly remember is chucking the hard apples at my cousins in the backyard. We used to have apple fights and those things sure would leave a welt!

School: Fall meant being back in school with your friends, watching football games, drinking hot cocoa in the stands and just general good times with friends.

Soccer: Even though soccer began in the summer, the actual games were played mostly in the Fall. We were a motley crew. The first year I played was the first year our school had a girls’ team, so we had our work cut out for us. This did not stop us from having fun though!  We didn’t have funding for a bus, so we had to carpool and we sure had fun on those car rides!

The soccer girls

Footie Pajamas: I might have to buy myself an adult version of those footie PJs, because those were my favorite thing ever. Although now I can’t stand having anything on my feet, so maybe it wouldn’t go over as well. They are great for wearing around the house though!

Daylight Savings: Since I didn’t care if it was dark or not, I always LOVED to Fall Back. This somehow meant an extra hour to stay up (feels like 10 but its ONLY 9!) AND an extra hour to sleep in!! It was a double bonus in my book.

Boots: As you can see, I used to be quite stylish. However, I have taken a significant turn for the worse, style-wise, since then. 

Me with my puss and boots

Hiking: Since my parents owned their own business which was busiest in the summer, we did most of our weekend trips and vacations in the Fall and Winter. We often went hiking in the Fall, since it was still warm enough to do so.

Mt. Whitney -- 1995

Mt. Lassen -- Circa 1987

Halloween: This holiday was a big deal. I remember getting homemade cookies and popcorn balls as the candy. Also, my Dad would buy our candy from us and then we could have it back, but only one candy per day. To me, this was the ultimate set-up because, a) I don’t really like candy anyway and b) I do like money. Money over candy was my motto. Cha-ching! 

See the wood stove behind me!? Hours of firewood splitting!

What were the autumns of your childhood spent doing? Are there some things you did then that you still do now? 

A-List Monday: I

You may remember An Apple a Day Monday? Well, that is so passe now. That was November. Now it's December and we are going to do A-List Monday! This Monday's list is: Xmas List! I decided to try and make it easy and do it on Pinterest, but people must think I am strange, as I am pinning some weird things (like undies) on my wishlist board. But this way my Mom, or any of you, will know what I want and can link right to it and buy it online, easy as pie! Here are a few ideas, plus for more you can see the entire list HERE.

1. Mesh Organizer Bags: These come in several sizes. I would like to ideally have one of each size. I love anything that helps me organize my home suitcase, and these bags would be great!

Source: rei.com via Kyria on Pinterest

2. Three Oz containers and organizing bag. Again, since I travel so much, things like this are always a good thing to have. Also, I love that it also comes with it's own clear bag.

Source: eaglecreek.com via Kyria on Pinterest

3. Slippers: I was never a slipper wearer, until this year when I used them at my parent's house. I like the kind with a good sole, because I tend to go outside in them. Also, they need to be small so I can put them in my suitcase! These ones look nice and cozy.

Source: target.com via Kyria on Pinterest

4. Camera Stuff: *macro extension tubes, which make it so you can take macro photos without buying an expensive macro lens *a case so I can throw my camera in my purse without hurting it

Source: bhphotovideo.com via Kyria on Pinterest

Source: amazon.com via Kyria on Pinterest

5. Undies. I wasn't kidding about the underwear. I love these Victoria Secret undies and they are 5/$25. My favorite styles? The boyshort, the hiphugger and the bikini.

Source: victoriassecret.com via Kyria on Pinterest

6. A wrist wallet. Great for traveling or running. Fits a credit card, cash, a key.

Source: rei.com via Kyria on Pinterest

7. Amazon Gift Card. Last but not least, this = BOOKS. Some people don't like giving gift cards, but I love them, especially now that I have a Kindle! This would not go to waste!

Source: amazon.com via Kyria on Pinterest

Speaking of gifts, Jess made a Holiday Shopping Guide for the Lady Runner, where you get discounts on fun running stuff! If you are a runner or know a runner, you may want to check this out! Or for food lovers there is Andrew's 20 Gift Ideas for Healthy Foodies. I am digging the Kitchenaid Mixer and the Le Creuset French Oven, but alas, I have no place to put either one!

Do you have any of these things? What do you think about them? What is on your Christmas wish list?

California Love

Today, as you are reading this, I am probably doing this:

Source: runcim.org via Kyria on Pinterest

Actually, if I am lucky, I am doing this instead:

Source: google.com via Kyria on Pinterest

But most likely, I am doing THIS:

Source: google.com via Kyria on Pinterest

Until the race is over and I get my butt in gear to write a recap, I will leave you with a few photos of What I Did Last Week (inspired by Kim) and a few words from Dr. Dre and TuPac: California...knows how to party! 

I went to San Francisco and....

Ate chicken feet (along with a butt-load of other dim sum!)

Walked along the Marina.

Went running here. 

Danced with this guy. Yow.

Dreamed about buying one of these.

Enjoyed this view.

Went to Ocean Beach.

And the Palace of Fine Arts.

All in all, it was a great week! I ate a lot, walked a lot, visited a lot of friends and got to be in my favorite city!

How was your week? Have you ever been to San Francisco? If so, what is your favorite thing to do in the city?

Hope Endures 5k

Yesterday I ran a 5k for Ashlyn, Courtney's daughter.

My time was 26:09 or an 8:44/mi pace. It was not a PR, but it was for a good cause. You can still sign up; the race runs from December 2nd to the 6th. All you have to do is go to Courtney's site and let her know you are going to join. Then run the race and time yourself and voila, there you have it. It's not about winning. It is about change and love and hope. Which are all great reasons to run in my book!

I chose the same bib number as I will have on Sunday. Hopefully it will bring me good luck!  I ran around Lake Merritt in Oakland, which was very beautiful. The weather was warm, about 67 degrees!

It was my last run before the Marathon. It is strange to run so little in one week, but that is what taper is all about and I am not trying to reinvent the wheel. However, I feel like I should be running more. 

*******

Today I am in downtown Sacramento, picking up my packet and meeting up with family and friends for a pasta feed before the big day. I will do a more detailed post about this later in the week.

*******

All my bags are packed and I am ready to go. Oprah, watch out. I am hoping to beat you.

Have you ever run a virtual race? Have you ever been to Sacramento? Do you think I can beat Oprah tomorrow?