It's Been a While

So It's been a while.  A lot has happened this year up to now.  I ran and finished the San Francisco Marathon, and it was tough.  A 4:24 which is over my original goal of a 3:45 but the way my training got a little derailed in June I'm happy to have finished at all.  And I did run the Salinas Valley Half again, only this time it was more than five and a half minutes faster.  I was really excited to finish with a 1:42:08.  And right now I'm helping my wife train for her first half marathon in November. I'm excited to run it with her and cross the finish line together.  So as far as my goals for the year I'm right on track.  What's next for me though?  Well I've signed up for Hanford's Relay For Life.  Right now my team consist of myself, my wife, and my brother-in-law.  I'm hoping to get a few more members on my team.  My goal is to do the entire 24 hours myself.  I'd like to do at least 80 miles in those 24 hours.  So for now I'll be raising money, preparing, and training. Hopefully I'll be blogging more as well.

2010 A Year of Rebirth

 I'm happy for the things I've accomplished this year.  In January I could hardly do a mile without walking.  I've come along way. From the injuries that forced me to change my running shoe and even my running style, to the triumph of completing my first race way under my target time.  Afterwards I slacked off a bit to much and let life get in the way of running.  It happens I know but I felt guilty about it more and more.  The time I got to spend with my family was worth it though.  These running triumphs pale in comparison to seeing my daughter take her first steps or watching my wife complete her first race. I finished the year with 476.99 miles of running.  I've ran in so many places and met so many cool people along the way.  Another rewarding experience this year was handing out Finishers Medals and sweatshirts at the Fresno/Clovis Two Cities Marathon.  I was honored to be the first one to shake a good friend of mines hand after he completed his first half.  Training with my running partner Matt out in the foothills of Exeter in the crushing heat.  He almost stepped on a snake out there.  The time that I thought I was going to die running in the 110 degree heat for 6 miles.  It all prepared me for the race that seemed easy at 53 degrees.  2010 was a great year for me.

  In 2011 I have real goals to hopefully double my miles at the very least.  I'm running my first Marathon at San Francisco in July which should be fun.  Hopefully I'll have enough strength to do the Salinas Valley Half the following weekend.  My goal is to get at least 4 half marathons or longer for 2011.  I'd also like to get the family more involved with my training since it is going to take up a large portion of my time.  Hopefully I can get my wife to understand how important this is to me.  She's been really supportive in the past but this will be a whole new level of commitment.  I may have to learn to love the dreadmill to make this work as well. It's now officially 2011 here.  I need to get to work.  I want everyone that reads this blog to keep me accountable.  I need to run at least 4 days a week. I need to get my diet right. And I need to motivate those around me to lead a more active lifestyle.  So here's to 2011, may it be a great one.

The Slump

So I'm in a bit of a slump these days.  Since the race I've taken some time to relax.  Two weeks after the race I ran some 30 plus miles in one week, which was a new record for me.  Then life took over.  I had a work trip to go on and I was busy getting ready for it. Then while on the trip I only had access to a treadmill, I hate treadmill running.  Since returning home from my work trip I haven't ran once.  It's been 14 days.  I had planned to run last night but my wife asked me to stay home and hang out with her.  We hardly see each other anymore since we work different shifts and she works on the weekends on occasion.  I didn't want to pass up the opportunity of some time alone with the woman I love.  It seems like everything is getting in the way of running.  My wife and I have races coming up on the 26th.  I have a 10K, which should be pretty easy since a 10k is pretty much my everyday run, and Mary Ann has a 5K.  It'll be her first race and she's not ready for it.  We were running a few days a week together but our schedules haven't allowed it the past two weeks.  Not only that, the Jogging stroller has all the tires flat thanks to some sticker burrs puncturing the tubes.  I should be able to get them fixed tomorrow morning though.  My plan is to run the next four days straight to kick start myself.  While it is a little bit of down time for me until I start training for my next big race I don't want to loose the ground I've gained over the past six months.  Maybe with the cooler temperatures and shorter days I can get things done.  I also need to make some changes to my diet.  I've started to notice that I eat a lot of junk.  We'll wait and see how that goes.  So what's next up on my plate?  Well I've planned for the family to run the Heritage Oaks Bank Family Day and Fun Run in Paso Robles.  It consist of several different races but I'll be doing the 10K, Mary Ann is in the 5k run (her first Race), and Lilly will be doing a Diaper Dash, a 5 yard Crawl.  I'm starting her early.  I just saw that the Warrior Dash is coming to Hollister in October which sounds like a good time.  I'm thinking about joining that just for the beer.  Then I plan to start my training in October for the Pasadena Marathon taking place in February.  It'll be my first full Marathon and I'm really looking forward to it.  Hopefully I can make it with the crazy schedule I have coming up with work and the holidays and what not.  So here's to pushing out of slumps and moving on.  Time for the next step in this crazy life of running I've involved myself in.  Thanks for reading and thank you even more for your support.

The Salinas Valley Half Marathon AKA Losing My Race Virginity

So after years of being the laziest person ever, 4 Months of serious training, and one week of awfulness, I've finally done it.  I ran my first race, The Salinas Valley Half-Marathon, and loved every minute of it.  I have several different times for the race which was actually .13 miles longer than what I thought it was.  My official course time was 1:47:48 seconds.  So were should we start?  Lets start with the week leading up to the race.
    Last Saturday I did my last long distance run with the hope of doing a couple short runs throughout the week. Well, Sunday life took over.  With work and taking care of my daughter I had no time to run Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday.  Then Wednesday I had a SERIOUS stomach sickness.  I had to call off work and everything.  My wife had it as well when she got home from work that afternoon.  We sat around the house taking turns running to the bathrooms.  Thursday morning wasn't much better so we decided to go to the doctor to get checked out.  He said we had some sort of food poisoning and gave us some antibiotics and stuff.  It helped a ton and I went to work Thursday night to close out the week.  I came home and ran three miles at a very easy pace.  It was a very relaxing run as well.  I was trying to calm the nerves and just kept saying to myself "It's almost time".  It was a nice run to get the cobwebs out and loosen up before the race. Friday we slept in a bit and got everything ready for the trip and Drove to Soledad with a stop at the outlets in Gilroy.  It was a pretty good relaxing day.  We went to the Pasta Dinner in Salinas where we met up with Matt and had an excellent dinner.

I woke up early Saturday morning.  I was up at 5:40 and ready by 6:00.  My wonderful wife dropped me off at the High School were we met with Matt and got on the Bus for a trip to the starting line.  We sat around at the Soledad Mission for what seemed like forever. It was cold to me at around 50-55 degrees.  There was also a mist falling from the overcast sky wish was a little annoying to be honest.  They finally called every one to the starting line which was down the road about a tenth of a mile.  Wanting to finish under 2 hours I thought if I fell in with the 1:50-2:00 crowd I would be good.  Matt said to fall in with the 1:40-1:50 people so we did that instead.  It was a good idea too.  They got everyone together and did some speech and sang the National Anthem.  We stood around a couple more minutes and then hit the air horn and we were off.  It took me a good 6 seconds or so to reach the actual starting line from were we were stacked.  The crowded road started to thin with people passing and weaving in and out.  Matt and I ran together for about a quarter of a mile then he sped up to get around a guy and looked back to see if I was going to follow.  I just gave him a nod and left it at that.  I saw him about an hour and forty minutes at the finish line.  I wasn't going to hold him back from running his race.  The first mile was pretty much flat with a couple of turns and was mainly about loosening up and feeling my body out. My feet were numb for about the first 2.5 miles of the race from the cold. The first turn took us onto a farm road through the middle of two fields It was beat up and had tractor tire tracks all over it.  Big chunks of mud also needed to be dodged.  This road was about a mile long and led us to Foothill which is were the hills really started.  Thanks to my hills training and my knowledge of the course I was confident I could handle the hills on the course.  I was using Runkeeper on my iPhone and had all sorts of music blaring.  The race from here on out is pretty much a blur of aid stations people and fields.  Every Aid Station I ran past had tons of volunteers cheering and passing out GU, Gatorade, and Water.  I found out at the first Aid Station that drinking out of a paper cup is nearly impossible running at full speed.  I had to slow down to a fast walk for all the other water stops.  But I would quickly swig it and get back to moving.  I didn't want my legs to think they were getting a break.  I had 4 gels durning the race, 2 of my Hammers and 2 of the GUs that were being handed out.  There was one major uphill at about 6.5 miles, but it was nothing compared to Rocky Hill in Exeter.  I didn't hold back on the downhills and I'm almost positive that's the reason I'm so sore.  I hauled ass down the back side of the hills.  I was letting gravity do all the work and wasn't worried about holding myself back like I usually do.  It was race day and I didn't care if I was a little sore the next day.  I was landing so heavy and hard on the downhill that I could feel my kneecaps shaking as my foot hit the ground.  I didn't care though, I was on a roll.  I passed people.  I got passed by people. At one point I noticed some blond girl in a running skirt ahead of me.  Her ponytail was bouncing and swinging side to side.  It pissed me off.  I actually hated her hair.  I had to get around her.  I laugh about it now but I was actually mad.  It was strange.  Just past mile 12 my body did something I'd never felt it do before.  Every time I took a step and my foot landed my muscles felt like they were firing off, full of electricity.  It was a strange feeling and I loved it.  I felt it through the end of the race.  Coming up the the final turn into the winery I saw Matt standing in at the corner cheering me on, turns out he finished a full 7 minutes ahead of me.  He was waving his hat at me and yelling.  I don't know what cause I had some music blaring in my ears.  I don't remember what was playing, but I know that it made me want to run even more.  Crossing the finish like I looked up at the clock to see 1:47:48,  I stopped my RunKeeper app at 1:47:40.  Online RunKeeper says 1:47:37.  Any way you look at it I was 13 minutes under my goal of 2 hours.  I must brag on myself and say that that's a Hell of an achievement.  The Pace Calculator says that if had had ran just 13.1 miles instead of the 13.23 miles that I actually ran my time would have been 1:46:37.  Going through the little bottle neck shoot at the finish line they took my tag off my bib, put a medal around my neck, handed me a bottle of water and told me Congrats.  I felt like a champion.  It's an awesome feeling to accomplish a goal.  I shortly met up with my family and Matt who had actually been standing together at the last corner.  We took some pictures (which I need to get from my brother-in-law) and walked around the expo.  I got my goodie bag which has a great looking Finisher's shirt in it, and did some free wine tasting.  My daughter feel asleep in her stroller so my Wife and brother-in-law went and found a place to relax while Matt and I watched the first little bit of the awards.  We were blown away buy the top three 1:06:xx times.  We left and gave Matt a ride to his car at the high school.  He Followed us over to my wife's cousin's house and took a shower, then he left for his long drive back to Hanford.  The family and I relaxed a while then took a drive out to Carmel-by-the-Sea and went for a short 2 mile or so hike.  A great way to close out a lovely day.

I just saw the results for the race and I finished 90th over all and 23rd in my age/sex group.  That's top 10%.  Happy.  I'll have some pictures when I get them.  Thanks for reading and thank you for your continued support.  Also it's still not too late to donate to my charity, you can do so by clicking one of the many links on this page including the headere at the top.

RunKeeper Activity Page
Race Results Page
WWP Charity Donation Page

Last Long Run

Just as the title says I did my last long run.  That is until my race next Saturday.  I have a few short runs lined up, nothing longer than a 10K.  I ran this route tonight.  I left around 8:45 pm for my run.  I took me 1:30:07 for a pace of 8:43.  This run seemed pretty easy to be honest. I really didn't have any problems till I got to Jackson Ave (the cross run for 11th to 10th).  There is a Del Monte processing plant out there and the smells made my eyes water, my nose and throat burn, and it sucked.  I also ran through there during a shift change cause that road was way to busy for the time I ran through there.  I had to stop a little past the plant to take a leak.  It was kind of strange being in a hurry like that and all.  With a couple cars driving past I hid behind what might be the only real tree on the route.  I also lost my red blinking light somewhere on the way north.  I remember having it when I stopped but not when I checked for it.  I drove back that way trying to find it and could not.  While it clips on great to the waist band of my shorts the water belt is not thick enough for a good hold.  I might order something from Fuel Belt.  My nipples started to hurt around mile 7 which is a first for me.  My nipples never hurt.  Band Aides are going to be a must for the race.  I have a short run planned for tomorrow and a couple more next week, then it's race day.  The nerves are starting to tingle.

The Month of July

Sorry Friends, it has been a while.  July has been an adventurous month for me.  I've been onboard an aircraft carrier for work and traveled the state and ran in the foothills and a lot of other stuff.  My milage this month is lacking compared to last month.  It's a week before the race and I'm starting to get a little nervous.  I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not out to win it.  I'm out to finish it.  So lets start on the 5th of July since I haven't written to you since then.  After my long run with Matt on the Fourth I took the day off to recover and hang out with my family.  I had the day off from work as well and left for the boat on the 6th.  I'm a contractor working for a company called AECOM and my title is Aircraft Worker.  I'm not going to explain my job because I do several different things, but the over all goal is to train pilots to fly F/A-18 E&F Super Hornets.  

That's one right there.  The first 2 days aboard the ship we didn't have any jets onboard so we only "Worked" for 8 hours.  work consisted of reading Dean Karnazes book Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner on my iPhones iBook app.  It's a great read and extremely motivational.  Being on the ship is different and I'll post some pictures of it at the end of this blog.  The main thing is that I had to run on a treadmill while I was there.  I only did it twice though (shame on me).  Once we got aircraft onboard we switched to 12 hour days and we actually worked a good majority of it.  Running around a flight deck with six tiedown chains is no joke.  They weight 10 or 11 pounds each and can really take a toll on you with all the other gear you have.  My runs on the boat were boring to say the least.  The first was around five and a half and the second somewhere around 7.  I'll just say that it's really hard to watch a movie on an iPhone while running.  Moving on now to what happened upon returning home from my little trip.  

    My first run after coming home was a my usual 5 mile loop downtown which almost killed me.  It was insanely hot, 103ish if I recall, and I had just eaten a ton of food.  Hummus and Tabouli taste pretty good the second time around.  That weekend my friend Matt and I went back out to Exeter to run some hills.  We decided to do a full 13.1 that day.  I wasn't really feeling it after 5 miles I wanted to stop.  My legs hurt the hill had just kicked my butt and It was heating up.  I had to walk a lot on the way back up Rocky Hill (we did an out and back).  I hauled it on the way back down though.  I ran out of water around mile 11 and stopped to soak my shirt in a sprinkler that was spraying an orchard.  That really helped to keep me cool.  Even with all the walking I was excited to see that I'd finished under 2:15.  I'm confident now that I can complete my run near the 2 hour mark.  The hills at this corse are nothing like those in Exeter.  I took a few days off to recover from that run and only ran 8 miles the next week.  My normal 5 and then a birthday run. 

     My birthday was on the 24th and my family and I went to the Central Coast to get out of the heat. Stopped in Paso Robles because I wanted to find some TOMS shoes which I did.  It was a little b-day present to myself.  We then went to Atascadero for a little picnic and to walk around the little zoo there.  It's nothing amazing, but Lilly liked the animals there.  After that we headed out to Morro Bay on the 41 which is a drive I've always liked and I had a slice of the best pumpkin pie ever.  We took tons of pictures out on the beach which I've posted on facebook. (Click here to see birthday pictures) When we were done there we headed down to SLO to walk around and do some shopping and what not.  We made it home just after dark.  My wife was exhausted and went straight to bed but I was full of energy so I decided to go for run.  I did 2.6 miles (I turned 26) as fast as I could  I came out with a 7:07 pace which is pretty quick for me.  

    My training this week has been rather lacking.  I've had to watch my daughter everyday till it's time to go to work and then work has been kicking my butt.  See now that I'm on nights I run the radio during the flight schedule.  I'm on my feet nearly 7 hours a day now.  It keeps me active though and I'm getting used to being on my feet for long periods of time which is good if I'm going to be doing greater distances.  By Wednesday I'd had enough and went to Walmart after work and got some lights.  I got a red blinking light that I can clip onto my waist band and a hat bill light that I put on my running visor.  I was ready to go Thursday after work and ended up doing a 10k.  The lights worked great.  My contacts were a little dry so it was hard to see sometimes but the head lamp was bright and the flashing red light will blind you if you look into it.  My 10k route takes me out of town into the fields, the wind blowing through the corn is pretty creepy late at night when you're all alone.  I'm sure several people thought I was crazy.  My run time wasn't super fast but I forgot to bring water.  I think if I did have some I could have shaved a few seconds off the pace.  The weather was awesome too, a slight breeze, 75 degrees.  So this brings us up to today.  I plan on putting some miles in later tonight around sun down. I've also been looking into some other things to do.  I've gotten in touch with a old friend about cycling and he's given me a contact out here to get started.  I need to find some alternatives to running as my knees are starting to hurt a little.  I've also wanted to look into a swim coach to possibly give a Tri a shot sometime next year.  My ultimate goal though is a Marathon in 2011.  I'm thinking that the Fresno Two Cities would be good.  

The Ship USS Carl Vinson

This was taken with my iPhone and an app called Pano.  It's not perfect but you get the point.  This was the day after all the jets flew off.  

This is your standard rack and cube.  These are generally called "Coffin Racks"  it does sort of feel like you're in a coffin.  They are arranged into cubes of usually 6 racks.  They aren't comfortable as the mattress is only 4 inches thick.  Now imagine sleeping in this for 6-10 months.  

This is me with all of my gear on.  I have a cranial for head protection, it has my headset for hearing protection and googles for the eyes.  Long sleeve turtle neck is to protect the skin from the hot, hot exhaust (this really sucks in place like the Persian Gulf where it's 100+everyday), Leather Gloves are a must for chains and such. I also have a float coat on, It's a vest that will inflate itself if I somehow end up in the water.  I'm also wearing cammie pants steal toe boots.  I have 6 chains which are about 60-65 pounds total and a tool pouch thats 3 or 4 pounds.  Now run around with all of this stuff for 6+ hours in a place that's been referred to Organized Chaos.  That's my job.  A workout in itself.  

Fourth Of July: Happy Birthday America

As we celebrate the independence and the birth of our nation lets remember those that have given so much to keep it that way.  Please join me in supporting our nations finest by clicking the Proud Supporter banner at the top of the page. Thank you and have a happy and safe Independence Day.