I don’t know about you, but for me it feels like December was like a week ago and now it’s mid February. At this rate it’s going to be Halloween by next Tuesday. Maybe I should start looking at costumes. Wait, is that even an option at this point? Not going to think about it. Have I confused you yet?
Speaking of confusing our weather is all kinds of backwards right now. It’s a balmy 85 degrees on this glorious winter day. I know, rough. How ever do we Southern Californians survive? Truth be told it is pretty brutal. Not the sunny perfection, but the lack of the wet stuff. We need rain. A lot of it. Stat.
Since it feels like August, let’s talk about January, shall we?
On January 11th my sister and I attended the Bodies in Motion event hosted by Lululemon Athletica La Jolla. This fun running/yoga shindig was limited to 150 people and all money raised went to the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF). If you don’t know anything about this organization get yourself educated stat. They do great things for great people.
The day started at the entrance to Petco Park. We were told we were going to run 3 miles to a secret location where we would then participate in a 45 min yoga practice followed by a healthy happy hour. Sound fun? It was. Even in the rain (Pretty sure that was the last time we saw water fall from the sky).
We about a mile around the embarcadero and then looped back past the ballpark and ended up at
So.rad.
Nuun was on site along with Suja and The Perfect Bar. Rain be darned, we made it to awesome town in one piece.
Our mats were all laid out (hello new friends!) and we did about 30 minutes of power yoga and ended with a nice, 15 minute relaxing cool down. It was a lot of fun…even if I did accidentally kick the guy behind me in the head. Still sorry about that Ryan!
Once all was said and done the brewery was open for drinks and I believe food trucks were outside (It was announced but I never checked). My sis and I stayed around for about an hour just chatting and enjoying the moment.
Best event yet put on by Lulu in San Diego. Great way to engage in the community, sweat and raise money for a fantastic organization. I hope they do more of these in the future (hint hint North County location). I’ll be at every single one.
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The following weekend I participated in the inaugural Star Wars Rebel Challenge. It consisted of a 10k on Saturday followed by a half marathon on Sunday.
Per the usual the expo was totally out of control. The outside floor with the usual vendors was fine, nothing super awesome to report. It’s getting in to actually look at the race stuff that is impossible. Well, not totally if you are cool waiting in a 2 hour line. I’m not cool with it and there is nothing I need that bad so I skipped it. Again. So no photos. so sorry.
10K:
Course was fast and full of characters. I had decided when I got there that I was just going to run by feel and if I could PR I would go for it.
After a fun intro the race started at 5:30 a.m. sharp. As you can imagine it was dark the entire race making my Garmin useless (too lazy to try to turn the back light on).
I remember crossing the 5k mark in 22:XX and thought if I ran hard I could PR. There was a man just ahead of me and I decided to make him my rabbit.
I knew I was speeding up but I didn’t know by how much until well after the race. I crossed the finish line at 44:55, a new PR. When I looked at my splits my first 5k average was 7:22, second was 7:07. Negative split. Average pace 7:13. I like running in the dark; no watch, no pace stalking, just running.
I haven’t done a lick of speed work (don’t hurt me for saying that) so this was all guts and a darn good base. If I would just suck it up and get back to incorporating repeats I may be able to accomplish some really fast times. Maybe a goal for year 36? We shall see.
Half Marathon:
I almost didn’t run it. Actually, I tried to miss it but it didn’t work out. My husband made sure I got out of bed. Seriously, he has some kind of internal race alarm (I was thankful HERE) and there was no way he was letting me not go.
After spending the entire day at the pool post the 10k I just didn’t feel like running. I moved to the back of corral A and went out easy and kept the pace that way for all 13.1. It was awesome. The course was great (best one yet Disney, don’t change it) and the weather was perfect. The miles ticked away quickly and it overall was just a really nice run. One of those runs that make you love the sport. I crossed the finish at 1:48:30 (or close to it) and went directly to Starbucks for coffee.
I like coffee after running. Unless it’s hot outside. Then I love chocolate milk or pineapple coconut water. I’m all over the board.
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That was January. Pretty rockin’ month. I didn’t have a single PR in 2014 (deservingly so as I didn’t put in the work) so this just felt good. Like I got my mojo back. Maybe.
I made a last-minute decision to run the Cal 10/20 race this weekend. 10 miles of beauty. Can’t wait.
Haute Running Mama 