Weekend Run Fun!

This weekend was jam-packed full of running, and it was a blast!

I started the weekend off by taking a somewhat impromptu drive down to San Diego with my friend Sarah from high school who drove MY CAR (more on this later) back from Albuquerque with me last weekend, and then stayed the week.  The San Diego visit was short and sweet, but ended up being a really fun night filled with dueling pianos, an amazing Ghirardelli chocolate sundae, and some interesting foreign people at the hostel.  And how does this have anything to do with running?  I ate an entire pizza and was a pretty boring bar-mate since I would be running 20 miles the next day.  It happens.

After driving back from San Diego, I headed right back out for my first 20 mile run!  I decided a while ago I wanted to scope out the parts of the OC Marathon course I was unfamiliar with, so I ran an out-and-back of the first 10 miles (the rest is a lot of my bike route to work).  I'm so glad I did this!  The race is advertised as being downhill the first 5 miles.  I quickly learned this was not exactly the case with a few hills within the first 3 miles.  They are small hills, but still!  Other than getting to run along the coast, and overlook the ocean at Corona del Mar beach, I kind of loathe the first 3 miles of the course.  Maybe I was just in a bad mood that day :)  I did really enjoy the second 5 miles as it's all through the back bay in Newport.  I've never ran in the back bay before and I thought it was really pretty, relaxing, and it's almost completely flat!  WOOHOO!  It was hot however, which is something to remember for race day.

In general, my first 20 miler went alright.  It was successful in that I ran all 20 miles in just short of 3.5 hours (aside from a few walk breaks at the end since it was ALL up hill ;-))  But it was not successful in that I stopped A LOT (and got sunburned).  From the time I left my car, to the time I got back, it was more like 4.5-5 hours.  My legs felt tired before the run even started, and they pretty much stayed that way the whole time.  I feel like I must have stopped every 2-3 miles to either catch my breath, stare at the pretty ocean, eat some gu, drink water, stretch, refill my water, awkwardly take pictures of myself, complain on twitter, text my dad who pointed out that texting during a training run is a bad sign, go to the bathroom...you get the picture.  But in the midst of it all, I did run 20 miles and get a feel for the course, and I guess that's what matters at this point!  Next time, less stopping!

(P.S. I'm doing a pretty awesome job of keeping up with my training plan for once!  You can check out what I've done here.  Six more weeks till race day!)

Now onto the fun stuff.

Sunday morning was spent cheering on my tweeps at the LA Marathon with Sarah!  I got really excited when I found out so many people would be running, and that I would actually be around to cheer, so I made a bunch of awesome signs.  After waking up a bit late, driving a couple miles and realizing I forgot the signs (that could've been bad), and putting some air in my car tires, Sarah and I arrived a bit later than planned, found parking where we could, and ended up claiming a section of pristine sideline just before the 18 mile mark.  I got to see Colin, Nina, Danica and Billy, Ron, and Linda.  And I'm so happy that amongst a massive crowd of runners, we only failed at showing 2 people their signs! Oops.  It was so fun to finally see everyone out running one of these marathon things you always talk about!  Side note: mile 18 was probably not a great spot for me to watch when I'm about to run my first marathon.

Let the sign parade begin:

You all did GREAT and need to run more races around here so I can come cheer you on and make more signs :)  Congrats again to everyone out there yesterday...I hope to be as cool as you soon!

After the marathon, I went for a 4 mile recovery run, felt great, and finished my first 40 mile week!  Today, I am sore, and I love it.

Happy recovery runners!