Turkey Trot - 2008

I talked the whole family into doing the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot. The plan was for Sara and I to wog and for Mom, Dad, and Cabe to walk. Unfortunately, Mom's knee started acting up so she couldn't join us. But she was will us in spirit. We registered as a team, so Sara and I decided we needed a uniform. We thought orange would be unique. Not so much. Sara was very clever and added our team name to the back. (I would post a pic, but I can't find the cord for my camera.)

We got a bit of a late start, so here we are approaching the start.


After we walked over the starting pad, Sara and I took off on our wog, leaving the men in our dust. We both forgot to wear watches so we had base our intervals on exhaustion and landmarks. I would huff and puff to Sara, "ok . . . we . . . will stop . . . at the next . . . intersection." Meanwhile, we were dodging walkers and people with strollers. I know we started in the back and that the race is self seating but there were some really slow people in the way. And, I was surprised that people didn't leave room on the left for the faster people. *sigh* Okay, enough of that. We kept with our running/walking plan. Sara and I made it to the turn around an Mission street and meet up with Cabe and Dad around Jackson Street. There they go!


At about mile 2, my legs were getting pretty tired and I was slowing down. I think there were people walking faster than I was "running." The race route went off the road and on to the Guadalupe River Trail. This was the worst part of the race. The 5K people were supposed to stay in one of the lanes and the 10k runners in the other. It was very narrow. We couldn't run because the 10Kers were too fast and the 5K lane was jam packed with walkers and strollers. Part of the trail goes under the railroad trestle. Many of the 10K people were running off the paved trail and at least two people hit their heads on the trestle. (ouch!)

We finally made it off the trail and were ready to run, when I heard "Melissa!" from behind me. And, there was Molly and the fluffy dogs cheering us on. We stopped to say and "hi" and then in true "helper" form she told us, "keep going!" (or, something like that) My legs were still pretty tired and I was basically running one block and walking one block. The route went by the old Stockton Warehouse :-P. We were getting towards the end. I ran the block on Stockton from Julian to Santa Clara. Then, we walked until we got to Autumn. We were at the final push. Sara and I ran from Autumn to the finish line, it hurt, but we made it! Sara's time: 52:27, My time: 53:00. Not bad for my first "running" event.

No, pic of Sara and finishing. But this is when were creeping towards the start.


And, here come the men! They finished in 1:01:51.


It was a great morning and I was very proud of all of us! A great way to start a wonderful Turkey Day.

bad blogger

Where have I been? Sick. And, somewhat annoyed. First, I had a cold which got better after a week, but slowed down the running workouts. Then, I had a very uncomfortable tummy. Now that my tummy is better my cold has returned in the form of a nice deep cough.

Sigh. Well, I guess its better to be sick now in the off-season then when I've trained for and spent money on triathlons this summer.

So, that is where the bad blogger has been.

Next week is the Turkey Trot. I'm not as far along in preparing as I hoped I would be. So, I will have to settle for 1.5 minutes running and 2 minutes walking. However, I've got to remember that I wouldn't have even thought of doing it last year. So, 1.5 minutes is progress.

Thoughts on running

Now, I had these great thoughts on Monday, we will see if I can remember them all. As I began week 2 of the Couch to 5k plan (20 minutes: run for 90 seconds and walk for 120 seconds) I was trying to figure out why running isn't like swimming. Well, other than the obvious one is in the water and one is on land, one uses legs and one uses arms. When I swim I feel good: graceful, fast, and efficient. When I run I feel awkward: heavy, plodding, out of breath. Not to say that I'm not out of breath when I swim for some reason it is different. I want to feel good when I run. What does it take? Practice? Losing weight? Stronger legs? Will running ever feel good? I have to admit that the first 90 second run feels okay. I feel strong but not graceful. I see that next Friday (if I kick this cold quickly) I will be increasing to 3 minutes. 3 minutes? Me? Run for 3 minutes? I'll believe when I see it. I do admit that I would like to be run for 5 minutes at a time at the Turkey Trot on the 27th. I will feel really great if I can do that.

One of the most entertaining this about running is all of the crap I have with me. I'm sure some people simply put on a shirts, pants, shoes, and head out on a run. Not me. I wrestle the girls into an uber-sports bra, put on a heart-rate monitor, belt with a leash on it, watch, gloves, keys, ipod (if PW isn't running with me), and, oh yeah, the dog. That is a lot to remember at 5:50am.

Hopefully, I will report more on running on Monday. I'm trying to sleep out this cold. It worked once a few years ago, worth a try.

Blogger Behind

Clearly I need to be a little more consistent in my blogging. Why would anyone be interested if I don't update this regularly? Why is anyone interested anyway?

Saturday's Workout:
30, 30, 20s
6 x 75 kick, IM order
8 x 100 pull, we did two on 1:40 and quickly switched to 1:45
10 x 50 kick, choice
Stroke work. I voluntarily worked on butterfly. Coach says it looks pretty good, but that I need to snap my head down sooner so I can get my hips up to finish the stroke. Several 50s of fly. Ugh.

Halloween . . . . Well, no trick-er-treater's left me with a lot of candy. I wasn't very successful in getting it out of the house, so I need to be prepared to live with the consequences at weigh-in on Wednesday.

Rest Day
I took the idea of rest to heart. Today we "fell back" so I got an extra hour of sleep and still didn't get out of bed until 9am. Jemma got a very short walk. I spent most of the day listening to Season 2 of Veronica Mars while I created and nice stretching and strengthening plan and messed around on the internet. I had a headache that wouldn't go away so I took a 2 hour nap. Jemma is not all that happy with me but too bad. I think I needed it.

C25K
On Friday PW and I restarted C25K. For the first time I actually felt like I was ready to move onto the next level. We will see what PW is up for tomorrow morning. Oh! And, I ran in the rain. When I left the house it was raining a little harder than I thought and I was quite grumpy on my warm-up walk to meet PW. However, once I started running the rain didn't bother me. So, now I have to say that I don't like to walk in the rain, but running is okay.

See, this is why I need to blog more often. Long, rambling posts.