Toughest 10K - Galveston edition

Since this was the 2nd race in the first-year "Bridge Series" I HAD to do it even though I was already signed up for the Houston Half the following day. The things I'll do for bling! (It's now started to become more about the challenge than the bling, but I'm not quite ready to admit that.)

I was dreading having to drive down to Galveston and do this race all alone. Would have loved to have someone just come along even if they didn't do the race. Luckily I was easily able to talk Tommy into doing it with me! Yay! Luv ya, man!

Price & swag:
The $40 price tag was $5 higher than the Kemah edition. There was a lot more cost involved in this race since it was run in Galveston (which is nortiously difficult to deal with) and on a federal Interstate. Not sure what all was involved int he latter, but I know TxDOT was involved.

The only swag was a gender-specific technical fabric shirt - no hat or medals. I received a nice (personal) e-mail from race director Robby Sabban explaining that this race was more expensive than the others and there was not the budge for medals. Most 10K don't give medals, so not something typically expected at races. This was after I had posted a request for a picture of the bling on their Facebook page.

Pre-race:
When we turned off the main street onto the street behind the Galveston Daily News, people were parking all over the side of the street and walking. I asked one person if the lots were full and she said that she had not driven all the way down. So I went down there & there was plenty of (free) parking and several volunteers directing us where to park. Very conveniently located across from pre/post race and the start line. I had to do race-day packet pick-up, which was quite time consuming at Kemah (one line to get bib #, another line to get bib & packet and a 3rd line for race chips). They had the bibs in the packets and in alphabetical order, so the pickup was very quick. You still had to go to another line to pick up the chip, but that moved quickly also.


RUN!
The 7am start time meant we started in the dark, but that's not too unusual for most races. We did a little section on the Galveston side of about 1/2 a mile before getting to the Causeway. There was one water stop on this section, as water stop (or any support) on the bridge.
There were impressive cones on this Interstate bridge (TxDOT requirement) that were taller and closer than any other I've seen in a race. Only one lane of traffic was blocked off. Along with the wide shoulder, this provided a comfortable course from the traffic on the causeway.
Although this pert-near 3 mile bridge is long, it was not a difficult climb. MUCH easier than Kemah!
Views were great going over to Tiki Island just as dawn was breaking. (Coming back was not as comfortable as the sun was in our eyes.)

We were just past the 2 mile marker when the race leader went past us headed back to finish. Runners were very good about all staying in the shoulder lane, leaving the other lane for returning runners.

There was a party feel on Tiki Island as we circled around. There were two water stops in this 2/10ths of a mile or so loop.

Back across we not only had the sun to deal with, but also the wind. I did take a short walk break of under 1 minute when cresting the Causeway.

Coming back, I saw the Finish line was not where the Start line was & worried "WTF?? -- Where's the finish??" Luckily, it wasn't far - we turned into the drive of the Galveston Daily News & it was right there, less than a tenth of a mile.

One minute under goal - WHOOPEE!


Post-race:
Although we did not get medals, the post-race food was better than Kemah (and better that many races - MUCH better than the half I did the following day). Mario's pizza had fresh cheese pizza (if you noted when they came out of the thermal carrier, it was even a bit warm. Although cold pizza is still great.) Toll House Cookies were there handing out freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Miller Lite or 64, Muscle Milk, some new fangled waters and sodas were also on hand. Oh yeah - we were all handed a cold bottle of water while in the finish chute as our timing chips were cut off. These little nicety are really appreciated!
Although the food was good at post-race, I did miss having a DJ. There was an announcer calling out finisher names, but not tunes at post-race. Koala was doing massages.
A nice post-race!
(I had 3 cookies, 2 slices of pizza, 1 beer and a muscle milk -- that pretty much cancels out the calories burned doing the race!)

One more race -- LaPorte half-marathon in December -- to complete the bridge series!!

Toughest 10K

HA! Well, so much for me keeping up blogging. But, I do plan to post race reports & here's one:

The Toughest 10K - Kemah edition.
(Which has always been the only addition, but race director extraordinaire Robby Sabban has now created a 10K over the Galveston Causeway which has been dubbed Toughest 10K - Galveston.)

Price & swag:
This 10K was a bargain at $35 and in Robby fashion would include a technical fabric shirt and hat! Plus, medals to all - yeah! (All about the bling!)

Previously in the year, I had mentioned to some friends that I'd like to run the Kemah bridge, but let's just save the entry fee, do it on our own & go eat at one of the restaurants with the savings. That was before I found out it's one of Robby's races. I didn't know anyone else doing it, so was glad I signed up for the race since I have wanted to run that bad boy. (Not necessarily 4 times.)

Pre-race:
Parking was free in the Kemah lots, which was a nice bonus. I started talking to the man parked next to me, Gerald. It was his first time running a road race in 20 years, so he was pretty nervous! I continued to see Gerald through the morning and also ran into Diane and Terry from Houston Fit. Aside from that, there were ~850 strangers.

RUN!
That was more runners than I expected, which made it nice for this race. We spread out across the streets of Kemah on our way over to the bridge and were never congested. And there were always lots of runners to look at both in front and behind.

I have never run that bridge before and found it quite intimidating. I had initally thought the 2 passes meant you go over the bridge and then back over, crossing twice. Oh no....silly Anna...that's only one pass. You do that loop twice, crossing the bridge FOUR times.

Pass #1
As I was going up the first time I thought DAAAAMMMMNNNN!!! It was one hella of incline! Made the Fred Hartman look easy and Mt TCJester seem like a speed bump. Was pretty windy too -- on the way down my right contact lens was moving around in my eye. As I was coming off the first pass, I saw Terry across the way starting his second. A minute or so later the leader, John Yoder, went blasting past. He finished in under 40 minutes.

Pass #2
Coming off the bridge, the course circles around underneath. It was nice to be flat, but DANG the fish smell was strong! Normally it wouldn't bother me so much. But normally I wouldn't be tackling my personal Everest...
I walked a lot of the second pass. And it was less of an incline coming this way.

Pass #3

Coming off the bridge, the course either goes back around a big parking lot and underneath the bridge to do the second loop or off to the right to circle through Kemah and back to the boardwalk to finish.

I was glad there were mostly people still running with just a few runners that completely lapped me.
Going back up that bridge again was TOUGH. TOUGH.

Pass #4

I was pleased to see that I wasn't at the end of the pack. But going back across this time I took an extra walk break that ended up being very extended. I should have been running. Finally I had a little internal conversation/yell match with myself and got back in the race. I probably lost 3-5 minutes. Running is so mental!

The end

I was quite annoyed to see we had to go to the right and through all of Kemah before going back to the boardwalk. Even thought this was just around a quarter of a mile, that's FAR at this point!

I did set a reasonable goal for myself & finished about 13 miutes under that goal. Yeah! Still not bragging-time, but I was good with it.
Although on the way home, I was thinking I still had a little energy left, so I could have hit it a little harder....

Post-race:

Peter, "The Other Brother" was the DJ, so music was good. There were the promised ice cream bars, fruit, cereal & honey milk. Koala was doing massages. A nice small post-race. No hot foods, but this was 'just' a 10K.

Well that's kind of a crappy race report. Hopefully I'll get back into blogging and the ones in the future will be better :)

Suprizing good 'freezer kill' lunch

In an effort to eat better & cheaper, I've been trying to limit my dining out to 3x per week. So with my Sunday breakfast run already taking up one spot, that only leaves 2. Meaning I should bring my lunch most of the week!

And I've used up my 3x, so I knew *should* bring my lunch today, but didn't have anything prepped. I do have a couple of emergency tv-dinners & planned to bring one of those. When I opened the freezer, I noticed a box of vegetables that have been there for a long time & the package of precooked beef strips I got at Sam't that are really good.

Tossed that in the lunch bag & hoped for the best.

It ended up being dang good!

I REALLY like this meat & will buy it again:

It's precooked, so just a minute in the microwave or a couple of minutes in a skillet after cooking some fresh vegetables & presto-- great meal!

Not sure how much I paid, but definitely worth the money! I had it in the fridge for a while before freezing it & it's still great.

Yummy, easy & healthy!

The vegetables were good too, but not sure how healthy they were.

Can't remember which one it was, but it was from the Healthy mix line at Green Giant. Possibly heart-healthy. Their website doesn't list the varieties. Odd.

It was a mix that contained black beans so combining it with the beef was a big dose of protein.

It had a sauce that was buttery, so maybe lots of hidden fat? But it's the HEALTHY line!

I got a fruit & vegetable share from Central City Co-Op yesterday, so hope to cook this evening after tempo run. Hope to we'll (meaning I) will see....

Facebook trumping blogger

I was a little late coming into the blogging realm back when it was popular a few years ago. And jumped right off when Facebook came about. Oh, how I love Facebook!

But the Facebook romance is getting a little boring now. I'm slowly starting to pull away. And would like to get back to blogging again.

The blog did mainly turn out to be about running. But most of my Facebook posts are about that too. I dislike that I can't easily go back and find posts on Facebook later. I enjoy going back and re-reading older posts on Blogger and espically my race reports.

Facebook is MUCH easier to post photos and I try to be good about adding informative captions that tell more about the race than just what's in the picture. But that's not the same as a written-out report.

Since I have LOTS of races on tap, figure I should dust off the old blog and get back to it now.

We'll see how good I do at it. (And 'we' really mean 'me' as I doubt many others will read this & that's fine.)

Little fun things....

Just downloaded the data on my Garmin from my speedwork & forgot what a thrill that is to do :-)

Looking at the little map & checking the stats. I hadn't done that in SO long.

Was pretty impressed that my speed bursts on the fartlek were in the 9-min range. Overall times was.....not impressive. But I am impressed with the 25 seconds x8 that were fast!

My running clothes are so ill-fitting! And tech fabric does not shrink as much as I want to think it has.... bleck.

Must stay focused & not get drawn up into little things....training for a marathon is also a marathon.
OMG - typing 'training for a marathon' just had me skip a breath..... I really am going to do this.....

Fingers crossed!

Back on the road...this time to 26.2 (*yikes!)

Oh my.

Both physically & (more importantly) mentally I haven't seen why people want to run 26.2 miles. Of course, the same could easliy be said for 13.1 or even 3.1, but 26.2 just seems CRAZY.

After completing more than a dozen half-marathons, the thrill wasn't there like it used to be...
Could I be ready to do a full?

Even training wasn't the same, was kinda been-there-run-that.
Could I be ready to do a full?

Looking at my medal rack full of all that dusty bling was beginning to lose meaning.
Could I be ready for a full?

Hello? Hello?

Been thinking about blogging again.

Maybe tomorrow.....

Sidelined from long runs

When I start to run now, my legs from my knees to my ankles feel "squishy" and I just can't do the speed. They're fine any other time - no pain at all & I can jog okay. But can't rip 'em up (as if I could anyway).

I was advised to lay off the long runs for a couple of months. Nothing above 6, possibly 8 miles. Basically, sidelined until Houston Fit Fall Half starts in May. It'll be June or so 'til I get back to distance.

This should give my body some time to adapt to more speed work. I still have my two speeds of stop and go. Not doing long runs is supposed to help with faster-, medium- and slower-fasts.

We'll see. It's kinda good so now I'm not tempted to do any half-marathons for the next couple of months. There's some that are tempting (that would be travel).

DONE!!!

I'm the Michael Phelps of Land!

On 3/15 I completed half-marathon #8 for this season (as marathon season runs in Texas) and earned medal #8.

Eight 1/2 marathons in 4 1/2 months.

And looking at my 8 medals, I am over my obsession with earning bling!
Instead of it being all about the medals, now it's just 'a lot' about the medals :-)

My performance wasn't what I had hoped, but it was fair. This season was about quantity. Next season will be quality.

Pelican Challenge report and wrap-up of this season to follow eventually....
Thanks to Javier & Bill for getting me to start blogging again.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MEDALS!!!

I'm going to need some positive images to get me through these two cold, wet 1/2 marathons this weekend. Here's the image:

It's ALL about the BLING!!

Surfside Beach (half) Marathon

WHEW!! The Surfside Beach (half) Marathon was tough!

They put on a nice race down there, but didn't get much cooperation from Mother Nature!

The fog was really thick when we first got down to the beach and it was difficult to tell where to go while also making sure to not drive into the ocean!

The first 4-5 miles of the race were good, it was cloudy but the weather was nice.

It was really nice looking at the water and seeing the blue-green color which faded into grey and then the white caps breaking stirring up the brown sand at waters edge. The sand felt good, not difficult to run on at all.

But then we headed into some strong wind. My back ached from being hunched down and was super glad to see the turn around for the 1/2 marathon at mile 9. And I thought of the poor marathoners that would keep going for another 7 miles into that wind!

After the turn, things were looking good for a while and the the thunder started cracking. I never saw any lightning but the thunderboomers were loud!

And then the skies opened up. The rain was like needles coming down and with the high winds it was somewhat vertical. Luckily for me, I was headed away and once again I thought of the poor marathoners headed into that mess. Someone that did the marathon said it almost felt like small hail at times.

And it did get really chilly.

I'm guessing the rain kept up like that for an hour or so, then stopped, but later rained some more.

I had a PRW - Personal Record Worst. Doing good until the weather turned & after that I just bagged it and walked it in...

At packet pickup, we got nice yellow windjackets with an embroidered logo, a stone drink coaster, a coffee mug and some thick winter-type gloves.

Aside from one dead dolphin, the beach was pretty clean. Small patches of seaweed about, nothing that impeded the run. I heard from the marathoners that there was more debris past the 1/2 turnoff, but not bad.

The pavilion where the post race party is usually held was a victim of Ike, so the party was in a tent. There were a lot of beach houses that apparently felt Ike's wrath also. Most were still mostly-standing, but not sure if they can be repaired or will need to be rebuilt.

One of the cutest things ever at a race -- they had blue porta potties for boys and pink ones for girls! AND they had a handwashing station in between complete with soap, water and paper towels! That's about as classy as you can get for outdoor temporary facilites on the beach!!


Water stops along the course were adequate & this was the only race I didn't carry fluids. One also had Gu. Crowd support was basically non-existant, but we had the waves to cheer us on :-)

Mowi Wowi set up a stand on the beach and all finishers got a free smoothie. I had a mango-orange/pina colada combo that was awesome.

The post race meal was BBQ! It was great and plentiful - sliced beef, chopped beef, sausage, chicken, beans, BBQ cabbage, potato salad and pickles/jalapenos/bread. They had a variety of store bought cookies, muffins, coffee cakes & bagels both before and after the race. Sodas, tea & water.

I'm starting to get choosy on which races I want to do a second time and this is one I definitely plan to do again next year!

Hope Mother Nature is nicer then.

5 down, 3 to go

For anyone that just happens to drop by....... (Javier).....

I'm still running. So far I've done:

• Koala Houston Half on 10/26/08
• San Antonio Rock and Roll Half on 11/18
• Dallas White Rock Half on 12/14/08
• Houston Fit Half in training (it counts!) 12/20/08
• Aramco Houston Half on 1/18/09

And I've got 3 more halves on tap:

• Surfside Half (on the beach) 2/14/09
• Seabrook Half 3/14/09
• Seabrook Half AGAIN on 3/15/09

I just started StayFIT, Houston Fit's 5K/10K training program. I don't plan on doing many 5/10Ks, but want to do the training to work on speed. We meet every Tuesday evening for speed work and every Saturday morning for hill/distance work.

In March I'll also be coaching Power In Motion again.

I'll try to be better about updates..if anyone besides Javier still stops by!

One medal down, 7 to go!

Woo-Hoo!

Thanks to Coaches Alan & Kathleen with Houston Fit Fall Half and my friend Tom Brannon, I finished the Houston Half in UNDER THREE HOURS!
Yea Me!

Alan & Kathleen have been a super tremendous support all training season long (since May) and Tom was a super sweetheart to show up to cheer me on throughout the race and even did the last 2 miles or so with me.

I forgot to hit stop as I ran through the finish line, and then stopped to get my medal, hug Javier and pose for some pics and then stopped my Garmin, which showed 2:54:39. So I'm guessing maybe 2:50? That would put me just under 13 min/miles for 13 miles. DANG!

My previous 1/2s have been in 3:21 and 3:11, so this is a HUGE improvement.

Here's a few pics:

Jackie, Anna, Brenda & Kathleen, all smiling with medals!

Alyssa & Anna with medals, waiting for massages.

The medal - a little boring, but a medal nevertheless!

Pics from Javier

Javier was at the finish line of the Houston Half and was nice enough to take some pics of me:



Coming across the finish line (chip time 2:53:39.5):


Getting the medal:

With Javier:

With my friend Tom, that came out to cheer for me:

THANK YOU JAVIER!!!!

Marathon season goals

Here are the half marathons I have in mind for this marathon season:

Koala/Luke's Locker Houston Half Marathon -- Sunday, October 26, 2008

San Antonio Rock and Roll Half Marathon -- Sunday, November 16, 2008

Dallas White Rock Half Marathon (maybe) -- Sunday, December 14, 2008

Aramco Houston Half Marathon -- Sunday, January 18, 2009

Surfside Half Marathon (on the beach, probably walk) -- Saturday, February 14, 2009

Seabrook Half Marathon -- Saturday, March 14, 2008

Seabroon Half Marathon Trail Challenge (ANOTHER half marathon) -- Sunday March 15, 2008

WOW!

Possibly a BIT way too ambitious, but I'll see how the osteo-arthritis and osgood-schlatter in the knees does and give it a go.

Yikes -- being in writting on the world wide web makes these more real!

But, I'm totally okay with not making them all, just a darn good attempt.

If I'm successful at the Trail Challenge in Seabrook, I earn 3 medals for the weekend.
That will give me a grand total of EIGHT medals for the season, making me the Michael Phelps of land.

WOOT!

Ike

House is fine, but no electricity. Now I'm a refugee @ a friends sucking up electricity & internet. More when normal is returned......

Happy 1st Birthday to the Boardwalk Bullet roller coaster in Kemah!

That's me in the front seat with my arms up! (And that was ride #6 of the day, we had exclusive ride time for an hour Sunday morning.)

After that, I went down to a really nice cabin on Quintana beach.

Hope everyone else had a nice Labor Day weekend also!

PS -- I ran 8 miles on Saturday, 3 on the beach on Monday and 2 yesterday.

Miles and Miles to go....and already went

Last night I hit 450 miles logged (since I started running 7/7/07) and after this weekend I'll be at 300 miles for 2008!

WOW - that's a lot of running!

And it really doesn't seem to be that difficult anymore.

Viv and Timmy both commented on how I just glazed over 9 miles in my last post. Really, I didn't think of it as that big of a deal. That's what was on tap for that day, so that's what I did. 5:45 start time and all.
Dang - I just said 9 miles was no big deal!

Now once I hit double digits (like Eileen just did) in a couple of weeks (9/13), THAT will be a big deal.

Whew - tiring weekend!

Saturday morning I had to wake up at 4:45 to run 9 miles and Sunday was an even earlier wake-up, 4:15, to go deep sea fishing.

I was exhausted, but had a great time doing both!

Saturday afternoon I was complemented on my complexion (a result of the 9-miler, I'm sure) and I have about 5 pounds of fish in the freezer from the fishing trip.

After eating so much fish in Alaska and then last week had mahi-mahi almost every night, I'm getting close to being fished-out! Last night after Pilates I stopped at the store and got corn tortillas and shredded cabbage to make fish tacos, but I was still plumb tuckered-out from the lack of sleep over the weekend that I was just too tired to make some. And tonight it speed work (yea!) and a BCO event leader meeting, so they won't be made tonight either. Maybe tomorrow after off-season PIM....