Restful, It Was Not

This past weekend was a prime example of needing a vacation from my vacation. A possible culprit to my ultimate sh*tty showing at the Coronado 15K.

Thursday evening, my husband’s college buddy came to town. Friday evening they had a “Dude’s Night” at the Angels game. Which meant that they didn’t get home until midnight-ish, and the entire time, because it was just me, the dogs were in high alert, barking at any little noise. Apparently, I am not so much their Fearless Leader. Little sleep was had as I had to be up the next morning to teach yoga.

Saturday:

Following yoga, we tried to have lunch without reservations at Stone Brewing. Tried being the operative word. Apparently July 4th weekend means a 75 minute wait. So we ended up at Panera, which, really, was completely fine with me because it was 90 degrees and humid and Stone is not really known for light fare. The ultimate score (well, if we ignore the fact that we were in sweltering Escondido) was that right next to Panera was Yogurtland. I had never tried but heard all about it all over “running blog land”.

Turns out, it is the Mac Daddy of froyo. Way smoother and tastier than the other froyo places. Taro flavor is heavenly!

From there we hit up Lightning Brewery (owner was kind of a mad scientist beer dude – literally a former chemist), Ballast Point, and Alesmith, in that order. At Ballast, we tried one beer, Smoke Screen Helles that tasted like smoked whitefish. Not a fan of the beer + smoked fish flavor. I kept trying it because I really wanted to “get it” but, I just didn’t.

Then it was home to feed the dogs and then back out for Sushi at my favorite hole-in-the-wall joint, Sushi N Joy. We bid adieu to my BIL and hit up a karaoke night so I could be a HAM for two songs. The bummer was each song I picked from her list would not play when I got up to the mic, and I had to make last minute switches to other songs. Booo. But I still got to sing and, really, I can sing all day long until I have no voice left.

Late night, and, again, crappy-ass sleep.

Sunday:

Husband’s buddy’s flight was 10:15am, so, we had to get up early to get some grub before he took off. We hit up the little street cafe at Buccaneer Beach before dropping him off. We got back and I decided to use my 4th-is-as-good-as-3rd gift certificate to get some performance trainers – I ended up with the Mizuno Precision 11’s and they are snazzy!

On the way to the running store, my 6 month old car decided it was going to give me the finger with the Check Engine light. Seriously. The whole point of coughing up the dinero for a new car is to NOT have this crap happen. And, yes, I always tighten the crap out of the gas cap. I have to open the hood to see if little critters decided to eat my car wires again before I drag it into the dealership.

I hit the sac at like 10pm for a 4am wakeup, adding still more hours to my sleep deficit.

Monday – Race Day – A “PM”:

I strap on my Mizunos (I know, breaking the “no new stuff” rule – turns out they had no bearing on the outcome). My friend (running the 5k) and I leave for Coronado at 5:10am, which is apparently not good enough if you want decent parking for this race. We got there at 6am and it was already ridiculous. We ended up parking on a street, half a mile away, that had a sign  posted “Road Closed.” Since there were cars parked all up and down it, we figured we wouldn’t get towed or ticketed. On the walk over I hit up a parade porta john that was brand-spankin’ new. Sweeet. However, I could already tell this race was not going to be awesome – it seems that whenever I have to, well, “go” more than once or twice in the morning before a race, it tends to be an “eh” race.

I pick up my bib, and, not surprisingly, there are no more ladies small tech tees. Rather than get a ladies medium which is too big when you’re smurf-sized, I got an XL for the Husband. I hit the portas – again – and then head over to the start. Here, I spied Haute Running Mama, identified by Kinvaras and Rock Runners tank, and made a mental note to find her at the end.

The race official counts us down – no air horn or gun or anything – and we’re off. My first two miles are 7:56 and 7:54 which I was actually fine with, but thought to myself: “Maybe you should ease up so you have something left at the end…” I think this was a big reason this race was a PM (Personal Mediocre).

Next mile was 8:11 and then, unknowingly, I ended up easing down into a slow-ish half marathon pace, with miles around 8:25-8:35. I wanted to slow to like 8:10-8:15 but, it’s like I don’t know how to run in that range. It’s either fast, or slow. I never recovered from this except for the last .4. The last .4 was 7:51 of which the last .1-.2 miles was 5:30 pace. It was the only part of the race I felt good about – the fact that I passed some people that had caught me in the last mile. I must have looked like dog-turd when I crossed because one of the race officials asked me “Are you OK?”. Official time: 1:17:45.

For me, this course was .1 miles long – which translates to 48 seconds at 8:00 pace – which would have been the difference between 1:17 and 1:16. A tad annoying. Regardless, this was 1:35 slower than December’s hilly course. And the same pace I ran the Carlsbad Half Marathon this year. FAIL!!! It was hot and I don’t train in 75, sunny and humid, so I was a sweaty, red mess. I swear, it was the sweatiest race, ever, for me. My eyes were burning because my eyebrows (which are not thin or manicured by any stretch of the imagination) were just completely saturated.

After catching my breath, I stranger-stalked Haute Running Mama who ran like a crazy person (1:12!!!) and is as super cute and nice as you would expect from her blog. I feel like the lone running blogger up in North County – if I lived down in San Diego Proper I’d be imposing myself on her workouts to try to catch some of her fastness!

Shortly after that we met up with another friend who ran the 15k and then made our way back to the car to find that “Road Closed” meant “Blocked in by Parade Floats.” We were lucky enough to be in one of the first roads to feed into the parade, but we had to kill a good hour walking to Boney’s Market and back before we could get out.

I got home and proceeded waste the day away – I was totally pooped. Got about an hour nap on the couch until 8pm when the fireworks started and freaked the bejesus out of my dogs. So Monday night was also, another night of crap sleep as our female Aussie was wound up, wracked with worry, all night through the morning. We had meant to give her one of the sedation pills but realized too late. Next time, 7pm (a good hour before go-time), gotta drug her or else suffer the rest of the night.

So, that was the weekend. Fun and exhausting!

Comments

  1. What a freaking fun weekend! No wonder you are exhausted. You do need a vacay from vacay.

    Thanks for the kind words! You missed the part where I got into a fist fight to show how truly bad a$$ I am, lol. Riiiggghhhtttt. I feel like I am a lone ranger down here in SD. Is everyone else in the OC?

    That course was 9.4. Everyone I checked with clocked between 9.4-9.45. I ended up with 9.42 and even took the inside at each curve. Naturally it seems like the course would have been shorter with the way I ran it. Whatevs. It didn't help that it was hot and humid. YUCK.

    How are the new kicks? They look sweet!

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  2. Whatever, you still ran 15k more than anyone else did on the 4th :).

    I think we can all get 5 minute handicaps for hot races...right...right?
    And lol at your comment on my blog. I do try to leave everything on the 'race track' when I race. My goal is to be unable to function for 12 hours after every race. I haven't quite achieved that, but I'm tryin'!

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