April Recap + May Goals

April was fantastic - new PR, birthday, Hawaii honeymoon! However, all that fun left very little time for blog managing. Hoping I can start fresh in May and keep the posts coming.

April Goals in Review

+ Run 100 miles - Wrapped the month up at 90. While I ran on vacation, I only put in the minimal effort. 
+ Add more cross training workouts (I haven't been to boot camp in 5 weeks - my longest hiatus since I started going in the Fall of 2011, yikes!) - definitely didn't happen. I was planning to go to spin class Monday mornings, but it's been so long, that Monday morning classes have actually been dropped. oops. 
+ Continue vegetarian exploration - this has been going great. Had to "cheat" a little in Hawaii since we were eating every meal out, but since being home, I'm back on track. 
+ Pump out race recaps for Tough Mudder, Emerald Across the Bay 12K, Canyon Meadow Half Marathon and the upcoming Rock n' Roll SF Half - Uhhhh, didn't happen. Another busy month
+ Commit to at least 2 blog posts per week - Way behind on posts. Going to try and play catch up in May.


Races
Rock 'n' Roll SF Half Marathon
This race was incredible. Not only did I set a new course PR, but an overall PR. I think I was living on cloud9 for most of April.

Run Streak
Run Streak is going strong, I'm now at over 150 days. Not sure when or if this will end, but for now it feels good, so I'm going to keep it going.

May Goals

Keeping goals simple for this month, so that I can check them off at the end of the month. This month is going to be busy again. Luckily my classes end in 3 weeks, so that will clear up 2 nights a week plus extra hours spent doing homework.

+ Run 100 miles
+ Cross Train 1x week
+ Look into marathon training plans
+ Blog more

What do you have planned for May? 

Dreams and Prayers for Boston

I woke up this morning not dreading the fact that it was Monday, but excited because it was Boston Marathon day. It's like a national holiday for runners. I've only been running for a year, but it doesn't take long for a runner to start dreaming of the day they will make it to Boston. It's been on my bucket list for quite some time.

I spent my walk to work this morning with my head down, refreshing my twitter stream every 12 seconds to see the latest updates from the race and dreaming of the day I would get to be there. So many inspiring stories, so many talented runners. I could feel the energy even though I was thousands of miles away.

Then at lunch, I read the horrible news and felt my heart breaking. Runners train for months, even years to make it to Boston, and what happened today was unimaginable.

My heart goes out to the City of Boston, the runners, spectators and volunteers affected. This is truly a sad day for the running community.

Tomorrow's run will be for Boston.

Weekly Workout Summary

Couldn't ask for a better end to my week. I ran the Rock 'n' Roll San Francisco Half Marathon today and it was nothing short of Amazingggg! 

Monday

Another week come and gone and my ass didn't get out of bed for spin class. Surely one day it will happen! I checked the weather when I woke up and it said 30% chance of rain, I walked out the door and it was 100% raining. I decided to go with it and it turned out to be an excellent and very wet run. 

Ran Outside: 2.09 miles

Walk: 4.0 miles

Tuesday 

Weekday runs have been a little low on mileage, but decided I would start increasing my daily effort. 

Ran Outside: 4.07 miles

Walk: 4.0 miles

Wednesday

Had planned on doing a longer tempo run this morning, but really had no desire to move from my warm bed...so I just did a short maintenance run. 

Ran Outside: 2.21 miles

Walk: 4.0 miles

Thursday

The rain came back, so decided to head over to the gym to meet up with my friend Mr. Treadmill. Did somewhat of a tempo run.

Ran Outside: 4.0 miles

Walk: 1.0 miles

Friday

This marked the 4th Friday of doing a speed workout. I've been looking forward to Friday's (not that you need a reason to look forward to Friday) because I know this workout is coming. I think the speed workouts are starting to make a difference. 

Ran on Treadmill: 5.5 miles (warm up 1.0m @10:00; 4 sets Fartlek 5:00 @ 9:05/mi, 3:00 jog; cool down 1.0m @ 10:00)

Walk: 4.0 miles

Saturday

Slept in and then spent some quality time with my sister - thus putting off my run until the end of the day. Thought I'd keep it simple - ran to the start/finish line of the race and then home. 

Ran Outside: 2.09 miles

Walk: 2.0 miles

Sunday

Rock 'n' Roll inaugural San Francisco Half Marathon. Spoiler alert...I PR'd! If you asked me Friday morning if I thought/planed on PR'ing, I would have said no way in hell. But then I talked to this amazing lady, Sherry, at the expo and the U.S. 50K record holder Josh Cox and I was inspired. Long story short, I shaved 18 minutes off my previous course record (from November's US Half Marathon) and beat my Kaiser Half Marathon time by 50 seconds! Oh and not to mention, I was only 19 seconds off of a sub-2 hour! So close! Ahhhhhh, on Cloud 9 today. 

Ran Outside: 13.1 miles (2:00:18)
Walk 1.0 mile

Other Noteworthy Things: 

Completed week 2 of my vegetarian journey. I feel like I could still make better choices, I didn't bring my lunch much last week, so settled for some crappy food options. 

The countdown is on...2 weeks from today I'll be hanging out in Hawaii! So excited! 

March Recap + April Goals

Life has been crazy these past few months and is hardly showing any sign of letting up. March was a great month - I missed doing a post about March goals last month, so don't have anything to compare against.

Races
Emerald Across the Bay 12K
Race was on the morning of St. Patrick's Day - couldn't ask for a better spring morning. The course was challenging, but gorgeous.

Canyon Meadow Trail Half Marathon
Signed up for this on a whim. I'd never run on a trail prior to this - but it was amazing. I took my time and enjoyed the experience. Also, this is the longest I've run sans music - it was quite enjoyable.

Run Streak
I hit a huge milestone in my run streak - 100 days! I don't really know where I'm taking this streak, but I ended the month by hitting 122 days. May be time to lock me up, I might be going crazy.

Monthly Mileage
The most miles I've run in a month, ever! 119 miles in 31 days. That averages out to about 3.8 miles a day. Not too shabby

Veggie Monster
A few weekends ago, the hubby and I were watching a documentary about food - this always leads to bad things, right? Anyways, they showed horrible, horrible things that are done to farm animals being raised for food. I cried! And then decided to cut meat out of my life. I decided at minimum, I would challenge myself for 10 days. Well I'm on day 11 and so far, it hasn't been too bad. Actually it's probably easier than I anticipated. I can see myself being about 99% vegetarian - there may be times where I need to indulge in the occasional burger.

April Goals

+ Run 100 miles
+ Add more cross training workouts (I haven't been to boot camp in 5 weeks - my longest hiatus since I started going in the Fall of 2011, yikes!)
+ Continue vegetarian exploration
+ Pump out race recaps for Tough Mudder, Emerald Across the Bay 12K, Canyon Meadow Half Marathon and the upcoming Rock n' Roll SF Half
+ Commit to at least 2 blog posts per week

So many good things to look forward to this month. April is my FAVORITE month - seeing as it's the month of my birth! The hubs and I are also going on our honeymoon (finally)! We are going to Hawaii! SO EXCITED! In the 4.5 years we've been together, this will be our first solo vacation that doesn't include; visiting parents, siblings, friends, families, weddings, holidays.

Looking forward to a great month. More posts coming your way soon!

What are your goals for April? 

Weekly Workout Summary

Another good week on the books. Can't believe March is already over! It's okay though, April is my favorite month.

Monday
Still couldn't drag myself out of bed to get to spin class. I will make it one of these days!! Since I ran a half on Sunday, I decided to use today as rest day and put in the bare minimum effort. 

Ran Outside: 1.03 miles
Walk: 2.5 miles

Tuesday 
Felt a sinus cold coming on (again), blah! Kept this run pretty light, but did some arm exercises with my 8lb weights after the run. 

Ran Outside: 2.12 miles
Walk: 3.0 miles

Wednesday
Trying out this new program on runcoach.com and today's workout was a threshold run. I went to the gym for this run so I could control my speed on the treadmill. 

Ran on Treadmill: 3.65 miles
Walk: 3.5 miles

Thursday
Thursday's seem to be pretty boring days. Nothing exciting to report here. I ran. 

Ran Outside: 3.04 miles
Walk: 1.5 miles

Friday
Third Friday doing my speed workout on the treadmill. As if there aren't a million reasons to look forward to Friday, this is a bonus. It's a challenging workout that usually wipes me out, but leaves me feeling accomplished. Next week, I'm going to have a little nutrition pre workout - I started running out of steam at mile 4. 

Ran on Treadmill: 5.0 miles
Walk: 3.0 miles

Saturday
Long run Saturday. I thought about going into the double digits, but I didn't want to overdue it - seeing as I have 2 half marathons in a 3 week time span. I think I'm ready for Rock n' Roll on the 7th. 

Ran Outside: 8.17 miles
Walk: 2.5 miles

Sunday
Unfortunately this was a pretty uneventful day, despite being a holiday. It was another rainy Easter in San Francisco. I waited until late afternoon to knock out my run and I hurried through, almost setting a 5K record...almost since I only ran 3.0 miles instead of 3.1 (24:30)

Ran Outside: 3.0 miles
Walk 1.0 mile

Other Noteworthy Things: 
I made it a full week as a vegetarian - Sunday actually marked day 9. It's easier than I would've thought. Just have to monitor my protein and iron intake, but that'll get better with practice. It's April - my favorite month of the year. Mostly because it's my birthday month! And we are going to Hawaii for our honeymoon! Lots of good stuff to look forward to. 

Weekly Workout Summary

Time has been going by so fast, I can hardly keep up. Hoping that I'll get some time to breath come April! Here's a recap of my workouts last week.

Monday
My goal was to start implementing a spin class once a week. This would normally take place Monday mornings at 6:00. However, on this particular Monday, sleeping sounded soooo much better. So around 6:40, I dragged myself out of bed and to the gym. I knocked out a slow mile on the treadmill and then spent about 15 minutes on a stationary bike....regretting the fact that I slept in and missed out on a better workout! 

Ran on Treadmill: 1.0 miles
Bike: 15 minutes / 3 miles
Walk: 2.0 miles

Tuesday 
Again, could not bear to drag myself out of bed before sun up (I blame the time change, this spring forward sh*t is really kicking my butt)! This being said, I ended up doing an evening workout...in the rain. Which actually turned out to be quite refreshing

Ran Outside: 2.8 miles
Walk: 2.0 miles

Wednesday
Legs were feeling really tired this morning, so my run was more of a slow jog, probably better known as a shuffle. One foot in front of the other. 

Ran Outside: 3.0 miles
Walk: 2.0 miles

Thursday
Nothing particularly awesome to note here. My run was good. 

Ran Outside: 3.1 miles
Walk: 3.0 miles

Friday
When I signed up for Bay to Breakers, I got a free trial subscription to runcoach.com. I was able to put together a plan for a future race and I got a pretty cool training calendar out of it. As of last week, I'll now be dedicating Friday's to "track" (speed) workouts on the treadmill. We'll see how it goes. 

Ran on Treadmill: 4.5 miles
Walk: 3.0 miles

Saturday
Kept this run pretty light since I had a race the next day. My sister has been getting more into running, so she tagged along with me for this run. 

Ran on Outside: 3.0 miles
Walk: 1.0 mile

Sunday
A few weeks ago, my running club put out an email about an upcoming trail race. I've never run trails, but I thought it would be a great race to "try it out" and it would be a good excuse to get out of the city for half a day. The race was pretty low key, but had some serious runners - the course offerings were 5 mile, half marathon, 30K, marathon and 50K! Being a newbie to the trails, naturally I picked the half marathon. Since this was my first trail music, I decided to take it a lot slower than a road race and take time to enjoy the scenery. The course was beautiful and pretty challenging. I mean, there's nothing like a 500 foot climb in the first mile!! 

Ran Outside: 13.1 miles

Other noteworthy things:

This is the highest mileage week I've had to date - and is shaping up to be my highest mileage month ever.

On Friday, I watched a documentary called "Vegucated" - I was pretty much mortified and decided that I should become a vegetarian, immediately. I tend to have a flare for the dramatic and jump into things head on...so I decided the rational thing was to do a trial run. I challenged myself to go 10 days without meat - I'm at the end of day 3 and so far, no problems. I'm not a big fan of red meat or seafood, so really I only need to wean myself off chicken and turkey. If all continues to go well, I plan to keep this going.

It has been 9 days since my last soda. I'm a lover of diet dr. pepper and hearing the crack of a soda can makes my mouth water (terrible, I know). I've tried to quit - ween myself off of the fake-sugary, brown, bubbly goodness several times...once I even went a month, but I've never been able to make it stick. I always relapse and then, next thing I know I'm drinking a soda every day. We'll see how long I can make it this time around.

The countdown is on....in one month I'll be in Hawaii! Gotta get this bod ready for the beach!

Chinese New Year 10K Recap

Life has been crazy busy lately and time has been going by at warp speed. This is literally the first chance I've really had in a month to sit down and blog. On top of this race recap, I still owe you a recap on the Tough Mudder and this weekend's latest race, Emerald Across the Bay 12K. But to get us started, here is the race recap for the Chinese New Year 10K from February.

I did this race on a whim - literally, decided on a Thursday to sign up for the Sunday race. Figured it would be a good last effort heading into Tough Mudder the following week.

The Chinatown YMCA Chinese New Year Run raised funds for the YMCA's youth and teen programs. This year's race specifically benefited the Physical Education Program which serves more than 1,600 youth and teens from Chinatown and surrounding San Francisco neighborhoods.

The race is smaller than most that I've participated in over the past few months. Between the 5K walk/run and the 10K there were only about 1,500 participants.

The race was on Sunday, February 17th. The start line was in the heart of Chinatown - a nice 15 minute walk from my apartment. Can't beat a race that's so close to home.

Pre race self portrait

Race start in Chinatown

The race started promptly at 8:00 - it was a brisk morning, but turned out to be perfect racing weather. The 10K route was 2 loops around the 5K route. It was nice to run down some new street and some regular streets - like my street. I told my sister to be outside at 8:10 - but she decided sleep was more important -so I made sure to give her a wake up call for round 2. On my second lap she was outside in her pajamas and snapped this lovely pic. 

Having lots of fun, clearly

I thought I was looking cool in my pink argyle ProCompression socks - but my sister said they give me flamingo legs! Despite her comment - I love them! 

I was running a pretty decent pace and managed to finish strong. After the race there was a small, but well done expo. The swag bags were also pretty awesome too - my favorite part was that the bags were paper. So green! 

Expo tents

Swag - Dasani Water, Hint Flavored Water, hand sanitizer 

AND a $10 Macy's gift card among other things

Perks of running a small race is that you look good when you get the results. 

I finished 86th overall and 7th for my age group (F18-29). If I finished 90 seconds faster I would've placed in the top 3. This probably won't happen again for another 29 years or until the next year of the snake. 

Final time: 53:39

Pace: 8:39

This race was low key and really fun. I would definitely do it again. I'm on the lookout for more small races like this!