R E L A U N C H

Okay, so I have done jack with this blog in 7 months. Yikes! I gave Tumblr a go, but honestly, I don't get it. All it is is a bunch of hyperlinked pictures that people share -- unless I'm doing it wrong, isn't there a similar site called Pinterest?! Anywho, I'm back on blogger and am hoping to dedicate myself to daily or near daily postings of my training, successes and woes, and everything in between. As I'm laying here sick in bed, I realize that I sometimes take the health and ability to go lace up and do an easy 5 for granted.


My last race was the OC Half Marathon, which was pretty disastrous. I hadn't had any knee issues since LB Half so was shocked when on mile 4 my knees (yes, both) started acting up out of no where. I was diligent with my training so this made zero sense, especially since I'd been pain free since November. After the race, I have basically taken the last two months off from running. Fortunately, I make it to the gym (sometimes twice) daily so I'm still pretty well conditioned, I just need the low-impact the gym provides on my knees.


Right now, I have my sights set on the LB Half, again, Rock n Roll LA, Holiday Half and New Years race. I know, I'm a planner. Ask any of my ex-boyfriends... I plan things out well in advance! Goal for Long Beach is to *finally* break 2 hours! Ugh. I know that is not an incredible time, but would be huge for me. I can't seem to break it. I was well on track at OC to do so, but with my knees, I was just lucky to finish. Death before DF!


Anyway, I hope you enjoy my blog, whatever this comes to be. 


Happy Running!

B A C K I N T H E S W I N G O F T H I N G S

After last month’s Long Beach Half Marathon, I ended up taking about 5 weeks off from running altogether.  The race itself went pretty well aside from the last 3 miles where I bonked due to quad tendinitis, and have had to slowly nurse myself back into running.  I managed to maintain my fitness pretty well with yoga and cardio at the gym, despite a few additional setbacks including the flu and a concussion.  

Back in September, I had signed up for the USC Marathon Team before competing in LB and was saddened that I was unable to run with them the first four weeks because of the knee injury, then illness, then head injury.  I was pleasantly surprised when last Sunday I joined everyone in Manhattan Beach for the Veterans Parkway / Greenbelt Park 10-miler.  I had no idea such a thing existed and it was a fantastic run — especially coming off that amazing win from Oregon.  I was feeling a little worse for wear initially from celebrating the night before, but overall felt good and the brisk morning air and light mist helped perk me right up!  The trail itself is soft and covered in woodchips, and every 1/4m there are markers which is great since I don’t yet possess a Garmin.  I felt good the first 3m and then the knee tenderness kicked in.  Nothing that was going to stop me, but it was definitely annoying, to say the least.  Prior to the run, I couldn’t walk without noticing some form of tension and tightness in my knee, but it had subsided even when working out the 10 days prior, so I was bummed but not entirely surprised when I came back.  I managed to pull out 10m in 1:37:25 which breaks down to 9:44 per mile — not too shabby.  Given the fact I hadn’t actually laced up for a real run in weeks, I couldn’t have been more happy with the results!