2013 Runners Challenge: And So It Ends…

At the end of 2012 I issued myself and my readers a little challenge. To run 3 half marathons in a calendar year. 2013 would be the year we conquered the triple crown.

How hard can it be?

In January, I found out the answer…pretty darn hard. We tackled the Carlsbad half and the naiveity of it all caught up as my running form late in the event led to some minor knee flare ups. Not to be deterred I went back to the drawing board and retrained my body to run more mid foot and stop heel striking.

April 20th, 2013: Ragnar Relay Race

195 miles. 12 runners. 2 vans. 24+ hours. What could go wrong?

A coworker enticed/forced/tricked/asked-in-a-moment-of-confusion me to run a Ragnar relay with his team. Starting in Huntington beach on Friday morning, 646 teams would make the 195 mile trek from Huntington Beach to Yorba Linda, Corona, down past Lake Elsnore, Temecula, San Marcos, Carlsbad, Encinitas, Del Mar, La Jolla, Mission Valley, and ultimately to San Diego downtown by seaport village.

Talk about an experience! The relay consists of 36 legs that range from 2.2 miles to 9 miles. Each runner is assigned 3 legs that they must complete. You can check out the legs here: http://www.ragnarrelay.com/race/southerncalifornia/legs/12

Since I was the newest and youngest I was originally assigned runner 8 which consisted of 3.8, 4, & 2.8 mile legs. Not bad. At the last minute we switched it up due to a runner dropping out and my legs were split up for other runners to do and I took runner 10 (5.7, 2.2, 4.1 mi legs). Total of 12 miles. Not bad, definitely easy compared to the other legs. One teammate had 8, 9, 9mi legs…so there’s quite a range of runners a team can accomodate.

The course is set all along the side roads and it is extremely well planned and executed. Although I hear volunteers can have pretty miserable experiences, but other than that it’s just awesomely planned!

We ended up finishing in 29 hr 22 min which equated to ~9min pace over 195 miles. Full results here: link. Pretty impressive when we factor in some guys ran:

in apparent temperatures of 100 degree heat in Corona at midday
elevation rises of >550 ft in less than a mile (leg 5) or >700 ft gain (leg 18)
insane legs like this (leg 12) combined with midday heat!

Somehow they find this fun. At the end of if all I got to spend 28+ hrs with a new group of friends who were incredibly fun and relaxed. Definitely the highlight of my run was running the 2.2 mile leg at 2am in San Marcos. I was so antsy after my 1st run because I didn’t do as well as I hoped and wanted to redeem myself. I hadn’t run that hard in a long time. When I finished my leg my teammate yelled “14 mins!” and everyone went “dayyyyyammmm 14?!” that was sweet. It could have been high 14, not sure…but either way sub 7:20 splits was an awesome feeling!

My times ended up being:

57 min for the 5.7 mile leg (10 min pace) in ~100*F apparent temperature
~14-15 min for 2.2 mile leg (7:20 min pace) at 2am!
36 min for 4.1 miles (~9 min pace)

If I continue this running, who knows maybe I’ll get to do it again next year!

one of my teammates: Tobias Funke! The other van of guys decided to go crazy with facial and hair trimmings. Super awesome.

April 28th, 2013: La Jolla Half

La Jolla half with it’s insane Torrey Pines hill. After writing about the Ragnar legs of 500 and 700+ ft elevation runs, this appears small. It is pretty brutal.

Up until mile 10 I was pacing about 9:30 min and decently on pace to do just above 2 hr finish. When I got to the downhill I listened to by legs and knees and stopped at soon as I felt any pain. Perhaps I was too cautious but I chose to walk the entire downhill. Even jogging it felt unwise with my set of knees. It took a lot of self control to not want to fly down that hill and make up for lost time. My knees’ll thank me in the morning.

Ended up with a finishing time of ~2hr 20 min which was really satisfactory for me.

Alas, due to an oversight in scheduling, I cannot run the final AFC half marathon to complete the triple crown. Thus my quest for the crown and my running challenge of 2013 comes to an end. A fun one and incredibly great learning experience!

This is definitely not the end of running for me. I’ll stop by runners world and pick up a real pair of running shoes and continue on (take a break from 13+ miles for a bit). The running community is incredibly kind and friendly and if you’re thinking about picking up running yourself…DO IT. It’s worth it!

Ragnar Relay

Marian & Marco Tie The Knot

Location: Casa Real, Pleasanton, California

THX ILMN

seen pulling into work. that’s some company spirit.

Daylight Savings Grill Cleaning

Spring time is here so it’s time to fire up the grill. Wanted to grill a few weeks ago but when I went to opened it up, it was NASTY. I tried cleaning it myself, letting the grill slots soak in detergent for a good few hours but it was futile. This thing was grimey and carcinogenic laced. I’m not sure the previous owner ever cleaned it. I called in the pros.

Could they restore this Bully beast to it’s former glory?

San Diego BBQ Cleaners: www.sdbbqcleaners.com

Professional, fast, chill guys who did their thing and taught me a few things about the grill. Found these guys online. I noticed that having a clean, easy client experience seriously goes a long way. The owner (Blake) was working at poseidon restaurant over in del mar as a server and was doing this on the side 3 days a week until business took off. Now him and another guy who used to be the bartender at poseidon service the larger SD area. Always cool to hear guys who have the guts to go out and do their own thing. Great experience, highly recommend these guys.

Let the grilling season begin!

A Co-worker’s Farewell Gift

J’s a great guy. Ultimate frisbee enthusiast and great teammate.

A few months ago when J left for a vacation, my team decided to hook up a mouse to a really long extension to his computer. One of my coworkers made sure we didn’t use a wireless because those have register devices pop ups every once in a while (apparently he’s done this before). J and I have a half wall separating us and after J came back from his trip I wiggled the mouse. He got really tripped out and called one of the guys (who was in on it) over to see if he was seeing things at which point I stopped moving the mouse and our team had a good laugh.

Except we sort of didn’t tell him what was really happening and sort of forgot the mouse was still connected. A few days later I grabbed the wrong mouse and heard a “what the…” followed by a “bang bang bang” as he slammed his mouse a few times on the desk. Should have stopped there…but we sort of didn’t.

It’s been a few months now, we’ve had a dozens of opportunities to stop. J’s leaving for greener pastures so as a farewell gift we revealed our mischief.

Now that we think about it, is he leaving because of us?! Oh man, we hope not. Gonna miss you J!

Heather & Hua

Location: San Gabriel, California

John, over at Simplytwo and I had a chance to work together to capture Heather and Hua’s big day. There were 2 moments that I did not capture that day that really stick in my mind and caught me off guard.

In the morning as we’re getting ready and you see the bride getting ready in the video, what you don’t see is downstairs Heather’s mom and her mom’s friends are cooking up a storm. It’s going to be a party and these ladies can cook! They’ve got the old school propane burners and woks downstairs and the smell wafts upstairs to where we were seated. It was like a mix of paradise and torture. While the bridal party headed out for the rest of the day’s festivities, Heather’s parents were enjoying their feast. Jealous!

Hua grew up with Craig (best man) here in San Diego and Craig flew in from Australia for this big day. As we sat in the hotel after the tea ceremony, Craig was talking to Hua’s parents and I happened to catch part of the conversation. I realized Craig’s speaking Spanish (Craig is Latino) and I’m thinking “wow, Hua’s parents (who are Chinese) are incredibly kind and patient” because they’re just nodding and smiling. Suddenly, Hua’s dad starts responding in super fluent Spanish too! My jaw dropped. This wasn’t slow, high school level Spanish, this was 100 mph fluency. Amazing.

Those were two of the many moments in the day that stick out in my mind. The rest of the day flew by like a blur and I’ve recreated the feeling with a focus on the moments we’ll look back and remember years from now. So enjoy…and don’t blink!