Becoming a Trail Addict

I have a confession: I'm becoming a trail running addict. The more I run on dirt, the more I want to run on dirt, cross creeks, and master the difficult terrain. Nothing compares to the scenery and the tranquility I feel when exploring the trails. Trail running somehow feels more right than road running - and I'm afraid of what that means.

Why be afraid? Because I have a big goal to break 2 hours in the half marathon. That won't happen in a trail half (at least right now) because it's a completely different ballgame. Can I train more trail and still meet my half marathon time goal on the road? I have no idea. But I sort of want to run more trail anyway.

Whether I can do more trail racing and meet goals or not, I keep coming back to the same desire to increase my trail distances this year. I'm scheduled for my second trail half marathon of 2013 on February 23, and I'm distracted by looking at which 30K I want to choose this summer. Ideally, my next marathon will be a trail run too. I'm new to actual trail race events and only know of a couple companies so far, so if you have a fun suggestion do tell.

Right now, I'm considering these for a 30K or 35K:

Cinderella Trail Run 30K on May 11 (overlap with planned-but-not-registered-for race)
San Lorenzo River Trail 30K on June 22
Santa Cruz 30K in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park on August 3
Cinderella Trail Run 30K on August 18
Berkeley Trail Adventure 35K on September 28, aka a birthday celebration! I turn 33 on September 27.

Perhaps my 30K trail race plans aren't grand compared to the awesome 50K+ers out there (just, wow!), but everyone starts somewhere, right? I don't know if I'll get to 50K, but I'm at least giving myself a chance at upping the trail distance. I may get to a trail marathon this year or I may shoot for a couple of 30Ks, but either way I'll be enjoying every minute on the dirt.

Also, a new piece of running gear arrived today, the Ultraspire Surge hydration pack, which I intend to be hydration for my trail running future. Aid stations are generally farther apart and I need to encourage myself to hydrate more than I currently do. I'm super excited to try it out and will be taking it for a 10 mile or so spin on Friday. Look for more info and a review next week!

Did I mention it's purple?

Know about any other trail races or companies I should check out? Let me know in the comments!

Oiselle Love

Warning: I'm about to geek out on track stars and Oiselle...here we go.

Tonight I attended the Oiselle event at Fleet Feet Menlo Park, including a fun run with new Oiselle elite Lauren Fleshman. What!? I was actually nervous because I didn't think I could keep up, but it was totally fine and so much fun!

I ended arriving super early, but it was great to have extra time to talk to Oiselle sales rep Christy and to browse the spring 2013 line of clothing. I hear some items will launch on the site tomorrow, and I'm hoping to see at least a few of the new items found on the wall at Fleet Feet. There was even a sneak preview of Fall 2013 - let me tell you these two seasons will rock your running wardrobe world. Even things I've seen photos of, like the Luxe Layer, are oh-so-much better in person. The fabrics, the styles, and the colors are gorgeous. I can't wait to wear it!

Meeting Lauren was of course a highlight; not only is she an elite runner, but she is the creator of Picky Bars (best bars ever!) and the Believe I Am running journal too. She's easy to talk to, an amazing runner, and quite an entrepreneur. Yes, I'm a little star struck. I'm pretty sure my line when I met her was 'I'm so excited to meet you, you are famous.' Brilliantly dorky.

Other highlights of the evening included seeing Oiselle birds Christy and Sandra, finding out how great the Fleet Feet group run is, and meeting more girls I previously knew only from Twitter. I love social running, and I think I'll be back for the Fleet Feet events in the future.

Now, a few photos from the evening!

Oiselle Team photo: Lauren, Sandra, me, Christy 

Meeting Christy and Lauren, in front of the Oiselle Spring '13 wall.

I didn't realize how blurry this was, but you get the idea. Look at the poppy/indigo Rogas!

Autograph from Lauren!

Playing Tourist

This past weekend my parents visited California for the first time since we moved here. We took them places we hadn't even been like Marin Headlands and the USS Hornet air craft carrier. I can't believe we've been here for 1.5 years and hadn't yet ventured into the Headlands for the amazing views! Absolutely gorgeous.

We started our journey at the Golden Gate Bridge vista point, and we walked out on the bridge a bit. It's always funny how much the wind picks up and how much cooler it feels toward the middle of the bridge.

Family photo from the vista point.

Flying in the wind! I had to hold on to my hat.

From there, we drove up into the Headlands for the views and to walk the trails a bit. We didn't go far, but what we saw was wonderful. I need to get back there for some serious trail running soon.

From a lookout point after driving up the hills.

Dad enjoying the view.

Golden Gate Bridge from near where we parked.

We then drove to Muir Woods, which was super crowded. We split up from my parents, letting them roam Muir Woods themselves, and headed out to run in Mt. Tam State Park. We ended up on the Miwok Trail for a 5 mile run; boy do I wish we'd had more time! I loved it.

 Lovely trail view.

 Sporting my new SF Marathon Ambasador hat.

Kev at the trail head.

The next day we visited the USS Hornet in Alameda. I admit I wasn't very excited about this museum tour, but it was so much better than I expected. The air craft carrier is HUGE and has tons of cubbies and hallways to explore. My fave highlights were the huge anchor chain links and the big frosting mixer in the bakery.

For the anchor.

Look at the big mixer attachments!

We spent their last day visiting Monterey, and we had beautiful warm weather. We drove part of 17 Mile Drive to see the ocean sights, complete with huge waves. My parents really enjoyed the views and the beach, and I'm happy they liked it. This is definitely one of my favorite places. Usually we visit Kevin's aunt who lives there, but she was traveling this time so we were on our own.

Love the waves crashing on the rocks.

Sadly, they have already headed back to Ohio, but we had a great time and I'm so glad they were able to visit. Back to the regularly scheduled work week...

Hitting the Track

Back in October, I joined the Integrate Performance Fitness track workouts. IPF is the same gang I worked out with on the bike and for strength - they train a well-rounded group of endurance athletes. The group meets both Monday and Wednesday, although I decided to start slower with one time per week for now. This is my first experience with coached track workouts; I'm enjoying the group of people a ton and I'm convinced the speed work has already helped me in my fall races. Even more exciting? I picked up a lighter shoe, the Mizuno Elixir 7, to work into during track workouts and wore them for the first time this week. I've never, ever run in something so light.

New shoes!

We've done a few different workouts, such as 400m repeats, 800m repeats, shorter sprints like 100m and 200m combo nights, and one of my favorites we call 5-4-3-2-1 hill repeats. In the last one, we use a small hill at the edge of the track. The workout looks like this: Sprint uphill and slow downhill 5x, do a combination of strength exercises like russian twists, push-ups, squats, then sprint 400m. Recover back to the base of the hill, and repeat the whole thing again with 4x hill repeats, 3x hill repeats, etc. This one ends up being a great workout and adds nice variety to the evening. In addition to the speed and interval workouts, we've gone through cadence drills, breathing drills, and running form drills in detail. The other great part of each night is that we add drills, leg workouts, and core workouts - all things I tend to neglect a bit if left to my own devices.

I know there are people out there who love speed workouts, but I can't say I've ever been one of them. I love my long, slower runs while enjoying the outdoors quite a bit more than I like running around the oval. That said, I know these workouts are good for me and I'm glad I joined the group to get my butt out there. I always feel awesome after the workout, and maybe someday I'll even become a speed work fan.

As I go through this year and work toward my sub-2 hour half marathon goal, I'll need to increase the distance of my speed workouts. The coach plans to focus more workouts on 800m repeats, and I'm hoping to request mile repeats too. I'm pretty sure I'll regret that request at some point in the near future.

So tell me, do you include track workouts in your training plans? What is your favorite or your most helpful speed workout for the half marathon? Should I include mile repeats? I want to know your secrets; I need all the help I can get on my 2013 half marathon goal time!

January SF Marathon Blog Post

I know I'm slow on the blogging front lately - but don't worry, I'm out having fun! Kevin and I spent this past weekend skiing at Heavenly and enjoying ski runs that didn't even open last year due to lack of snow. Luckily, Tahoe has a great base already this season. I'll make sure to post a few gorgeous skiing photos in the next few weeks because we'll be heading to Tahoe quite a bit.

In other exciting news this week, I wrote my very first guest post for the San Francisco Marathon Blog. The post is about how discovering social running enhanced my running life - check it out! Feel free to leave comments on it here if you like.

This is a short one because the main post is on the SF Blog, but I leave you with one piece of inspiration from my commute to work last week.

Happy Wednesday all, and stay in motion even when times get tough!

Trail Love and 1000 Miles

This past week brought many fantastic trail miles. In fact, all of my 30 miles this past week were on trails instead of the road, which is very unusual for me. I loved it! I'm feeling a bit obsessed with researching trail races at the moment, although I imagine I'll do those as weekend fun runs and not true races. I like to take it easier on the trail and to really enjoy the great scenery surrounding me.

Last Monday, I ran 10.4 miles with Alisyn and Matt at Nisene Marks State Park for the first time. We had fun and ran mostly single track trail including a couple of creek crossings and pretty steep climbs. I can't wait to go back there again. The post-run breakfast at the 'Hole in the Wall' cafe was awesome too.

 Waterfall in Nisene

On Saturday, I headed to Huddart Park with Kevin, Alisyn, and Matt for the Crystal Springs Trail Half Marathon (22 mile for Matt) organized by Coastal Trail Runs. I've run and volunteered for this race organization, and they put on very fun, low-key trail events. My only goal for this event was to beat my other trail half marathon time of 2:59 in 2009. I planned to enjoy it, knowing I'd end up walking some of the hills and running a slower pace on trail.

The course was pretty tough, basically all uphill for the first half. And it felt like it too! I stuck with Kevin the whole time and then with Alisyn after we caught up to her from getting separated at the start, and we were all feeling it. I'm not afraid to say there was quite a bit of walking on that very long (and sometimes very steep) uphill portion.

I love the Coastal Trail Run aid stations because they have Clif Shot Bloks, and they have a ton of other goodies like pretzels, M&Ms, peanut butter sandwiches, cookies, potato chips, Gu. The trail leveled out for a mile or so after the aid station and then climbed up again, but once we turned around it was glorious. We picked up the pace easily on the long downhill sections and I felt like I was flying through the forest.

We popped out of the woods and finished the last mile or so on the road back to the start area, although I didn't even realize we were so close. GPS isn't accurate on the switchbacks and I thought I had at least another mile to go. The next thing I knew we were back and crossing the finish, feeling great. The first half was super tough, but I had a second wind with all the downhill and didn't even feel that tired when we finished. I could have pushed harder, but that wasn't what this event was about for me. I absolutely loved the run and finished way ahead of my old trail half time at 2:41:54.

Not a great finish photo, but it's free so using it anyway...

Naturally, I celebrated with a beer, this time at Steak Out in Mountain View. They have a great beer selection and equally great food.

Racer 5 IPA to the rescue

In other exciting news, I ran 1000 miles in 2012 for the first year ever! This wasn't a specific goal, but when I realized how close I was by tracking on DailyMile, I had to finish it. The Nisene trail run took me to slightly over 1001 miles on the year. I've never actually tracked the whole year before, but I'm still quite sure I've never hit that mark.

The Official DailyMile total

Last, check out this adorable cat food holder I found on Fab.com. The tail is a scoop!