Trail Running Blog

Runner’s Holiday Gift Guide 2013

Quick running update: I was going to take a break from running after the Long Beach 5K and focus more on biking and just working out at the gym. But then they started a running club at work to train for a half marathon in January, so I decided to sign up for that race as well. I’ve been running, but not necessarily training for the half by running a few miles during the week and then (semi)-long during the weekend. We’ll see if that’s good enough to compete in the half.

This will be my first runner’s holiday gift guide for 2013 (ever actually). At first I was worried because I thought I was going to need to do extensive research on new products and technology. But in reality, I’m just going to list things on my current wish list as well as things I’ve received to review that I actually enjoy using. I’ve provided convenient (affiliate) links to purchase most of the products listed below. Read the rest of this entry »

Race & Running Updates

I was hoping to find at least one other race to run after my trail half in April and before the SD Rock ‘n Roll Half coming up next week. But things kept coming up and I couldn’t find one that I really wanted to run. So I just kept running as much as possible with some biking in between.

Some recent notable runs I can think of off the top of my head was an 8-miler (1:04, 8:09 min/mile), 11-miler (1:32, 8:05 min/mile) & 9-miler (1:13, 7:54 min/mile)..today! I haven’t been putting as many miles as I would have liked, but I’m hoping those long runs and whatever runs I can get in between (as well as my rides to work) will pay off. I say this each time, but I really want to try and hold back in the beginning to have enough energy to maintain or even pick up the pace later on. When I ran the SD RnR Marathon last year, we actually ran with the half-marathoners for a part of the race. I remember thinking, ‘man I could almost be done, but instead I’m only half-way there!’

In other news, I officially signed up for the San Francisco Half for July 31. I will be racing my brother and his friends for the first time (in that distance). This will be my first race outside of SD and LA, still not out of state, but getting closer. I’ve been there for business, so I’ll try to make it a mini vacation as well. I want to use the SD RnR Half as a training run for the ‘real’ race in July. Of course, I’ll continue to run and train before that race, hopefully it’ll push me to train even hard than before!

Running Updates or Lack Thereof

So the month of June has had its fill of both highs and lows. I ran my first marathon on the 6^th and had a lot of mixed feelings. The rest of the month can be summarized by the following:

• Post marathon thoughts: definitely harder than I had anticipated, even though I knew it was going to be a grueling 26.2 miles. The feeling can never be explained quite as well as actually running it.
• What I’ve been doing: swimming, biking, basketball and some running.
• What I want to do: improve my swimming technique and endurance to attempt my first triathlon.
• What I will most likely do: coming to the realization that I do NOT swim anything remotely close to a fish, I may have to abandon the tri, for now. But I still have a 10K, trail race, and at least 2 half marathons to look forward to, so I’m not too sad about that. Read the rest of this entry »

Marathon Training Update: April 2010

This is a recap post of what I did for the month of April; there is a lot of data to look at Although I missed a couple of key workouts throughout the month, I was still able to run the most miles I’ve ran since I started running again back in early 2009. I also squeezed in 2 races, which was nice. I think May will even top April in terms of mileage, but we’ll see what happens. I have a trip to Des Moines, Iowa in a couple of weeks. It’s gonna be tough, but I really want to try and get a run over there, just to see what it’s like and get a change of scenery.

Love looking at these cool graphs from DailyMile!

April
Total Miles: 154.46
Time Spent Running: ~20:18:00
Average Pace: 7:53
Total Calories: 18,510
Average HR: 152
Avg Max HR: 172

Total Pushups: 1,791

Total Races: 2 (Carlsbad 5000 5K, La Jolla Half Marathon)
Read the rest of this entry »

Running, Driving & Pushing Up

It seems like a lot has been going on these days, none of it is necessarily bad news, which is always good. Just..busy. There are a couple of things I want to update on though, running-wise.

Marathon Training

My first full marathon training program has been ironed out (technically, today was day 1: rest/cross-train: run for 20 min, basketball for the evening). This came directly from my internet-running-coach and fellow runner, Caleb Masland [Twitter, DailyMile, Blog]. I hope he doesn’t mind, but if you ever need running tips or advice, he’s definitely the one to go to. I have provided a screenshot of the program below. The weekly miles are going to be more than I have run consistently for quite some time. And assuming I still run on the days I have for rest/cross-training, then it will a lot more! I still have a 5K and half marathon planned for next month, so I’ll do my best to make sure I can still get an equivalent workout in for the day.

Run on the Trail

I came back from a weekend in LA and hit up the local high school trail that I ran when I was in cross country. It was roughly an 8 mile run and hit just over an hour. Although I wasn’t able to measure the mile markers accurately, I did keep track of the splits for each checkpoint and was pleased to run negative splits. As to not confuse you with actual street names, I’ve labeled them with just letters. One thing I noticed was that after the run, my body felt very drained. It was probably a combination of the heat (Spring has arrived!) and the distance. I had to drop my sister off at the airport which was only a 30 minute drive, but I was still nervous about falling asleep at the wheel. I survived that trip, but was definitely dreading the 2 hour drive back to San Diego. Fortunately, I was able to get a power nap (although not very successful) and had an energy drink to help keep me up.

Splits:

A-B: 8:22
B-C: 7:55
C-D: 9:21
D-E-D: 5:10
D-C: 9:00
C-B: 7:06
B-A: 6:39

100 Pushups Program

I completed the first week of the 100 pushups program. Technically it was the 3^rd week since the program tells you to move ahead if you can do more than a certain amount during the initial test. It’s only 3 times a week, but pretty tough none-the-less. The first day was harder than I expected, but by the 3^rd day, I was surprised at how much more pushups I was able to do. Only 3 more weeks and I’m supposed to be able to do 100 straight pushups, sounds hard right? I think the same thing. What you’re supposed to do after the 6^th week is do the final 100 pushups test. But if you’re not able to do it, it tells you to go back a week or two and try again. I have a feeling that is going to happen for a couple of weeks, but who knows. I definitely feel stronger after each day and I’m hoping that it’ll pay off come race day!

Trail Run Adventure to the Waterfall

I have been hoping to finally run on some trails for the past couple of months, but things kept getting in the way. First, it was training for my first half marathon and my incessant need to stick to the schedule. Then, it was a matter of actually finding good trails to run on, which is a task in itself. Once I finally figured out worthy trails to run on, out of nowhere, it rained every weekend for at least 3 weeks straight. And this is in San Diego, where it never rains! I finally found a weekend where rain was not forecasted. Actually, it rained later that afternoon, but I had finished just before it started. It may have been perfect timing since it is just a few weeks before only the 2nd trail race I’ve ever ran, the Black Mountain Summit 7K. What I’m hoping is that combining these trail runs before and after racing the 7K, I will be more than prepared for my next half marathon, the La Jolla Half Marathon (2nd half of the Half Marathon Triple Crown). This half, I heard, has a few daunting hills within this scenic 13.1 mile course.

So the trail I found is called the Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve, which has (at least) two main entrances to the trail. You actually have to pay ($3) to park at the lot by the entrances, but there is a park just down the road that is free to park in. I didn’t want to pull a muscle while running the trails, so…I chose to park down the road and ‘warm up’ to the entrance (good excuse, right?). What I learned at the end of the run is that there is actually a path to get to the same point from the park! Anyways, once I got to started, I noticed that the trail is very wide, which accommodates walkers/runners, bikers as well as equestrians. Because of the rains, there were not many people on the trails that morning, which was OK since there weren’t really any forks in the main road that would potentially get me lost all alone. There were a lot of side trails that led to to what looked like steeper, funner, hilly trails. But again, the rain had caused these paths to temporarily close; definitely piqued my interest though. The only problem with veering off to these trails is I have NO idea where it’ll lead me. The main path is supposed to be about 5 miles East to West and about 3 miles West is supposed to be a fun stop at a waterfall.

It was nice being able to run to a destination as opposed to just doing one big loop. However, when I got to said destination, I was a little disappointed (only a little because I read other people’s account of this majestic waterfall and they were not too impressed either). It looked more like a rapid flowing river with lots of rocks surrounding than a Niagara Falls-esque waterfall. What was cool was if you wanted to cross the ‘river’ to get to the trail on the other end, you had to very carefully walk across the rocks that were laid across. That would have been quite an adventure (if I did it)! Check out the photos below as well as the secret bridge/path to the park that I took back to my car. I’m hoping to take another stab at this trail in the future, and if I’m daring enough to follow “the road less traveled”

Running Update: Trails, Hills & Speed

Why you should join DailyMile :)

It has been a while since I wrote a running update. The reason for that is because I haven’t had any breakthrough runs since my race over 3 weeks ago. My typical routine after a race is to take a couple of days off to rest and recover, then just continue running so that I don’t get too out of shape when it comes time to start a new training program. It’s strange because weeks prior to my half marathon, I was not really running very fast times, but I ended up running my fastest half ever. That trend has continued after my half, and I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m running in the mornings. It has become apparent that I am not a morning person. I never want to get out of bed in the mornings and am tired throughout most of the run. I don’t eat breakfast before my runs, so I think if I woke up a little bit earlier, the time I spent eating breakfast would help me wake up. But waking up earlier would involve sleeping less (technically), which I hate. I know people who wake up at 4 AM to run or have to endure ridiculously horrible running conditions (i.e. snow), so I don’t really have much to complain about. Read the rest of this entry »

Brooks I.D. (Inspire Daily) Program – I’m In!

“You have been accepted into the Brooks Inspire Daily Program!”

“Brooks I.D. stands for Inspire Daily. These two simple words guide the principles of the program. Brooks I.D. is made up of over 2,000 members who are active in their running communities and share a passion for the Brooks brand. They are runners who are winners in their own right: Winning their age divisions, accomplishing their personal goals, pushing their own limits, and, by extension, encouraging others to do the same. They are coaches, mentors, and leaders.” Read the rest of this entry »

Half Marathon Training: Peaking too Soon?

Each week, as my first ever half marathon comes closer and closer to reality, it seems as if I’m having better and better workouts. On days I need to go hard, I’m able to hit the pace that I’m hoping for and on days where it’s easy or off, I may not have the best workout which I’m OK with. The only thing I’m afraid of now is if I am pushing myself too hard and will peak too early. Back in high school cross country, our coach planned our hard workouts for the entire season in hopes of us peaking at the very optimal moment (league finals for some, and CIF prelims/finals for Varsity). I do feel like the half marathon training program that I was recommended is geared toward peaking exactly when I actually run the half, but I may be pushing the pace too much that I begin to burn out toward the end of the program. I’m happy to say that nothing of that nature has happened yet, but who knows whether or not that will happen next week or the week after. So now I am in a position where I can either do really well and actually hit sub-1:30 for my first half (based off Sunday’s long run) or I will push it too hard to the point where I can’t even finish the race, which would be a huge disappointment. This is something that I have to keep in the front of my mind as I am completing this program. Read the rest of this entry »

Half Training Week 4: September 29 – October 4, 2009

This week was a pretty productive week, however in addition to my usual off day on Monday, I decided to take a nap on Wednesday instead of run. I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal since that day was an off/cross-train/easy run day anyways. I just feel that I need to run as much miles as possible to build up my endurance for the half. On that day though, I was just pooped, before work, at, and afterwards. It was funny because when I briefly woke up at 8:30PM that night, I disregarded the fact that it was dark and thought to myself, ‘dang it, I’m late for work’. Immediately after I realized it was night time, I so just went back to bed, it was nice! Read the rest of this entry »