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Stone Canyon is hilly! but beautiful
24 December, 2006 15:15
This is perhaps the most hilliest run that I have done for training. I made this run during the summer and said that I have to run this at one point as it would be hard but scenic. I was right. Sunset was hilly as usual. I was surprised that I climbed a 350ft hill at the half point. It was painful but well worth it. Overall the area (Bel Air) was amazing. It was almost like running through a forest with all the trees but on a concrete path. I only wish they had a small sidewalk as I had some close calls with cars. I was hoping for a 8:45, and I did well. I guess I went rather fast on the downhill part. I'm glad I added more salt to my gatorade and brought an extra bottle of water. What's with this weather? Over 70 in the winter? Didn't do a clif shot as I didn't need it. Can't wait to see how I do in a week. Activity
Bel Air, California | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
City of Angels Half, post-race
08 December, 2006 22:30
I haven't had time to update my blog on my most recent race as I have been heavily burdened by work and school.
Overall, the race was good. I was aiming for 1h50m and finished at 1h53m29s.
819 overall, 30/75 in my division.
Waiting for over an hour at the start line was too much. It was extremely cold at start, which is not what I'm used to. Good thing I bought a good pair of gloves to use. My biggest concern during the race was perhaps something would go wrong with my legs given my previous injury with my left ankle and some tightness with some of my tendon on my right leg. No real problem there. The only problem that I experienced was sore quad muscles near my knees. This started happening after the biggest climb (the Hyperion bridge around mile 6-7). I think it was the combination of uphill + gradual downhill that did it to my knees. So need to work more on that.
The course, while the net elevation is a loss of 180ft, is a little deceptive given the long hills. They weren't steep, just for 1/2 a mile or more. Sunset Blvd was the worse.
My fueling was wrong for the race, and this was due to the race officials not having enough gatorade and water available. I was lucky that the race was on a cold day otherwise I may have DNF from dehydration. I thought about bringing my water bottle (filled w/ gatorade) before I left, and I said that I would be fine. When in doubt, just do it. Better safe than sorry. If I had more gatorade, I think I could have finished closer to 1h50m. I was smart to bring a Clif shot as I did need it.
After the race, there was a lot of food, so I fueled up.
The funny story for the day was that I had a miscommunication with my siblings. I intended to tell them that I would finish in 1h50m, but they thought that I would be done at 1:50P. Big difference as I was done before 10A.
Given how well I performed, I'm optimistic that I will complete my next marathon in under 4 hours.
The next day I was sore in the quads and my right achilles (too much downhill). That showed me that I really worked my ass off. I did perform at the pace that I was training for, but with fewer breaks compared to training. I'm already back into running, and planning the next 3 months for L.A. Marathon.
This weekend was a great weekend. I went to the VH1 Big in 2006 award show the night before the race, and then a concert at the Roxy in the evening.
City of Angels Half
21 November, 2006 22:31
Here's my best guess at the l.a. half. It's over by 0.7 miles. That's not too bad since I assume so much along the way. I was agreeing with their "technical" map until mile 4 or 5-ish. As of today, there's two version of the course map. One where we run out and back on Figueroa and another one where it doesn't have that. I chose the one with the Figueroa out/back as I think that's a more updated map, but I could be wrong. There's an underpass that will be taken to go from the Griffith Park Ave to the L.A. river before Los Feliz. I did the best I could to match it to what is online by the curvature of the path. I'm somewhat confused by the zig-zag before Hyperion Bridge, so don't trust that. I also think that we take the overpass bridge at Los Feliz to get to the other side. Of course, their elevation map was off. I'm seeing three hills. One before mile 6, one at 8, and another one at 10. The 8 and 10 are more like plateaus than rolling hills (what they have online). The net elevation loss is 171 feet. Map Los Angeles, CA |
18 MILES! #2
24 September, 2006 14:00
Today was a good day. I ran 18.65 miles and I didn't feel exhausted afterwards. That's a first! My average pace was around 8:50mi/mile. I was hoping to finish under 9:00, and I'm quite happy.
I was a little worried the day before because the weather forcasts said it would reach into the low-90s! Most of where I ran was covered by shade, so that was nice, and I think the hottest it got was about 80-85F. I chose the right course by running on steep hills (UCLA perimeter) first. There isn't much shade around UCLA, and so I'm glad it did it when it was cooler. Then I ran through Santa Monica and Brentwood.
The only place that I'm feeling pain is at the base of my left ankle. The rest of my ankle doesn't hurt. It started hurting 16 miles in. There's been days where it doesn't hurt and days it does. I'm not sure if it's part of my shoe that's hitting into that area or perhaps impact on concrete has been hurting me. I've been running at a faster pace lately, and so that could be the cause. My quad was starting to be tight around 15.5 miles. Same area as where it got crampy during the L.A. marathon and the SRLA Friendship Run. I stretched a bit, and it felt better.
1 more 18 miler and 2 more 20 milers until Santa Clarita Marathon.
LA XXII tentative
10 September, 2006 14:44
Here's the tentative course for the upcoming L.A. marathon. It starts at Universal Studios and end in Downtown L.A. Distance is off as I didn't do a careful job with all the turns being tight. This is for you, Dave S.
Route
| Route: | LA XXII tentative | Elev. Avg: | 315 ft |
| Location: | Los Angeles, CA | Elev. Gain: | -315 ft |
| Difficulty: | 3.4 / 5.0 | Up/Downhill: | [+485/-800] |
18 MILES!
03 September, 2006 23:23
Today was a great run. Hilly, but I managed to finish 18 miles. I was a bit worry since I injured my right lower calf from too much running ... hehe ... oh the impact on concrete. It was fine with some stretching and icing in the end.
The coming week is my recovery week. Haven't had one of those in almost three months now. What was great about today was that when I was running back on San Vicente to the Nike Club Run LA station, I felt rather good going up a slight incline. Later on it was tough with the hills on Sunset.
James who is training for his first marathon, insists that I run the Santa Clarita marathon with him. At the moment I have ran more long distances than he has. He says he is going to pay for my registration fee if he doesn't injure himself til then. So if I end up running this marathon, I'm hoping to do one 18 miler and two 20 milers.
I actually don't feel sore after 18 miles. I was pretty sore my last two 18 miles back in Feb/March. I guess these long runs (14+ miles) really help.
16+ miles
20 August, 2006 14:58
Today was my second 16+ mile run. I'm feeling better than last week where I was pretty tired afterward. I averaged a pace of 8:30-8:40 today, which was also faster than last week. These miles are adding up pretty quickly. We'll see how well I do for the remaining few months of this year as I up it to 35miles a week.
Feeling Sore
30 July, 2006 06:03
Today was the my third time running with Nike Club Run LA. It was rather successful given that I was able to do 14+ miles at an average pace of 8:30. I was shooting for 8:30 minutes/mi, so I'm pretty happy today. Last week was horrible because of the extreme heat wave. I sweated so much, and even an hour later on, I was still sweating when I tried to cool off. My pace then was 9:10. I ran 1.7 miles to the starting point and the rest down San Vicente onto Ocean and past the pier on the biking path. I kept up with the pace leader (Jane) and two other guys that were sprinting at sub 8:00 for the first 6 miles. These three people were quite tall, and so you could imagine that I had to run faster to keep up with them. I slowed down later on as it was an incline from the coast. Right now I'm feeling sore in my left gluts. The last time this muscle was sore was from the marathon, and the last time I was sore was when I got back into running in early June from Calgary. Nevertheless, I feel great. I really push myself today, but the 8:30 pace was something that I've been aiming for about a month.
Running with Nike Club Run LA
16 July, 2006 15:55
So last weekend, I was running around Santa Monica and Brentwood. I stopped to take a break during my 13 miler, and two girls gave me a flyer to check out their Sunday run. They were training for the Nike SF marathon.
So I did. It was fun. There were lots of people out there training at different levels. I had the intention of running a short distance (no more than two miles) as I was hoping to run my 13.5 miler on Saturday. I ended up running 8 miles on Sunday. 2 miles to Frontrunners, 4 miles along San Vicente, and 2 miles back home from where we met up.
The best part was that we ran faster than what our pace group was aiming for. I ran 4 miles at a pace of 8 minutes rather than 8:30.
Next week I'm running their 14miler hopefully at 8:30, we will see.
I'm surprised that I'm not sore given than I ran 32.75 miles this week compared to my usual 24.75 miles.
LA Marathon XXI
04 April, 2006 00:53
Activity
| Route: | LA Marathon XXI | Elev. Avg: | 166 ft |
| Location: | Los Angeles, CA | Elev. Gain: | -6 ft |
| Date: | 03/19/06 | Up/Downhill: | [+479/-485] |
| Time: | 08:15 AM | Difficulty: | 3.4 / 5.0 |
| Weather: | Partly Cloudy | ||
| 60F temp; 53% humidity | |||
| 60F heat index; winds Vrbl 5 | |||
| Distance: | 26.66 miles | Goal: | None |
| Time: | 4:38:52 | ||
| Speed: | 5.74 mph | Goal Attained: | 0% |
| Pace: | 10' 27 min/mi | Calories: | 2437 |
L.A. Marathon XXI
25 March, 2006 23:07
So on Sunday, March 19, 2006, I ran my first marathon. I started training about a year before that, and I'm glad I did because I finish in a good time. I finished in 04:38:52. My rank is: overall - 5540/20169; gender - 4301/12368, div - 350/1098. I'm happy with my time, and I'm hoping to improve significantly the next time I run it in March '07.
I'm taking a break from running until after my big comprehensive oral exam in mid-April. After that, I hope to get back to it and start speed training.
- BiM
