Kelocity.com

A runner with an appetite for adventure!

And then there were 10! April 3, 2010

Filed under: Training — Kelocity @ 1:03 pm
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This morning I ran my last double-digit mile run! I had my new shoes, new socks, chocolate GUs, bottle of Ultima…. and I headed for the hills! We ran in Griffith Park today, which has some killer hills in it if you plan the route right. We did a flat 5 miles, followed by a hilly 2 miles, then a nice downhill 3 miles. 

I love running in the park because it’s a change of scenery (sorry, no pictures! I ran sans camera today!) But it stinks that you have to share the road with cyclists and cars. There isn’t much of a running path, and it’s quite dangerous in some places. Plus they’re doing construction on the road and it’s just crowded! But I do enjoy passing other runners and doing the runner’s “nod” and saying hi. Makes me smile. 

Today’s Stats:
 
10 Miles in 2:06:07

Mile 1 – 11:32
Mile 2 – 11:32
Mile 3 – 11:45
Mile 4 – 13:12
Mile 5 – 13:13
Mile 6 – 13:50
Mile 7 – 12:28  <—-UP HILL
Mile 8 – 12:16  <—-DOWN HILL
Mile 9 – 13:13  <—-DOWN HILL
Mile 10 -13:05

I am a little confused why my UP hill mile is faster than my DOWN hill miles. I feel like I’m a very inconsistent runner. Perhaps something to work on in the future. 

The run really felt great though. I’m still getting blisters in the same place every time I run though. (I’ll spare you the picture). I can’t figure out why. It could be that I buy my shoes in “wide” and maybe there’s too much room? My socks are too thin? Does anyone have any suggestions on running with blisters? They don’t hurt at all, but I don’t want them to pop during the race! I’m seriously considering taping them with athletic tape during the race, but what if it comes off and bunches up in my shoe? Any suggestions?

Oh my Gosh! I totally forgot to show you my new necklace that my friend Sarah gave me!!!!! Remember a while back I wrote about how cute these were? It has two charms on it. I adore it. I’ve been wearing it every day.  I’ll post a picture of me actually wearing it this week. 🙂
 
Thank you Sarah! 

You can find these at Lift Your Sole! They’re so cute!

Marathon weekend is 2 weeks away!!!!

 

15 Miles March 27, 2010

Filed under: Run DFMC,Training — Kelocity @ 4:07 pm
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This week, I was really dreading this 15 mile run. I feel like my training schedule was about 3 weeks too long. I’m just ready to run Boston at this point. Tapering is always hard mentally. 

I met up with Peter and once we started running, it felt really good. We kept saying “Thank god we only have to run 15 miles this week”. hahaha That sounds kind of funny, doesn’t it? I got a little tired by the end, but I finished strong. I fueled better this week and had more to eat during the run. I even tried (and liked) the chocolate GU that I brought with me. I was worried it would mess up my stomach, but it was great. Not a burst of energy, but it prevented me from “dipping below”, so I guess it did it’s job. 

Sadly, no pictures this week, it was all business. My splits were not impressive, but for a taper week, not bad either. 

SPLITS:
Mile 1 – 11:20
Mile 2 – 11:38
Mile 3 – 13:43
Mile 4 – 12:27
Mile 5 – 12:08
Mile 6 – 13:01
Mile 7 – 12:58
Mile 8 -13:29
Mile 9 -12:58
Mile 10 -13:19
Mile 11 – 13:23
Mile 12 – 13:49
Mile 13 – 13:09
Mile 14 – 13:13
Mile 15 -12:42

The pace was pretty consistent, but we had a lot of friends out on the course today, and I was a little bit chatty, so those slower miles were probably “social hour” ones. 🙂 And we made a few stops to the car to refill water too.

Also worth noting, Peter is faster than me, and actually started running ahead and back towards the end… he added almost a whole mile onto the total! AND he even ran the LA Marathon last week. Something to aspire to. He’s a great running Buddy! Thanks, Peter!

PS. It BETTER not be as hot in Boston as it was in LA today. Too hot to run! (in my warm-blooded opinion!) 

I’m just $94 away from the Dana-Farber Fundraising Minimum! If you’d like to donate, you can do so here! Thank you so much for your support! 3 weeks away!

 

20 Miles in the bucket! March 13, 2010

Filed under: Training — Kelocity @ 7:48 pm
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Day four of the “Get up early challenge” was a success. 🙂 I had a great night’s sleep and when my alarm went off at 5:15am today, I was up and ready to go! The sun was just starting to come up when I was driving to the park, it just felt like a great day to run. 

The plan was to run 15 miles with my friend Peter at 7:30a, so I snuck in an extra 5 miles before he got there (to make it a total of 20)…thus the super early wake up call.


The first 5 miles, I barely can remember. I had my ipod in and I was jamming along. My sister, Mikaela made me a mix CD for christmas, so it was a fresh group of songs I’ve never heard, it was pretty awesome. 

After 5 miles, I was warmed up and ready for another 15! (Translation: already a sweaty mess!) I was rocking my Dana-Farber race day singlet today too! You know, just to show off try it out!
 
I still don’t really know what shirt I’m going to wear underneath for the marathon. The singlet is kind of see-through, so I have choose wisely. Might as well go with the red Dana-Farber training shirt so at least it matches, yes?
 
Once I met up with Peter, we set off to conquer 15 more. It started out great, we were cruising our way around the park. At mile 10, we refueled (i totally ran out of water…. I think I drank FIVE of my fuel belt bottles today! And it wasn’t even that hot! Good thing there will be water refill stations on the marathon course! 

Then somewhere between miles 16 and 17…. I totally crashed. I started to get a little woozy and light headed. I was drinking tons of water, eating my salt packets and munching on my shot blocks the entire time… but it was blatantly clear that I didn’t have enough calories. Lesson learned: bring sports drinks and more snacks. Period. Such a rookie mistake, I was kind of embarrassed. So I decided to finish out the rest of the milage walking, and Peter finished ahead of me.

My muscles felt great, my stomach felt great… so I knew I was totally fine with training. I decided to just take in the scenery and applaud myself on doing 20 miles! It’s such a huge training milestone. This left me time to enjoy the ducks!



They have absolutely no running etiquette though. They are usually right on the running path. So cute though.

And speaking of cute:

Hahaha totally kidding.
 
At mile 19, they had free chair massages set up in the park!!!! I’m not kidding! I never turn down free chair massages and I totally thought it was worth while to have a 10 minute massage before I finished my milage. HAHA for accountability sake, I kept my watch going. Can’t wait to see what THOSE splits look like. HAHAHA

But it was TOTALLY worth it. My shoulders get SUPER tight when I run, so it was nice to have someone dig their elbow into it and loosen it up. So convenient they were in the park! HAHA 

And now the splits…. some I’m proud of, some not so much, but alas, 20 miles is 20 miles, right?

Most milage (except for the last 3 miles) was done with 5:5 intervals:

Mile 1 – 13:02 (including a half mile walking warmup)
Mile 2 – 11:43
Mile 3 – 12:48
Mile 4 – 12:40
Mile 5 – 12:04
Mile 6 – 14:14 (refuel at the car)
Mile 7 – 11:35
Mile 8 – 11:47
Mile 9 – 12:12
Mile 10 – 12:48
Mile 11 – 13:39 (refuel at the car)
Mile 12 – 12:37
Mile 13 – 12:17
Mile 14 – 12:44
Mile 15 – 13:33
Mile 16 – 13:02
Mile 17 -14:45 (the walking begins!)
Mile 18 – 17:16
Mile 19 – 37:20 (hahaha but that included a 15 minute stop for the massage!!)
Mile 20 -18:05

Total: 4 Hours, 50 Minutes
Average Pace Before walking: 12:42
Average Pace including the massage and walk breaks: 14:31 

Today I just took it easy and caught up on some shows on my DVR. I need to ice my legs, but overall, I feel great and ready to rock and roll in Boston! Bring it!

 

The 2010 Pasadena Half Marathon March 5, 2010

Filed under: Races,Uncategorized — Kelocity @ 6:21 pm
Tags: ,

Whoops, totally forgot to post my Pasadena Half Marathon race recap!

I already posted about how good the expo was, but look what else I found in there!

I didn’t buy it, but how awesome is that!!!!

The night before, I laid out all my stuff for my early morning wake up call. It’s so weird getting ready for a race in my own house. Maybe I’ve been spoiled, but nearly all of my other races have been in other cities. I kind of felt like a chicken with my head cut off, it didn’t feel real that I was running in the morning. I couldn’t focus. Look at that above picture, anything missing?

I didn’t realize until I was half-way to the start line that I had forgot the most important thing! My GARMIN! My heart just sank. Chely and I rode the Metro there (I love public transportation!). It was too late to turn around and go back for it. Not having my watch really messed me up mentally during Nike last year. But I wasn’t going to let this ruin another race. I decided to just stick with my teammates and enjoy the scenery instead of focusing on my “pace” or “milage”.

I met with my Los Angeles Racers team and we did some stretching together. It started to drizzle but then ended up drying up. The weather was PERFECT for running!
Hint: I am the cool kid in the lime green socks. HAHA


I knew I had to stick friends to keep me on pace (even though I wasn’t obsessing over it). I did my usual 5:5 intervals with Peter. After a few miles, other people started asking us questions about why we ran/walked. They looked exhausted and I think they were totally jealous of our style. HAHAHA I am still in awe I can maintain a 12 minute pace walking 50% of the time.


I was just taking it easy and powering through. There were a LOT of hills! Everytime we went up, Peter and I visualized Heartbreak Hill. 🙂

Somewhere around Mile 9, I was totally in the zone. I didn’t really feel like I was running, I just got into a methodical rhythm that was driving me forwards. Then I glanced over and saw a woman on the side of the road cheering. She struck a remarkable resemblance to the mother of my friend, Rebecca, who passed away from cancer im 2002. This lady was wildly cheering and I started to get choked up. Rebecca and I were both treated at Dana-Farber at the same time. We became good friends. A flood of memories came back to me and I said out loud to myself: “This is why I run… ”

And with that, I willed myself to go faster.

A mile later, I started realizing that my Personal Record (2:47) was actually within reach! But since Peter had forged ahead, going for it would mean leaving my other friends (and their trusty watches!) behind. I decided it was a mental game, and as long as I ran as much as I walked, I could still beat my time!





It was totally worth sprinting it in! I beat my time!!! I didn’t know it until later…. but I actually beat it by over 7 minutes!!

Some of my teammates: Rhoda, Sharon, Peter, Me and Autumn!

I am so proud of this medal!

My official time:

And check this out… I PR’d on the 10K too!

I really loved the shirt they gave out too! Gotta love those loose fitting dri-fits!




So the moral of the story is that running really IS “mind over matter”. I definitely won’t be running Boston without my Garmin, but it is a really nice feeling knowing I dont HAVE to depend on it. It really was a great race. Next stop: BOSTON!

 

12 Hours til the Pasadena Half Marathon!! February 20, 2010

Filed under: Marathons,Training — Kelocity @ 8:11 pm
Tags: ,

The Pasadena Half Marathon kind of crept up on me! But now that there’s 12 hours to go, I’m really excited!!

Chely and I went to the Expo today at the Pasadena Convention Center. It’s not a huge race, but I was very impressed with the expo. They had a lot of booths and fun things to see. This hat really cracked me up. HAHA I’ll make sure to channel my inner Kenyan tomorrow when I run. 🙂

I love these disposable shoe timing tags. They’re so much better than using zip ties on bulky plastic discs.


 One of things that is starting to drive me nuts is how much wasted paper we get in our goodie bags. The majority of it is ads. I am not against companies advertising their products, but most of them have their own booths anyways, so why not just give papers to people who are interested?

But I did get lots of goodies in there too!

And I was able to stock up on some of my favorite things! Shot Bloks, Powerbar Recovery Bar and a Chocoate Gu. I am not a huge fan of GU, but I hear this one tastes like Chocolate Frosting!

I was VERY excited to see the “Ultima” booth there.
 

Ultima is the only sports drink that has zero sugar in it. Sugar +Running = Kelley’s not a happy camper. It has no sugar, barely any calories…. but ALL the electrolytes you need. (I get my calories/sugar from my Shot Bloks). 
 

Here’s a few of their stats! (Click to enlarge).
 
 So I was talking to the lady about how much I love this product. Chely was standing next to me, wearing my “Dana Farber” hat. (She’s my biggest fan!) And the lady told me that Ultima works with Dana-Farber all time. Apparently they give cancer patients Ultima after a chemotherapy session to replace the vitamins and minerals they lose. HOW COOL IS THAT? I love when things come full circle!

I just pinned my bib on my shirt, I’m ready to go!


Wake up call is at 3:30am!! Race starts at 7a. Wish me luck! I’ll be back tomorrow with a full recap!