Weekend Roundup: Chapman 5k Recap, #runLB, PFTW

1. Chapman 5k Recap

I spent a fair amount of time whining to various people that I just don't have the mental toughness that I feel like I used to have. I don't really feel like I have it in me to push, and push hard.

It's one reason I wasn't sure I wanted to even attempt a PR at Chapman. I just didn't feel like I had it in me, and (IMO), for a 5k, it's equal parts speed, and mental toughness.

Saturday, I just didn't have it. Not enough speed, not enough tough.

First, the good.

Chapman has excellent goody bags - tech shirts, tons of samples.



The weather was pretty ideal. Cool and partly cloudy. Pretty sunrise during my warm up included.

They have kind of unofficial pace groups.


It's a small-ish race, without much congestion.

The bad....
This guy beat me
The ugly....
Bah.

That's NOT a PR.

The race is fantastic - well organized, two water stations, the course is well marked and volunteers everywhere. Finish area is well organized, and there's a great oatmeal bar after (I skipped to attend the Disney/Make a Wish event, HERE). It's a great race, and I promise I won't hold a grudge against Chapman for my shit performance. That's not hyperbole, BTW. Goal pace was 8:30; splits were 8:30, 9:17, 9:03, 8:12 {worst finishing kick EVER}. Lame. I did everything I could to set myself up for a PR, except for the running part during, say, ALL OF SEPTEMBER. Turns out, that part is kind of a big deal.

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2. Long Beach spectating

After deciding last year I was done racing Long Beach forever and ever, I was pretty excited when Julie mentioned she was going to be spectating this year's race.

I'm a big fan of spectating.

Julie is the hostess with the mostest, and had a pretty fancy spread of otter pops, Nuun, pretzels, and candy.








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3. PFTW

Last Week....
Monday: 6 miles, strides - super hot.
Tuesday: cross training - weights!
Wednesday: Long run, 14 easy pace
Thursday: 30 minutes yoga
Friday: cross training - weights AGAIN! I'm practically The Hulk.
Saturday: 2 miles warm up, shitty 5k
Sunday: rest

This Week...
Monday: 7 miles tempo (kill me now)
Tuesday: cross training
Wednesday: Long run, 16 easy pace
Thursday: rest (Gabby's birthday!)
Friday: 5 miles easy
Saturday: cross training (hiking!)
Sunday: 4-5 easy

Magic in Every Mile - runDisney Meet Up Recap

**warning, picture intensive**   On Friday, I was one of a few lucky participants to attend the runDisney Disneyland Half Marathon Meet Up with Jeff Galloway at Disneyland.

 

 

 

Our group met up under the Sorcerer hat outside of Downtown Disney, and just after 6am, we were off, with Jeff Galloway leading the pack in our run-walk-run (30 seconds, 30 seconds - this definitely took some getting used to!).

We took off through Downtown Disney, into Disneyland, through Adventureland, Fantasyland, the Castle, Down Main Street USA...
 

 

 

There's room for one more......

     

 

 

Then on to California Adventure....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey, Sparkle, tell me about Hood to Coast!

  We finished up at Animation Academy, where runDisney had coolers full of cold water (it was 6:45am, and already HOT and HUMID).

...and, had bibs and tee shirts for everyone registered for the half marathon on Sunday (RAD).
Our first speaker was Ferren Kelly, the head of runDisney.

While Ferren declined to reveal even a hint of the 20th mile SPECTACULAR for the Disney World Marathon, he did say that they are in discussions with ALL Disney parks worldwide.... and that they'll never run a race that doesn't run through a Disney park.

Some other tidbits that he shared:

• There are currently no plans to make Dopey an official event.
• 60-65% of the runners running Disneyland Half this year were women
• For the first time ever, the majority of runners in the Disney World Marathon in January will be women! (If you haven't registered yet, there is still a chance - go, do it!)

Next up was Jeff Galloway.

Jeff gave tons of great tips for our race Sunday - a lot of people were concerned about the heat, and his suggestion? Slow down. Thankfully, I'm an expert at slowing down.

Dimity and Sarah from Another Mother Runner were on stage following Jeff, discussing the importance of making time to get your work outs in.

As Sarah said, she doesn't magically have an extra 30 minutes in her day that no one else has, she just MAKES the time to make it happen. I know this is going to sound snotty, but whatever - I work full time, I have three kids, and I trained for 2 marathons. There's no magic recipe. You just do it, if you want to do it. If you don't, that's cool, but claiming you don't have time... it's an excuse.

Our last speaker of the morning was Suzy Favor Hamilton, a three-time Olympian and the holder of seven U.S. National Championships. Suzy shared her story of overcoming depression, and gave us a little pep-talk for Sunday.

And then she danced.

After the dancing was over, Mickey came out in his track suit for some pictures!

runDisney hosted breakfast for the meetup at Flo's V8 Cafe, part of the newly-opened Cars Land!

As with everything Disney does, the themeing is amazing.

And then.

Honestly, running with Jeff Galloway, exciting. Running through the (second) happiest place on earth, very exciting. Pep talks from olympians and some of my favorite authors? Super exciting.

But then we went on a private tour of Soarin'. I don't think there are even WORDS for the amount of exciting involved here.

Sorry, no pictres allowed - very secret things!

On the way out of the meetup, some guy stopped me in Downtown Disney, and asked for directions to the expo, you know, because I look like a runner.

Really? Was it the sparkle, or the shirt that gave me away?

It was a fantastic morning, seeing the ladies of Team Sparkle is always a good time, and I finally got to meet SBS and Dimity. Thanks so much to runDisney for hosting!

#runalltheraces = 5K Giveaway, and Woodbridge 5K recap

Giveaway first!

Back in September, Team Sparkle posted on their Facebook page about putting together a team to run the Chapman University 5K. It was a week out from my goal half marathon, but I am a sucker for the sparkle, so I registered myself and my two oldest kids.

The race was GREAT. Tons of swag, fun course, super flat, tons of community support, including a dude playing the trombone on his porch, bazillions of volunteers, two (TWO!) water stations, fantastic oatmeal bar at the finish. Plus, the shirts are nice (I actually wear mine!) and you get a medal.

Point is, it's a really well run event, and a fast course, IMO - Kid #1 PR'ed there, and took 2nd in her division with 22:08.

I registered the same day I saw that registration was open. I think right now registration is only sitting at $35, which is pretty typical for 5K's in SoCal, and a great deal for a race this good.

Chapman is letting me give away ONE entry to the 5K this year!

The race will be held Saturday, October 6th, at 7:30am. Race day pick up avaialble!

Obviously, you've gotta be local(ish) or willing to travel to OC for a 5K (Becka?) to win this entry.

Small, local races like this are my absolute favorite. And honestly, I love the food at Corona del Mar, but this is probably my favorite 5K yet.

Interested, leave me a comment below telling me your favorite type of race - big? small? chip timed? don't care just let me run? -  before Wednesday, July 11th at 11:59pm, and I'll post the winner on Thursday July 12th before we leave for DISNEY WORLD.

Maybe I'll even toss in a sparkly surprise - on my own dime. Hint, hint.

disclaimer, I don't know if this even needs one, but just in case, I'm getting zippo out of this, I've already paid for my registration, so everything I've said here is my own opinion, and the race really is rad. You should run it, even if you don't win. But just in case, you might as well enter. If you're local, that is. That's a long way to travel for a 5K, yo.
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Recap second....

This is going to be quick. Like my race. Ha.

So, my goals were.... 26:57 (I'll tell you a secret - that was 1 second faster than Becka's PR), or PR, or just don't puke/die (<--these are kind of synonomous for me).

The race started at 7:15, down the street from my house. I LOVE THAT SO MUCH.

The H was all froggy and woke up before me, and then I stumbled out of bed a minute later, and had coffee. Mmm. Coffee. Woke up #1... who always thinks she wants to race, until it's actually the morning of a race....

There is a 5K and a 10K, with separate start lines and different courses, but they start at the same time.



Pretty!

The 10K ran a part around the lake, I think. Or the mile kids' races. I can't remember.

Started close to on time, but honestly not sure - #1 had my phone, and it was not chip timed. So... I don't know. BUT, my garmin says I ran mile 1 in 8:39, exactly where I wanted to be. Mile 2 at 8:26 <--that might be my fastest mile ever. I mean, I haven't tried to run a mile time trial since I started running, so there's that. Mile 3: 9:28. Shit. My shoe came untied (I DOUBLE KNOTTED!), then there was a little bit of a gradual uphill, and I couldn't hold pace. Oh well. And .1, 7:55. Bah.

Anyway. I wore my red Adidas Adizero's, the same shoe I wore at CDM. I wanted to think they're my new PR short distance shoes.... but not only did they come untied, they did this...

What the hell. Jerks.

Oh well. B goal, crushed.

Becka, you're still faster than me.

Tinker Bell Half Marathon - Recap

Do you know what 3:38am is??

Really freaking early for a race wake up call.

But still later than Becka and I woke up for Princess Half Marathon. RunDisney, the things we do for you....

There was surprisingly little chaos considering there were 4 chicks getting dressed, and my Emergency Bag o' Sparkle helped costume up a couple of us.

We headed down to the lobby to meet Julie right on time, then over to the neighboring hotel to catch the shuttle to the start. 5 minutes later, we're walking miles and miles through Downtown Disney to the starting area.

Miles might be an exaggeration. But it felt like forEVER.

We managed to miss the Half Fanatics picture (again), because we seem to forget that everything at Disney races take a billion years. The upside to showing up (relatively) late, though, is there was NO ONE in line for the restrooms.

Headed over towards the corrals, and randomly ran into Dave!

Becka is the speedy one in our group, and was legit in corral A. The rest of us were B... so Becka started with us. She's awesome.

Since we knew we were going to be acting ridiculous, and taking a billion pictures, we started at the very back... which gave us a fantastic view of the men forced to start in Corral C. And man, they looked UNIMPRESSED with that. Particularly one that we named Angry Red Guy. He looked angry, and within the first mile, angrily sped past us. Heh.

Anyway. Starting line. Fireworks. Off we go.

Now. The course.

Disney World is an entirely different beast than Disneyland. WDW is surrounded by.... Disney property. The entirety of the races there are all run on WDW property, so there can literally be characters at any point on any race. Disneyland, however, is surrounded by Anaheim and Garden Grove. So the majority of the race is run on the city streets.

Miles 1-1.5, boring, dark, slow, billions of people.

And then, the pictures started. And the ridiculous.

We came out of a tunnel next to It's a Small World, and ALL THE PRINCESSES!

And it was downhill from there.... We stopped to use the real bathrooms. Stopped for EVERY character picture. Stopped to take ridiculous pictures in front of the course photographers.

{what is happening!? Capt Hook is a dirty critter...}

{running!}

{yes, yes we DID stop mid course to pose. That happened.}

This is how you end up with a 1:08 5K time (and, ps, our 1st mile was in the 11:30 range.......).

At mile 3.5-ish, we headed out of the parks, and onto the streets of Anaheim.

Mile 4.5, we were captured being obnoxious by Team Sparkle paparazzi...

At mile 5 we took an extended restroom/water break, and stood around while we downed our GU's (and by now, we were like a zillion hours in, and FAMISHED).

Mile 5.5-ish, we crossed over from one side of Manchester Ave, to the other, but had to go over a raised median. Really, RunDisney? Bizarre.

Mile 6.5ish, two interesting things happen. First, we're made aware by the course monitors that we're about 12 minutes ahead of the sweepers (the ones who collect the folks not meeting a 16min avg pace). Ridiculous happens....

But second, we pass a bakery/coffee spot. And voice our desire for a latte. And get told by some cranky chick that, apparently, it IS NOT LATTE TIME. Noted, cranky-pants.

This was about when I started feeling bad - some of these folks were legit working hard and killing their own race - that was what they trained for, and they were executing their plan. But some of them were just not trained, or not doing well, or whatever, and we were... Ridiculous, and having fun, and being super obnoxious.

Sorry I'm not sorry?

Miles 7-9 were through kind of a sketchy area, with bars over windows and doors, lots of liquor store, and blah. Around mile 10(?), there were some sorts of military garbed men high-fiving and playing music - that was awesome.

Mile 11 we headed back into Disneyland, this time via California Adventure...

{He's my FAVORITE! He makes me SO HAPPY!}

{our reserved energy was used to sprint in line for characters. You know, so we could save time....}

{so many arms, flailing}

Around mile 12.5, we were ROASTING. It was SUPER sunny, and a billion degrees, and hello, it's been a billion hours. And the cast member said.... just one more turn! You're almost there! We have no legit idea, because our Garmins were all reading different mileage.

Turns out? Not one more turn. Not one more at ALL. Dirty liar. There were a few turns, a small hill, and then some more turns, and the smallest chute ever. We sprinted in what we thought was the last 800 (lies). And....

Giant size-of-your-face-spinning-Tink medals.

Team Sparkle snapped a rad picture of us at the finish line (and provided the world's most delicious donut ever ever EVER)....

and, seriously, did you SEE Julie's costume?? Amazing.

After, we walked a BILLION miles back to the shuttles, and waited for (I swear) 10 years.

For an inaugural race, it was all pretty smooth, with only a few exceptions - 1. one of the early aid stations ran out of Power Ade; 2. The up and over the median course weirdness; and 3. The walk back to the transportation area was not well marked, and the buses were erratic.

I'm being nit-picky, because RunDisney should know better on all three counts, but none of these are really deal-breakers. I'm totally doing Tink 2013.

Anyway, back to the hotel, then to lunch at Red Robbin...

Then Kat was awesome and drove Becka and me back to my place, where we extracted all the kids from The H (did I mention he hosted a slumber party AND baby-sat everyone while we raced and ate lunch? He's pretty rad), and tossed them in the pool.

Strangely, Gabby LOSES HER MIND when her eyes get wet.

Yeah. That's her being escorted out of the pool to dry her eyes. Weirdo.

Took Becka and A to the airport (BOO!), then headed out for dinner with the H and kids.

Delicious.

The end.

Official finish: 3:20:46

5K Split	1:08:40
10K Split	1:52:03
15K Split	2:28:54

Ha.