All American 5k

I haven't posted in a while and it's mostly because I've been working ridiculous hours. I havent been running much either but I did get a 5k in today. I worked a 12 hour night shift last night and then drove to the county to run the "All American 5k".

Even after working all night and getting my butt kicked for 12 straight hours I managed to make to the start line and across the finish line, for a PR! So in the month of June I got myself a new PR in the 5k and the half marathon!

Three Things Thursday

1. I went back to work today. :( Only for a 5 hour training class but still.

2. I have fallen in love with an idea and a bike. More on that later.

3. A Better Bethany was never just supposed to be about my running. It is supposed to be about so much more but I didn't want to overwhelm myself when I set out with a new blog and I didn't want to overwhelm readers with so many things being thrown at them but I'm thinking I'm going to start bring some more to the table besides just running very soon.

Rock N Roll San Diego Half-Marathon Race Recap

This was my very first race that I traveled to and my second Rock N Roll Event, overall it was a pretty good run.

Expo
The expo was well laid out with lots of vendors, plenty of room to walk around and it didn't feel cramped at all. That was a change from the Rock N Roll St. Louis Expo where I felt like a sardine. I took my brother and niece with me to the expo, partially because I am trying to get my brother into racing as well, and also because I wanted to go to the Navy exchange afterward.

Me and my niece, I wish Charlie the Tuna would have been running as well...

Parking and Arriving

Pre-Race

All of the information they sent out about parking had me concerned that I wouldn't be able to find parking. So I left ridiculously early, had no trouble getting a great parking spot and caught a shuttle to the start line. I did a little breaking and entering on a port-a-potty and got to use a virgin port-a-potty. After that I had a good 1 or so to walk around and kill time. One of the guys that was on the same shuttle as me caught up with me and we chatted for a little while. Overall the starting line was pretty nice, lots of area for everyone to warm up and stretch, LOTS AND LOTS of port-a-potties. About 45 minutes after the official start I crossed the starting line.

Miles 1-4
I was feeling great, I had decided to stick with my run 1 walk 1 kind of, I decided that I wanted to finish sub 3 hours so I needed to run 90 minutes of that, and I would run as long as I could and deduct it from my run balance, it worked out ok for a while. At this point there was a decent amount of spectators, and we where running in mostly in the park so it was nice. I was clipping along with a great pace and knew I was screwed for negative splits.

Miles 5-8
These miles were on the freeway, and I hate running on highways, at one point we even ran up an on ramp, when I realized what was coming up I was like WTH! I really didn't enjoy this part and it was getting hilly and my pace started to reflect that. I was using a pace tattoo from Taz Running and my times just weren't adding up. It was really frustrating to me that the pace tattoo was showing I was behind when my Garmin and math were telling me I was ahead, I am in no way saying that anything was wrong with my pace tattoo, I'm pretty sure I was doing something wrong but it encouraged me to pick things up and move faster.

Pace tattoo for a 2:55:00 finish

Miles 9-12
I started to try to pick up my pace but I didn't feel all that great and I knew I needed to poop. Which explains the 4 minute time difference between my Garmin and my official time. I've never had to poop during a run before and I'm blaming the upset stomach on Denny's, I said I wanted DRY toast you fools! Anyway, I was concerned that my poop break would screw up my PR and so I moved a little faster. Around mile 11 or 12 my pace tattoo, garmin and my brain started agreeing again. 

Yep that's pretty much how I felt

Mile 13 & .1
I don't remember actually seeing the mile marker for 13 but I knew I was close to the end and so I just started hauling. I wanted to make sure I had a PR and I wanted to be under that 2:55:00 mark. I crossed the finish line feeling awesome and my Garmin showed a PR, I just hoped my poop didn't take away my sub 2:55.

Finish Line
Holy Cow! So many vendors, so much food in the finishers area! I couldn't carry everything and dropped my jamba juice. Once I crossed out the runners only area I grabbed my gear bag and started wandering toward the shuttle. I managed to get a free massage before leaving which was fantastic! I couldn't get a call out to save my life thanks to the overloaded cell tower. I made it back to my parking area without difficulty and headed back to my brother's.

Overall
I enjoyed the race. This was my first travel race and the first race where I didn't finish were I started. I think that the logistics of moving that many people and there gear was very well handled. UPS trucks were used to move out gear which I got a kick out of. I think that for such a beautiful area that should really rethink the 4 miles of freeway running.

Home!

My flights out of San Diego and LA had no delays and I actually made it back to St. Louis 20 minutes earlier than planned. I will never fly from San Diego to LA to St. Louis, ever, ever again though.

The flight from San Diego to LA was actually really nice. It was a small plane, and I left from the commuter terminal so I had to walk out to the plane which was a first for me. The flight took us up the coast line at 10,000 feet. This resulted in having quite the view, from one side of the plane you could see the ocean and from the other side you could see the coast. It was pretty neat. The landing was horrible though, apparently I am not tightening my seatbelt well enough for starters. We landed pretty hard and braked even harder, which resulted in a pretty big jolt. I'm glad no one was carrying a child on their lap because it might have ended poorly. After landing and getting my carry on I had to take the shuttle from the commuter terminal to terminal 4. They drive those things on the damn runway! Anyway, I made it to my gate with about 15 minutes to spare and grabbed some snacks for the 3.5 hour flight.

The flight from LA to St. Louis was uneventful. I slept, ate, regretted not fully charging my electronics the night before and read a book. Soon I was back in St. Louis, catching the metro link and heading to the hospital to pick my car up from the parking garage and headed home. I've mostly unpacked and have settled into my bed. I've got tomorrow off work and then I have to return to work on Thursday.

I'll get my race recap posted tomorrow. I need to pick up a transfer device for my camera's SD card. I've decided not to go back and insert pictures into previous posts and will be making a post with nothing but pictures instead.

Day 4 in southern Cali

Spent the day doing the touristy thing, went to the United States Marine Corp Museum, had lunch in the gas lamp district and spent the afternoon at the beach.

Had dinner with my brother and his 2 kids in the evening and we sat around watching movies.

I'm only a little sore after yesterday's run, mostly in my hips. Which only serves as a reminder that I don't do any cross training. There are so many additional things I'd love to add to my training. If only I could get paid to do this! Haha! I love to add P90x, yoga, Pilates, and a martial art. That's a little lofty with my 48 hour a week schedule at work. That's a topic for another post though.

My flight leaves at 3 pm tomorrow so this was my last full day here. Its back to the real world on Wednesday.