Wharf to Wharf ----- Jacob's Birthday

Today is my son's 14th Birthday---Happy Birthday Jacob----
and it is also The Wharf to Wharf Race, which I have entered.
I am so glad that Jacob is being such a trooper about this, I mean what 14 year old do you know that wants to spend his birthday at his ol mom's racing event. But we will make it up to him after the race.

Opps I did it again, but this time I was official, first time I have done W2W with a official bib #.
The race started at 8:30 and I was really excited, I knew the gun was going to go any minute now to start the race and I still jumped, and than we were off. It was so hard getting going because there were thousands of people running in the race and everyone wants to beat the next person. I have to say that most people were really nice in the race, but there were a few people that just shoved me out of the way a couple times.
All along the way people are cheering you on and there are all kinds of bands and singing groups, dancers, and you name it they did had all kinds of entertainment, it was awesome. I really love the route that we do, all along you have a great view of the ocean, what more could I ask for? I had to make one stop during the whole race, one of the runners accidentely stepped on the back of my shoe just as I was about to step forward, causing my shoe to fall off my foot and go flying up the street. That was my first and only pit stop to put the tread back on my foot. All and All the race went really well and I felt totally great through the whole thing. although I really can't believe that at the end of the race they expect you to trudge all the way down the beach, through the sand, to collect you race package and shirt, right after you just finished the race, I mean really people get real ;-)
The race was 6 miles and it really was a pretty good race, I think I will make it a yearly event for me.
I started at 8:30 and came through the finish line at exactly 10:00, that is 30 minutes faster than last year, I'm stoked!!!

Friday Bocci's Cellar 7-24-09

Today we started in front of Bocci's cellar in Santa Cruz.
I was not able to run with the pack that evening so I decided to do a hike through Fall Creek.
I again grabbed my friend Susan and we headed up to Fall Creek to do a nice little 2.5 mile trail.
We decided to walk up to the kilns, which is a nice slow incline uphill. It really is not a brutal uphill hike so it is one of my favorite trails to do, it keeps your heart pumping and gives you a nice slow workout. So we got to the kilns and although we had done this trail a few times before, I never really got a chance to look around the kilns, so I decided I wanted to explore. So Susan and I are exploring the kilns and she see's a different trail off to the left that looked like a trail we had never been on, and looked to be a nice trail, so what do we do?...hmmm we decide to try this new trail going up and up and up and still more up it went, until we wound ourselfs all the way to the top of the flippin hill. Now that was a little more than I anticipated and not what we planned. So now here we are at the top of this hill on a paved road, so we decide we are going to walk down the road back to the entrace of the park where we parked my car. It turned out to be a very bad Idea for a few reasons, the first and most important reason was this read happened to have no sidewalks and kind of a steep hill going down, and very narrow, and all the cars coming down the road were flying way over the speed limit and we pretty much had nowhere to move to, seeing as there was nowhere to go, except over the edge of the hill. We decided are best bet would be to run fast down the hill and hope to god we don't plowed over by a speed demon coming down the hill.
Well I am writing this so you probably figured it out, we made it back to my car and agreed we would never do that trail ever again.
I'm not really to sure how far we went, but I'm guessing it was well over 3 miles.

Wharf to Barf starts today 7/23/09

Today is the first day of Wharf to Barf and it is also the Birthday of a good friend(Paul)
Happy birthday Paul! ;-)
I belong to another running group called the Surf City Hash House Harriers, and every year we do a event called Wharf to Barf. This event is always the same weekend of Wharf to Wharf, and it is a 4 day running event that Starts on Thursday and ends on Sunday.
Thursday we started at the County offices off of Emiline, and did a nice trek around Santa Cruz, along the city streets and ending at the Medical offices on Water. The total trail was around 3 miles with not to much uphill :-)
A perfect start for my 4 day adventure.
Thanx PG and Cl.

Tues track practice 7-21-09 sprint and recovery

Today we are working on sprinting and recovering.
This is one of the toughest for me because I am not a very fast walker, Robin I know if you are reading this you probably don't agree with me because you always say I walk fast, and you have to jog to keep up with me. But really I suck at speed and I have to say at first my speed really bothered me! I would see all these other girls just flash around the track and here comes Michelle doing turbo turtle. So I had this thing about going faster and getting a better time, or being very unrealistic about my goal time. That reality has come and gone and I think Coach Terri and Haley will be very happy to hear that.
So now we will work on how to keep up a fast steady pace, and recovery after, I love the recovery ;-).
We did 4 laps regular speed (medium)than coach had us do 2 minute sprint and 8 minute recovery. Ok so picture the School track and we would sprint down the straight part and recover going around the round part, we did that for a few laps, than it was, do a lap of sprinting and one of recovering, that was for another few laps, ending with a recovery lap. Workout today went very well, and I feel like every time we meet for track I get some really great advise from my coaches!

Natural Bridges Westt Cliff Dr.

7:15 Saturday Morning.
We all met a few blocks from Natural Bridges, and this morning I will be doing 10 miles.
I especially enjoyed the first part of the walk because we are all refreshed and ready to go, and mostly we are not so tired to enjoy the great view of the ocean for the first 3 miles or so.
We made to mile 5 and I felt pretty good, we than had a very little uphill to do and than back to the flat streets. I prefer the trails through the woods or the scenic beach verses the boring city streets. It seems to go by so slowly when you are on the boring streets and it is a pretty hot day to boot, seems like it took so much longer to walk the long straight away up Bay st. Wow and thats when I felt it. My body started to ache and out of no where I felt all my energy drain out of me, I was so glad that my walking buddy for the day (Sandie) was one of the teams mentors, so she suggested I take one of the packets of Goo. All I know is that within 5-10 minutes I felt way better and got a huge charge of energy, all better bring it on.
We turned around at that point and headed back to West Cliff Dr. Yea back to the beach. I felt pretty good most of the way back until about mile 9, thats when my body was screaming at me ( hey you what are you doing to me? here, you feel this? no, ok how about this!) ok ok I hear you but I still have just one more mile to go and than I will stop. We came up to the entrance of Natural Bridges and thats when I got my last gust of energy and gave it all I had to just finish, I was just so excited to know the the end was so near. I ended up coming in with Erin and the rest of the team was there waiting for us, it felt great hearing them cheering us on as we finished.
That was the day when I learned that time is not always the most important, finishing is.
Thanx to Coach Terri I learned a hard lesson that day.

Tues track practice Hills 7-14-09

We started again today with laps, we did 4 and than some sprinting and recovery, about another 4 doing that. Coach than had us doing ladders which is a hill that she wants us to do in segments. So coach gives a few different turn around points and we head up the hill to the first point and turn around and come back down, than she we go up to the second point passing the first point and turn around and come back down. It really is like doing steps on a latter, you walk up to the first step than back down than to step 2 and down, and you keep doing that until you get to the top.Coach had us doing this at Blue Ball Park and boy let me tell you it was a huge steep hill.
We finished the ladder than sprinted to the fence and back and called it a night. Well of course after we stretched and did are ground exercises, than we really called it a night.
I really felt it in my butt and my calves, and boy ice was my best friend for a few days.

Saturday Henry Cowell The Bench

Today is a Buddy training on your own so I decided to grab my Friend Susan again and head out to Henry Cowell Park.
We have this short little hike uphill to the bench that we really enjoy doing (not) We mostly do it to get a good cardio workout and to try to get back in to shape.
This particular hike is pretty brutal, it has a steady incline that really kicks your butt, and than you get to the hill and thats always so much fun to walk up.
The best part of the hill is when you get to the top there is a bench with a view that is awesome. You can see all the way to the Boardwalk and on a really clear quit day you can actually hear people on the rides screaming. So Susan and I made it to the bench, got a few sips of water and a little fuel for the body and headed back down. I think the total hike is a little over 7 miles.
I felt a little sore after but all and all it was all good.

Tues track practice 7-7-09 (stairs)

Today we started off doing laps, and it was one of those days when I felt like they were lucky I was there. Coach had us do 4 laps and than wanted us to sprint a certain distance than recover , and alternate the sprinting and recover for another 4 laps. Next she had us start practicing on stairs and small uphills. We are learning the technique of how to walk uphill and keep the same steady pace and also how to walk downhill and not get injured. I was very gratefull to learn the downhill technique as I always have a lot of pain in my knees after I have done a downhill hike. We practiced the rest of the hour with the stairs and hills, up and down, it was a great workout and seemed to go by pretty quickly.
Not to bad ;-)

Firecracker Race

4th of July
Saturday we alternate, one Sat. with the team and coaches and the next is buddy training or you train on your own.
I decided to enter the 4th of July Firecracker 10k Race in Santa Cruz with my Friend Susan.
This was very exciting for me because it was my first official 10k race, however I had no idea what I was getting my self in to.
The Race started at Harvey West Park and looped around the park and led us down River street, than turning onto a side street that led us up in to Pogonip area. This started the incline uphill which steadily increased to a steeper incline, for what seemed like forever. As we are making are way up the hill (at this point I was thinking we were doing the thrill of the Hill, WRONGO) they had these really great motivational signs posted saying, "Are you Ready to Embrass the Challenge Of the Hill", and I'm pretty sure one also said, "Are you Ready To Meet Your Maker. So we Finally get to the Water Stop and the Nice lady that hands us water informs us that the best it yet to come oh, and she also says in her cute little english accent, " It is rather tricky, that hill it is", I'm thinking bring it on. Well It definatley was a Thrill alright, it turned out to be one of the steepest hills I have done. By the time I finished the Ginormous Hill my legs were pretty shacky, and at this point we still were no where near finished.
The view was great at the top of the hill and the trail was awesome, I was really happy that we were in the woods shaded by trees and done with the Thrill of the hill.
We passed through the woodsy area pretty quickly and this let us back on to the streets, and looping around the urban area. On every block of the streets we had people rooting us on and giving us water, it really was nice to see so many nice people out there that really cared.
Now we got to the down hill part and we started to go a lot faster especially knowing that the finish was very close YEA.
Susan and I must of got a second wind so we decided to start jogging, this really didn't feel to bad so we kept it up and came in jogging.
It felt so great completing my first 10k race, It really made my day to see my good friend Emilee waiting for me to finish at the finish line..
I have to say that it sure seemed alot easier having my friend with me, it really went by faster just having her there.. Thanx Susan