Newport Beach, CA - Pacific Ocean Baptism

Newport Beach, CA was an amazing place to run. No, I unfortunately didn't take this picture but I did run on that pier. I don't blog about most of the places I run, I always intend on doing that but somehow I just never have the time.

I ran on Monday night and Tuesday morning. I ran down the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and Balboa street. It was so nice to be able to run along side the beach in December. I got to the water and stopped for a moment to watch some surfers and take in the scenery. Then it occurred to me that the life of my shoes was nearing an end. I have put over 500 miles on them and although they have served me well it was time to trade them in for a new shoe. These particular shoes have taken me many places and traveled with me no matter where I went. It's a little sad, when I think of all the places I have taken my Saucony hurricane X shoes Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Reno, Dallas, Flint, Las Vegas and Anchorage.

Being attached to these shoes I wanted to do something memorable, I decided to honor my shoes in their final days. A burial at sea sounds romantic but in practicality it just seemed like littering. So I decided on a baptism in the Pacific Ocean, I dipped my shoes (soaking my feet with salty water) and completed my run in honor of all the hard work and pounding these shoes have taken. I ran home reflecting on the times I have had while running on these shoes. In Reno when I had to jump over homeless people sleeping on public sidewalks in the early morning; In Anchorage running onto restricted areas of the Anchorage airport; The SeaFair 5k PR, and Portland Marathon PR; The beauty of running on the crowded Embarcadaro street in San Francisco to the 101 degree sun of Medford Oregon. It has been one amazing event after another. I can only hope that I can have the same experiences in my next pair of shoes as I have had in these ones. Next week, Boston :)

Save A Turkey Trot

The Dykstra family flew home for Thanksgiving. Being the race junky that I am I decided to see if there were any races in town during Thanksgiving. I was raised in a progressive area in Northern Caliifornia so the usual Turkey Trot 5k was replaced by the inaggural "Save a Turkey Trot 5k". It is an event designed to raise awarness about vegan diets and athletics. Even through I am not a vegan/vegetarian myself I really wanted to run a race with my mom so we both signed up.

My mother is the original exercise junky of our family. She was the only one who ran for years and no one understood why on earth she did it. Over the last few years demanding work and life commitments have prevented her from exercising regularly. She has been running intermittent short distances in the mornings at the local high school track for the past few months, so a 5k race event is a fairly long distance for her. Her goal was to perform better than she did in the last 10k we ran together about six months ago (10k@1:32:??). I was hoping to set a new PR (5k@21:56) and possibly rank somewhat high in my division. I thought that with a limited number of participants and some recent speedwork I might have a shot.

I started the race at a fairly aggressive pace for myself. By mile one I had worked to pass two people that seemed to be matched with my running level at a pace of 6:34. Amazingly enough one of the two runners I passed was pushing a baby stroller. This was much more impressive later in the race when he sprinted past me. Nearing the end of the race I got painfull cramps. It was terrible, I had to walk the last 400 meters and watch the people I had worked so hard to pass fly by me during their finish, I wasn't fatigued, I wasn't sucking down air I just couldn't run due to cramps. I am disapointed and it cost me, my finishing time was 23:08. I don't know if I was set for a PR pace prior to the slow down but it was close.

The good news is that my mom finished with a 37:23 increasing her pace from 14:50 to 11:53 it's a huge improvement and I am proud of her. GO MOM!

Portland Marathon 2008

This marathon was amazing, I didn't get in the training I was hoping for, but I was able to stick to the four week training plan outlined in an earlier blog entry.  My previous marathon (SeaFair 2008) wasn't a smooth experience posting a 5:15 was NOT the bragging rights I was hoping for.  I went into this with a goal of redeeming my previous marathon bust.  I feel like I made a great improvement and I am looking forward to running again next year. There were some logistical issues (Not nearly enough bathrooms) but overall a great course.  I really liked the beginning of the run through downtown Portland, for some reason the 4:30 pace setter that I was behind at the beginning of the race was pointing out all the local strip clubs on the route, Portland locals are so wierd (sorry guys I love ya but it's true).  After about two miles I decided that the 4:30 time was a little slower than I wanted to go so I stepped it up.

The first half of the marathon was a piece of cake, I felt strong, and maintained good spirits.  It wasn't until mile 20-21 that I started feeling the wall and at mile 24 the wheels were begining to come off the wagon.  My spirits were lifted by a fellow runner that I meet because we were wearing the same SeaFair marathon 2008 t-shirt.  He would run ahead of me and slow down, then I would pass him and slow down.  We kept this dance up for the final two miles of the marathon.  It was enough to keep us moving forward and that was what each of us needed, it's always nice when strangers can motivate each other that way.  

In the end I finished with a 4:24.  It is a major improvement over my previous marathon but a time I feel I can improve upon.  Boston Qualifications are still pretty far off in the future, but I am getting there.

Sea 2 Sierra 2008

This ride was one tough cookie. The ride sounded easy enough, 3 days, 266 miles and 11,000 feet of vertical elevation. Several mistakes made this trip a serious head ache...

Pre-Trip Mayhem
My chain broke taking out my rear derailer during a test ride the night before the ride. I was there on the side of the road staring at my broken derailer and bent hanger knowing that in 12 hours at 6:30 the next morning I was to be departing on my first serious multiday ride. I thought to myself "How am I going to pull this one off?". I threw myself on the mercy of my friends and family and made some phone calls. I was able to secure a commuting bike a TREK 7.4 FX that had been neglected in the garage of my friends step dad for several years. The tires were fat, the chain was dusty, the seat post slid down as I peddled, the handle bars were flat. I don't want to say bad things about the TREK 7.4, it is a good bike for city riding/commuting but it was never designed for touring.

I showed up in the parking lot of Safeway in Santa Rosa, CA to meet up with the other members of the ride. I got some unusual stares from some of the riders when they saw the bike and introduced themselves. They couldn't believe I was going to attempt this ride on that bike, they would stare and ask questions like "So, that's the bike you are going to use?" and "Are those tires comfortable?". It was clear that my fellow riders didn't think this bike could handle the 133 mile first day, much less the 11,000 feet of vertical climbing through the Sierra Nevada mountains. One thing I learned while training for the SeaFair marathon is to just do it. Prepare as best you can and pull the trigger. Circumstances will never be perfect, you will never have all the advantages and giving up before you start is lame. 


Day 1 - Santa Rosa to Yuba City (The Butt Hole of Northern California)
The ride started out in the dark morning of the Safeway parking lot.  We rode to highway 12 and then proceeded to climb Trinity grade.  This is the steepest three mile climb of the trip, to be honest it wasn't too much worse than my commute home in Seattle.  My friends warned me about this one, but I found the less steep but further distance hills much more daunting.  It's funny how your body adjusts to what it is use too.  I was the second rider to the top of the hill, 30 seconds behind the lead cyclist and 20 minutes ahead of the slowest person of our crew.  At this point I felt a huge weight lift from my shoulders.  I knew that I wasn't fated to be the slowest rider on the trip, that I wouldn't be the one everyone else was frustrated with for not being prepared, or fit enough, or fully invested in a $6,000 carbon fiber frames with Dura Ace components.

The remainder of the day was a little boring, mostly flat.  I ultimatly covered 133 miles successfully completing my first century ride.  I was able to keep pace with the fastest riders in the pack.  I decided to stay back on a few of the breaks to mingle with some of the other riders.  I found it much more intresting to talk with the other riders rather than suck air with the riders in the front.

Day 2 - Yuba City to Sierra City

Day two was a mere 80 miles starting my climb into the Sierra Nevada Mountain range from Yuba City.  The climb just before the dam where we ate lunch was tough.  But the steep decent was well worth the slow climb :).

This is when the scenary started to shift from the central valley flat lands to the mountains and trees we had all hoped we would be seeing.  I unfortunatly didn't take any pictures on this day, I am kicking myself for not having done this becasue the views were unbelievable.  

We arrived in Sierra City and stayed in a strange cabin/hotel/trout farm.  It was a strange town but the people were happy to have us, I guess they don't get a ton of visitors.

Day 3 - Sierra City to Lake Tahoe
Day three was the shortest day in distance but there were some signifiant hills to overcome.  I don't know if the hills on this day were more relentless than the previous two or my body was just getting tired but by this day I the riding was really starting to get to me.  My "sit bones" were not feeling good at all.  

I decided to hang back on this day with my friend Dante who had taken SAG the previous day because of an injured back.  He decided to ride day three but wanted to take it easy.   I was happy to ride at a slower pace by day three.  The sceanery was ablosutley amazing.

We finally ride into a condo in Lake Tahoe, it was a great cap to a trip.  There were BBQ celebrations but I had to leave early to get to Reno for a bank audit the next day.  

The term they used on this ride was EFI it stands for "every f***ing inch", it is the goal for riders to complete the entire event without the use of our support vans.  I can proudly say that I am a EFI guy :). 

Lesons Learned

If you don't have a really nice bike, don't bother shipping it.  In repairs and shipping costs I spent more money than the bike is worth and I never even had the opportunity to use it.  I regret not renting a nice bike in Santa Rosa, CA it would have cost less and I could have had a much better bike and ultimatly a smoother riding experience.

Portland 2008 Training Schedule Starts

The Portland 2008 Marathon training schedule starts today.  As usual I over booked my schedule and will be on a 266 mile bike ride through the Sierra Nevada mountains this weekend (week 1).  I will only be able to get the Tuesday easy run.

You can see my training schedule below, the only exception to this schedule is this weekend.  I choose a 4 week schedule to prepare.  I am hoping that this will prepare me for the event, due to my work/home commitments it was the best I could do.  I created this schedule from the automated tool at the runners worlds website. 

www.runnersworld.com

Medford, OR - LSD in the Sun

I decided that it might be fun to run my weekly long slow distance (LSD) run while traveling. I commonly do this in order to get a feel from my host town during the week that I am there. This week was Medford, OR.

The route I took followed a busy highway with gradual transitions from sidewalks to uneven gravel shoulders. The hills, heat, and wind were major factors nagging at my will to turn around before the half way point. The cars and scenery were not providing adequate distraction from the beating unshaded  102 degree late day sun. I found myself cursing at my IPOD for not getting to my "half way" song fast enough. I knew that if I could push myself to the halfway point, I would have no other choice but to run back, this is a common technique I use to complete long distances. I decided to change my course slightly and head down a non occupied country-esque road for the final one mile before the turn around.

It took 1:45  and some cursing to complete the 10 mile run. Ninety Five degrees was the cool day of my trip, 102 being the high. Thankfully, one of my clients was kind enough to recommend a great trail that ran along a creek. That made the other days much more tolerable. I have listed a few of the things that made the other runs during that trip comfortable: 

• Finding a pool with a low fence at a Motel 6
  
• Taking off my shirt, soaking it and tying it around my head.
  
• Focusing on things other than being uncomfortable (trees, cars, bicyclists, etc.)
  
• If it gets really bad... Stop at a convience store, get ice from the soda machine and put it on your head, shoulders and chest.
  

SeaFair TourchLight 5k 2008

This was one of my favorite 5k races yet. I will absolutely do this race next year. The course went up the Alaska Way viaduct in Seattle, WA revealing a great view of Puget Sound. The only hill was the on ramp of the viaduct, this was early on in the race so you hit it when you are still strong. I was able to set a new PR for the 5k at 21:58.8 :). The spirit of the crowd was great, there were people dressed as pirates, and other strange costumes. The event photographers were able to snap this picture of me crossing the finish line.