No Rest For The Weary

Saturday was the first day of Illumina's Six Sigma training. About 20 others and I groggily wandered into work at 8am only to endure six and a half hours of presentations. We were given a few breaks and a 30-minute lunch (yay food) but half way through my eyes were rolling to the back of my head. This was only the first session so hopefully the remaining 9 sessions will be more interesting. After we were released, Kim and I went to downtown La Jolla to pick up my race packet (bib, chip, and t-shirt) and then went shopping. Unfortunately, we were a bit rushed but we both managed to come away with some good finds. That night, Ryan, his family, and I went to Bon Appetito for a pre-race pasta dinner. I polished off my entire meal and probably ate a small loaf of bread on my own. Yes, I thought to myself, I was officially ready to run the race...

Sunday was the La Jolla Half Marathon. Ryan, Kristen (Ryan's sister), Simon (Kristen's husband), and I piled into the Prius at 6:15am and made our way to the Del Mar fairgrounds. There was a monstrous line of cars at our exit and we had to wait almost 25 min just to get within a reasonable distance of the drop off zone. Crunched for time, many runners, including ourselves, abandoned our drivers (bye Ryan) and jogged the remaining distance to the start. From the moment we started running, I knew the race would be hellish. The sun was out in full force and the wind had left us in our time of need. I assumed the first 5 miles through Del Mar would be flat; after all, anything compared to the Torrey Pines hill is flat right? Wrong. The entire course was much hiller than I anticipated and there was absolutely NO shade. Hello, can I get some foliage?? Cursing the city planners, I looked to the water stations for sanctuary. Unfortunately, on a day that reached a high of 90 along the coast, the race organizers had the ingenious foresight to only post water stations every 1/1.5 miles and even ran out of water at some of the stops! Lovely. The sight of exhausted runners battling for water is not a pretty one. I felt guilty grabbing as much as I did but I took every opportunity that I could to rehydrate and throw water on my head/body/face to cool off. Thankfully, some folks were out on their yards with hoses, spraying us down as we ran by. I must add - it is not particularly motivating to see several ambulances on the course attending to passed out runners on stretchers. Long story short, I finished the race in 2:20 which is must slower than I had hoped for (10:40 pace vs 10:00 goal pace) but I'm ok with it given the extreme conditions. Shortly after finding Ryan's parents at the finish line, I was hit was a excruciatingly painful calf cramp. The rest of the day was spent trying to move as little as possible.

Today, my legs are rather sore and my walk is more of a waddle, but I do feel a nice sense of accomplishment. However, because I am grossly competitive, I'm already thinking of signing up for the Carlsbad half marathon just to prove to myself that I can make my goal time. The Carlsbad half is much flatter and in JANUARY so it's really an ideal race I think. Until then, it'll be back to yoga for me.