18 miler of death

so yesterday I ran 18 miles.  I ran from my front door all the way to the edge of the bolsa chica wetlands/state beach.  that is really far considering during the summer i sometimes have a hard time justifying driving all the way down there just to go to the beach.

but i did it.

and i am still really sore.  my quads are sore and my shins are sore.  i’ve been having shin issues lately, so I shouldn’t be too surprised, but they kind of hurt just walking around, which is definitely not a good thing.  i know i’m not supposed to do this, but i’m going to try and push through this week and get in all my mileage – mostly because, until the marathon, this is my last REALLY intensive week of training and my highest mileage – and i don’t think it’s a good idea to mess with it too much since the marathon is in less than a month.  I understand, though, why people don’t walk so well after they run a marathon.  It freaking hurts!

the run itself was just fine.  that is until the 13th or 14th mile when everything just started hurting.  i pulled out my knee brace for my left knee with 2 miles to go and that seemed to help a lot.  Also, in the last 3 miles I cut my walking down to 1 minute for every 9 minutes of running, since it felt like anything longer than that and my body hurt more trying to get back into motion.  Once I hit about 45 seconds my body seemed to enjoy walking a little too much.

i ate a moderately real breakfast for the first time on a long run – a bowl of high fiber oatmeal about 40 minutes before the run.  I didn’t really feel the effects of it until about 40 minutes into the run which I guess was fine.  I then ate 2 Gu – one at about 1:30:00 and one at about 2:08:00.  They seemed to help since I didn’t get really hungry until the last mile which isn’t so unusual. 

after the run we ate breakfast at the bixby and then i went to work where my legs felt like they wanted to be chopped off, especially by the 2nd hour.  i stopped providing the kind of customer service where you place the book in their hands and started pointing them in the right direction.  everything hurt!

i’m not too worried though – i’m fairly certain i’ll finish the 20 miles feeling just slightly worse than i did yesterday and i’m pretty sure i’ll feel horrible once I finish the marathon.  My saving grace is that I ran the 18 miles in 03:34:26, which means that I’ll probably run the 20 miles in 4:15 or less, which further means that if I can keep up about a 17 minute pace for the last 6.2 miles I’ll still make it to the finish line in less than 6 hours.  Lets pray that once I hit the wall I can do that =)  I’m pretty certain though that I’ll come in under by at least 15 minutes.

16 miler

I almost forgot to post about my 16 mile run yesterday in which I ran from my front door to Don the Beachcombers restaurant near Sunset Beach.

It wasn’t a bad run.  I started off slow to try and conserve energy but then decided that I was going too slow and didn’t want to run all day so I picked it up from a 12 minute pace.  The night before I ate pizza and cookies for dinner at Karl’s and went to bed around 12 and then woke up at 5:30 to do my run.  I ate a banana before I left because it was way too freaking early to eat a real meal like oatmeal which i know is what i really should’ve eaten. 

The first half went smoothly.  My shins were a little sore, but nothing too serious.  I ran on the road shoulder and came across a decapitated hawk which was pretty gross.  After the turn around I ate a gu because I figured I’d start feeling hunger pangs and was feeling pretty good until I hit about mile 14.  then my body crapped out, i was starving, and my feet wouldn’t move.  This is not unusual though.  Normally my wall hits the last far mileage I ran, which guess what, happened to be 14 miles.  I pushed through though and made it in at 3:04:25, with under 12 minute miles, so I was pretty proud of myself.

The only real issue with the run came in the after math.  I am way sorer and tireder than I ever have ever been after a long run.  Yesterday’s soreness was pretty equitable to after the 14 miler, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t this sore the next day.  Maybe its just the long distance that wiped me out and my body needs longer to recover.  I just hope that it doesn’t take too long…

AILA announces its Literature Award Winners

So I know this is kind of old news by now since it was announced at Mid-Winter, but AILA chose a Native Hawaiian book as a recipient of its American Indian Youth Literature Award.  Now, as excited as I am about a PI author and book receiving this honor, it brings to mind a few questions…

AILA is the American Indian Library Association and ” is a membership action group that addresses the library-related needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives.”  Usually, Native Hawaiians don’t fall into this category due to their different political status than American Indians and Alaska Natives.  Normally, they would get roped in with Asian Pacific Islanders and APALA.  But, APALA gave all of their awards this year to Asian books, with no PI representation, which would’ve been fine and whatever to me, except that it got me thinking about whether or not a book like “Between the Deep Blue Sea And Me” was even considered for the APALA Literature Award.

AILA gave it a Youth Literature award, but personally, browsing through the book when it first came out, I thought it was more adult, which would explain why, as a member of APALA’s YA Literature Committee, I did not receive a copy to review.  I wonder, though, if the Adult Committee received a copy.  I have heard through the grapevine that perhapsp PI authors who publish through PI publishers don’t get a fair representation in this awards circuit.  That maybe APALA is only dealing with the large publishers, which would greatly decrease the number of PI books in consideration.  Last year, the children’s biography on Duke Kahanamoku, “Surfer of the Cenutry”, received an award from APALA for Children’s Picture book.  So that’s one book in the nearly ten years that APALA has been giving awards that went to a PI when there have been so many books published between now and then.

I know I’ve expressed this concern before that PIs are under represented when grouped into this APA category, but I feel like its not getting any better and that people are so stuck in their Asian focused world that even AILA felt the need to take it upon themselves to review these works which are representational of a decent number of the APA community.

As I gear up to work on the 2011 APALA Children’s Literature Award Committee, I think that I will also work extra hard on ensuring that PIs are represented in the sample available for contention, now that I know how this system works.

9 miles without stopping

so today I officially ran the longest distance I have ever run without stopping – and practically in record time for a solo run – 1:40:34, ~11:15 miles!  It felt miserable though.  I think I could’ve gone faster except that I was having stomach cramps and it was SUPER cold and windy.  I’m pretty sure when i set out that it was around 45 degrees before wind chill and right now, over twelve hours later, my body is pretty freaking sore.  I think part of the soreness though is just plain tiredness since I only got 6 hours of sleep tops the night before – during which I kept waking up every hour because I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up at all.

finishing the run I felt pretty terrible because I thought that I had run slower than my last 9 mile time about a month ago where I did my run/walk routine.  So I was ecstatic to find out when I got home that I BEAT that time by FIVE minutes! That’s right, 5 minutes!  now to think that I felt like I could’ve gone even faster had I not had the stomach pain, I might’ve broken the 11 min/mile barrier.  Maybe next week.

Now I have to mentally prepare myself for my 16 miler on Sunday which I’m hoping will be really good since I’ve had a pretty great week of running.  hopefully I’ll keep my pace around 11:30 or less because I’m pretty tired of this 12:00 shit.  I think that the 10K last weekend really boosted my confidence and showed my that I’m not even close to my limitations speed wise and that I can really pick it up!

oh, and the course i did today was terrible.  i ran from alamitos to pine then back down to 55th pl, then up to la verne, then back down to 55th place and back to alamitos.  that switch back kind of thing in the middle really messed me up but I wasn’t comfortable running off of the fairly well-lit/traveled at 5am ocean blvd…

sub 11 practice run!

today I ran sub 11 minute miles for my 5 mile run – 10:51 minute miles to be exact, and i wasn’t even running with anyone!  i beat my time from last week be over a minute and i felt pretty good doing it.  i thought that i was taking it fairly easy, but still pushing myself not to slow down too much in the spots that i tend to get lazy – especially during the 4th mile on my way back to molino.  I think this week will be a good running week! hopefully my 16 miler will be sub 12 minute miles…

10K Awesomeness

So today I ran my first 10K in 4 years!  It was the Redondo Beach Super Bowl 10K and ran down harbor dr to 190th, up to catalina, down a ways and then back up the esplanade.  I ran with John who really pushed me those first 4 miles.  The splits were insane (for me):

mile 1: 09:52

mile 2: 9:56

mile 3: 10:05

mile 4: 9:52

mile 5: 10:52

mile 6: 10:43

mile 0.2: 2:03

for a total 10K time of 1:03:25

John left me in the last 2 miles, so you can tell that I slowed down considerably.  I probably could’ve kept the pace, but I was scared that I was gonna burn out or hurt myself, although I guess with only 2 miles left to go that should’ve been the least of my worries.  None the less, I beat my time goal of 1:06:00 and was decently close to my better than i could hope goal of 1:00:00.  I felt really good crossing that finish line, passing people with my last sprint.  It’s been awhile since I crossed a finish line and I forgot how good it can feel! I wanted to cry when I realized I’d run faster than 11 min a mile – especially 10:16!  That’s amazing for what I’ve been running lately.  The last time I ran so fast was when John ran with me a few weeks ago.  Maybe a running buddy is a good thing to have…

oh, and the 2 beers afterward at 9:45am are possibly the most delicious beers ever. haha.

and before i forget.. i came in 77th for my age division (19-24 F), 889 for my sex division and 2564 overall.  Not great places, but not bad for someone who does no speedwork and runs an average of 11:30 min miles 90% of the time!