2016 Mountain 2 Beach Marathon - Race Recap

Date: May 29, 2016

Location: Ojai to Ventura, CA

Start: 6:00 am

Finish: 3:32:41 (new PR and third BQ)

The first part of this recap is mainly on my history with this race and the lead in to the actual race. If you are not interested in that, you can probably scroll down.

It's been over a month since I ran this race so I figured that I should probably do a recap before I forget all the details. Unfortunately, I've already forgotten a lot but I've found these recaps to be useful when I look back on them to see what I did surrounding the race. Memory don't fail me now.

I haven't ran this race since 2013 right before my pregnancy but I've always liked this race. Not just because I've always done well on this course (I progressively run PR times in consecutive years and it's where I first qualified for Boston) but I also love the location and the race day weather. So this race has been good to me. After I had my baby, I wasn't sure if I had wanted to do this marathon-ing thing again but after my baby turned one I started casually running again and boy that good old feeling just came rushing back. That year when the Boston Marathon rolled around, I suddenly felt the desire to go back to run that race again. Which meant that I would have to put in the time to train to run a qualifying race and I knew exactly which race I wanted to target.

I started gearing up for this race around early October 2015. I had been logging some casual miles earlier in the year to the tune of maybe 20/25 miles per week after having ran zero miles for two years due to aforementioned pregnancy. So I had a lot of work to do to get back into marathon running shape. I decided to use the Hansons Marathon Method for this cycle because it had been sitting in the back burner for so many years and I thought 'why not?' Isn't that always how every good decision starts...'sure, why the heck not!'

So I went from 25 miles a week to 40/50 miles on the recovery weeks and up to 60/65 miles on peak weeks. I was not really prepared for this to say the least but I sucked it up and took rest days where needed. I had signed up for the LA Marathon as my practice race to get re-acclimated with the whole marathon-ing thing and this proved to be a good decision because boy was I rusty. A few weeks after I completed the LA Marathon, I resumed training for my goal race. I didn't restart a new training cycle. Instead, I just picked up a couple of weeks into the cycle since I already had the mileage training in my legs. This time around, I felt much stronger, still pretty tired from the higher mileage but overall pretty happy with how I was handling the fatigue and being able to hit my goal pace.

Fast forward to taper week...

...all the training was done, I've arrived at taper week injury-free and ready to race but then the nerves started to set in and it was Monday. It was going to be a long week!

When I signed up for the race, I was aware that the course had changed a couple of times since I ran it last but a few months before the race they announced that the course was changing again and at the time there was not even a map to look at. This was where the source of my nervousness was coming from...an unknown course. In the month leading up to the race, I saw some postings on Facebook from a couple of individuals who had taken it upon themselves to run different sections of the course and reporting back. Some said the changes were good while others said it was more difficult. So at the end of the day, I didn't really learn anything new or useful.

Let me just say that the course I ran this year was completely and totally different from the course in 2013 and it is slightly more difficult in my opinion. We lost some of the drop and made some gains in elevation. The only part of the course that felt like a decline was mile 4-5 and 12-14, the other parts felt flat. Those little blips around miles 12, 15 and 17 did not feel great to maneuver at race pace and that tiny bump at mile 23 mentally messed with me when my legs were pretty tired. My mind was making mountains out of mole hills. Overall, my quads were way less trashed than in 2013 since the decline was more gradual. This is still a fast course with historically good weather to boot.

2016 course

2013 course

When race weekend rolled around, I was full of excitement. Especially after I saw my bib number. Lucky sevens all across.

My husband and I made the 3-hour drive from the OC to Ojai the day before the race. I'm borderline OCD so I had planned out the entire weekend hour-by-hour on paper but most of it just went out the window because things just sort of fell into place on it's own. I've ran this race so many times that I've developed a ritual of things that I must do prior to the race, thereby the planned out weekend. Mostly because of superstition than it actually attributing anything to my running. As in years pasted, our plan was to stop by the Camarillo Outlets to do some shopping then have lunch at this little Mexican place, then go to the expo, check in at the hotel, watch an action flick (and yes it has to be a action flick...bonus if it is Marvel/Star Wars/Superhero), have dinner, set out my stuff for the next morning and then turn in. I leave out the part where I toss and turn for several hours but I assume that's a given.

I did manage to do all those things, just not in that order. The deviation started early on. My coworker kindly offered to pick up my bib for me the weekend before the race so I didn't even go to the expo the day before so I had extra time. We got hungry on the drive up and was not able to wait until lunch time so we ended up stopping at this quaint little restaurant called Jessica's Cafe where I ordered this giant cinnamon roll that was really disappointing.

After our meal we did end up at the outlets where I scored on some Oakley shades, True Religion jeans and some clothes for our little man.

Normally we would have dinner in Ventura or Ojai the night before the race but we ended up having dinner at this place near the outlets called Lure Fishhouse since we didn't have to drive into Ventura to pick up my bib since I already had it. That bread basket was pretty amazing! Strangely my dinner was not so much. Maybe I ordered the wrong thing. I was so tempted to eat some oysters but I'd imagined that would have been a bad idea.

I slept for a couple of hours that night and woke up before my alarm went off. I guess I was ready to go. Our hotel was about a mile from the start so after I had some coffee/snack, I got dressed and made the warm-up jog to the starting line. We have stayed in Ventura in previous years but it turned out to be a pretty good idea to stay in Ojai because I got to sleep in a bit more, got a warm-up jog in and arrived 15 minutes before the official start. I was even able to find my coworkers who I had trained for this race with as the race is still relatively small. Weather was perfect for me in the 60s and logistics looked pretty smooth from my point of view at the starting line and they started right on time.

My goal for this race was to beat my time from 2013 and in doing so would also get me a BQ time. I started the race very conservatively as I had wanted to run a negative split. Everything felt great up until mile 16 when I started to feel less than great for the first time. I kind of panicked at that point when I should have just soldiered on. My heart rate was fine but my legs started to feel tired and I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to finish strong so I would slow down every couple of miles to make sure that I didn't hit the wall. Looking back I should have just ran my goal pace and not over think it so much. In the end I'm happy with the outcome because I did manage to check off both my goals of a personal course PR and a BQ. I'm also pretty happy that I was able to maintain a somewhat even pace throughout and didn't fade the last six miles like I have historically done in the past. A true testament to the effectiveness of the Hansons Marathon Method which really helped me hone in on the feeling of a pace.

Race photos were free but I only got one and it was very bad. Luckily, my friend Pam took this one of me at mile 25. I don't know what I was doing here...maybe trying to fly. Yep, I was still smiling but it was mainly because I was so happy to see Pam at the mile 25 marker. She paced me to the finish line at a sub-8 pace so that I could be put out of my misery. She's a good friend.

Pam and her husband drove a couple of hours at the crack of dawn in order to get to the finish line in time to pace her friends in. That's really a great act of kindness on their part. I'm really appreciative to have her as a friend.

It was a really great day for a race. Good weather, good course and I had a really good race. Couldn't ask for more.

Later that day, my husband and I ended up meeting Pam and her husband for lunch at that Mexican joint I mentioned earlier which was really nice since we haven't had time to hang out in a really long time. See...we managed to hit everything on my OCD list.

I'm really happy that I ended up signing up for this race because despite all the changes to the course, it is still one of my favorite!

One Year Ago

What: 2013 Boston Marathon - Race Recap
Date: April 15, 2013
Location: Boston, MA
Start: ~10:20am (corral 7, wave 2)
Finish: 3:57:58
Elevation:

It's been one year since the bombings at the Boston Marathon yet everything is still so vivid to me. So much has happened this past year. I've been so grateful for each and every day. I never posted my 2013 Boston race recap. I wasn't ready at the time but today seems like a good day to do so. It's not an epic story by any means but it is the story I had wanted to share since last year. The following are some of my thoughts recorded on the days before, during and following my trip to Boston last year. I decided not to edit much of it with the exception of some spelling and grammar errors since I wrote all of it on my iPad. I apologize for being so verbose but I had a lot of down time in my hotel room following the bombings.

April 13, 2013 (notes I wrote at upon arriving at Logan Airport):

Our red-eye flight took off on time from the Long Beach Airport. I love JetBlue and their amazing service and amenities. I especially love the individual TVs. We got to select from a couple of movies to watch. I wasn't able to sleep so movie watching it was. I picked Silver Lining's Playbook. That movie was not what I thought it was. It was more dark than I had anticipated. For my second movie I selected Life of Pi. What an amazing story that was. I had never read the book but my sisters have and I remember them telling me about how good it was years ago. I enjoyed the movie very much. As the movie ended, I briefly glanced out the plane window and noticed the breaking of dawn. I could see a faint light growing brighter which meant that we were almost there. Thank goodness too because I don't do well on plane rides and was at the point where I could no longer sit still. The landing was loud and rough. It was sprinkling a little bit outside when we landed.

We walked around Terminal C for a bit and decided to go get some breakfast. I was not really that hungry mostly because I had not slept. My husband ordered a hot breakfast. I walked back to the Dunkin Donut Express that we had past on the way to the sit down breakfast place. It wast my first taste of DD. It was just okay to me. Again, maybe it was because I was tired. I also got a blueberry muffin. It was decent. I hope it was reduced fat.

I am sitting in what was a quieter part of the airport trying to catch some zzz's awaiting for my sister's flight to arrive so that we can all catch the "T" (the local underground public transportation system here in Boston) together to the hotel. There is a draft here in Terminal C. My husband is laying on the floor using his backpack as a pillow. He looks to be asleep. Don't know how he can sleep like that. The area starts to grow busier by the minute as people start to arrive to board their plane. An hour has past. I'm thinking to myself that we should probably start walking over to the terminal where my sister's flight would be arriving at since it was about to arrive. As I walked through the terminal to my sister's plane, I can see Boston Marathon merchandises being sold in the airport gift shop. Twenty percent off. Tempting but I'll hold off until the expo. I'm sleepy. I hope that I will be able to make it through this day. Will probably crash hard later. Hopefully when I get to the hotel. (Of course this didn't happen since I decided to go exploring with my sister.) 

Expo:
After checking into our hotel, Sister K and I headed directly to the expo to pick up my bib. It was pretty crowded in there but everyone was buzzing with excitement. I remember being so caught up with the excitement of just being there.

Boylston Street

We went to check out the finish line. And of course to lay down on the finish line for some photos. Trust me, everyone was doing it.

April 15, 2013: Race Day
It was a beautiful crisp spring morning. I definitely had butterflies in my stomach that morning.

Athlete's Village, as you can see was a madhouse.

But it was fully stocked with everything that a runner could need.

The walk to the starting corrals.

This was my corral.

Running through Farmingham.

Wellesley College

The deserted streets outside our hotel the day after the bombings.

Thoughts from April 16, 2013:

I had wanted to post about this the day it happened but my thoughts were so scattered. I didn't know how to make sense of it all. I still can't make any sense of the events that occurred. April 15, 2013 was the day my dreams and nightmares collided into one. It was the day I ran my first Boston Marathon, something I had looked forward to doing for awhile now. It was the first year that I had qualified. Most people that I talked to about the Boston Marathon spoke highly of it and so I was super excited to finally get the chance to run it.

The course itself is not anything amazing. I've ran better courses before. What makes running Boston so amazing is the history and the people. I have never experienced such energy from a race before. It felt like everyone who lived along the course or the city came out to cheer us on. There were sections where the sounds of people cheering was so loud that it was deafening. I could feel the vibrations from their voices run through my entire body. It was unreal.

I ran the best race I could considering I had not had time to go through a proper training cycle. I started the race very conservatively per the advice of a couple of articles that I had read and friend Pam who reminded me about it the night before during dinner. This turned out to be good advice because I still had something left in the tank in the last couple of miles when those around me had slowed down considerably. I wanted to run a good race for all those people who had ever encouraged me to run and supported me over the years. Lots of family and friends knew that this was a big deal for me and I knew they were sending me good vibes from home so I wanted to do my best.

For the first time in a while, I ran the entire course. Sometimes slowly, other times at a quicker pace. I told myself that if nothing else I would not walk at a race that I had worked so hard to get into. When I finally reached the final quarter mile I had envisioned it to feel differently. Sort of like a victory lap. I mean it was everything I hoped it would be but I was really tired at that point and just wanted to get it done. I crossed the finish line a couple of minutes before the four hour mark. I remember feeling so accomplished and happy.

The line to get out of the corral was packed. Literally, like a tuna can. Imagine it...hundreds of sweaty people rubbing up against each other. As you can imagine, I wanted out of there badly. It felt like an entire mile long. It took a couple of minutes to find where they were handing out space blankets and I wanted one as I was starting to get cold. I was holding my cell phone because I had ran with it the entire way. Not sure why. I didn't even take that many photos. Shortly after crossing the finish line I called my husband to let him know that I had finished sub-4. He was at the finish line waiting for me but he missed when I ran across the finish line. He was standing at the exact spot where that first bomb had gone off...4:09...just minutes after I had crossed. I get so emotional when I think about it. Had I not had my phone with me, he would have still been there waiting for me. And to think that earlier that morning I almost decided to leave my cell phone at the hotel but at the very last moment I picked it up and decided to take it with me. Then again during gear check I was undecided if I should check my phone in or not and again at the last moment I decided to just hold it in my hands.  As I was walking into my corral at the start I thought for a moment how dumb I was to be holding my cell phone the whole way. I guess everything happens for a reason.

When the first explosion went off I was standing at the intersection of St. James and Berkley street. I remember a guy standing near me asking if the noise was fireworks. I wasn't even worried at the point when I should have been. Then the second explosion went off and a bunch of medical personnel rushed past me with wheel chairs. I started to get very frightened as I was still in the barricaded areas and had still not connected with my husband. I kept trying to call him on his cell but the cellular signal was blocked since everyone was on their phone at this point. I finally spotted him at the opposite corner of where I told him I would be waiting for him. As soon as he saw me he said we had to get out of there. He said that something bad had happened and that we could still be in danger. I remember being really scared at that point and told him that I didn't know how to get out of the barricaded area. He told that there wasn't time for me to walk around the barricades so he picked me up and lifted me over the barricades. There was no way I could have climbed out since I was pretty sore. It was chaotic at the scene by this point. Just lots of confused and frightened people crying and scared. We tried to make our way out of the area so that emergency personnel could get through. At that point, we both did not know what had happened or what was going on. Police officers were yelling at people to run away from the area. We had to go a couple of extra miles around the scene to get back to our hotel. I was so sore and cold. When the SWAT team was yelling at us to run away, I could barely do a slow jog. I was so frightened. I was walking slow and trying to jog here and there. We tried to take the subway back but it was shut down almost immediately following the blasts. After walking for a couple of miles we were finally near our hotel. We were not sure if they had barricaded the entire area but eventually we found a side street that lead us back to our hotel. I've never been so happy to get back to a hotel room in my life.  There were SWATs guarding the hotel door. When I finally made it up to my room, I see my sister for the first time since the explosion sitting on her bed watching the news. We were so happy to see each other. My husband had told me that she had gone out for lunch and was planning to stop by the finish line to see me come in. Luckily, she tells me later that when she got to the finish line moments before I was to run through that the crowd was so thick that she could not get anywhere near the finish line so she decided to go shopping in the area instead. When the bombs went off, she immediately headed back to the hotel. I'm so glad. 

Thoughts on April 18, 2013: 

Marathonfoto photos from the Boston Marathon were posted today and they remind me of the carefree moments right before the bombings changed the lives of so many people. What a beautiful day it was! Sunny and just perfect for running. I remember thinking that I should really take advantage of such amazing running weather. It was all so senseless.

That's it! That's the story. Sorry it has taken so long for me to post it. We are all changed because of what happened but we are stronger and even thought this happened a year ago, it will be with me always.

TBT: Copley Square and Boston Common

I decided to do a 'throw-back Thursday' post today because I was looking through some of my photos from earlier in the year and came across these photos of Copley Square and the Boston Common which is just lovely during the spring when I was there. I have such amazing memories of how I was feeling on that day and looking at these photos just takes me back there.

This is Trinity Church nestled amongst modern buildings and tall skyscrapers at Copley Square. Just beautiful!

I took a nice stroll through the Boston Common which is like a teeny tiny version of Central Park in New York. It was a beautiful crisp Spring day and you could feel the excitement in the air.

Newbury Street

Newbury Street was one of the first places I visited when I got into Boston. Having not slept coming off a redeye flight from the west coast, my sister and I decided to explore the city in lieu of sleeping. I was too excited to sleep anyways. We started out walking down Boylston towards the Boston Commons and eventually ended up on Newbury Street. Newbury Street runs parallel to Boylston to the North.

As I walk down the streets of Boston, I notice that there are quite a few churches and they are all magificant works of architectual design. Not as old as anything you would find in Europe but it has so much more character than anything you would find in Orange County where I live. It is one of the elements that makes this city so charming as I mentioned before.

Another thing this town is not lacking are cupcake shops. There are a couple on this street alone. We stopped into Georgetown Cupcake because what vacation would be complete without cupcakes? They had a large variety of cupcakes and their display case was very visually appealing. I only had one so I feel ill-equipped to make a definitive statement about the store as a whole but the vanilla birthday cake flavor that I did try was very moist.

Not sure why I'm sharing this photo except for the fact that I thought that it was so neat that Sabra hummus was out on the street passing out free samples of pita chips and hummus.

This city is just so welcoming to runners during race weekend. They really know how to make you feel special.

Need some retail therapy? This street does not disappoint. High-end, boutique and chain stores line almost every inch of this street.

This chocolate shop was pretty amazing! I didn't take any photos inside because I wasn't sure if it was allowed but trust me I saw some stuff that I should have taken home with me.

We came upon a roasted nut cart and of course we had to buy some...

...I mean just look at this deliciousness! They have these carts on almost every street corner in New York City but this was the first one I saw in Boston. My sister took this photo. Thanks Sister K!

The clothing store on the top floor in this photo has everything I wish I already owned in my closet.

I love this outfit!

Another cupcake shop that we went into but did not try.

Everything checks out though. Maybe next time!

Johnny Cupcakes is NOT a cupcake shop. They sell clothing! @_@ Don't mess with me like that.

I don't eat a lot of candy but I love candy stores! This one was jam packed with candy. Of all the things in the shop, the thing that fascinated me was a large slinky? Which was not even made of candy! Clearly my priorities are messed up.

I don't even know what this store sells but I love the name! I know for a fact that if I lived nearby that I would be hanging out on this street all.the.time!