Family, Christmas and taking a break.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Hope everyone has had a great holiday.

After my whirlwind trip to L.A. to help Stephen and Laura move, I came back to the Christmas frenzy. I usually don't start shopping until the middle of December and I try to finish and be wrapped at least a few days before the big day. Every year I tell myself that next year I'm going to start earlier but so far, not!

We had a good Christmas. Christmas Eve, we went to my sister Evelyne's house for their annual open house then went to church. We went to an earlier service than usual so we could come home and settle in for the night. Christmas morning, we opened presents and sorted through stockings then headed to my Mom and Dad's for brunch and to meet up with the rest of the family. Afterwards we came home for a quiet rest of the day.

Monday, we drove down to San Luis Obispo for a 3 day mini reunion with Dave's Mom & Dad, sister Sue, her husband Steve and their kids Ryan and Kira. We had a great time with a night tour of Hearst Castle, some good dinners, wine tasting and Kira's favorite, thrift shop shopping :)

It's fun to have all 'legal' kids since we all like wine!

Hearst Castle was beautiful at night.

Dave and I at Morro Bay.

My sister-in-law Sue, Dave, my mother and father-in -law Cathy and Bill.

Ny niece Kira, Sue, brother-in-law Steve and my nephew Ryan.

Our happy family. I want it noted that I am taller then my girls. They either had heels on or were standing on a rock!

The day after we got back from SLO, I had planned a big group barn ride to Henry Coe State Park. We had 15 riders and had a great time.

A good time was had by all!

My run training is going well. My bike and swimming has been almost non-existent for December. I decided to take a couple week break from swim and it's been too busy to get a lot of bike time in. I can feel the aches that come with only running and I'm looking forward to getting into a more balanced routine. I ran my first 20 miler yesterday and I surprisingly only have a little soreness today.

We're off for some New Year's festivities tonight. I think next blog I'll wrap up the year. Looking forward to 2012!

A tale of two runs!

A run down memory lane:

This week I drove down to Los Angeles to help Laura move out of her apartment. I had planned to get my run in when I got there and luckily I pulled into town an hour before her last final! Dave and I lived in Playa del Rey when we first were married and I thought it would be fun to run along one of my old routes I used to take right out our apartment door 28 years ago.  

This was our apartment. It looks like it's had a facelift in the last few years.

This paved route goes for miles along the southern L.A. beach cities.

View coming back. Our old place was just behind that row of apartments.

Finished my run along the canal and spotted Stonehenge in Marina del Rey :)

After helping Laura pack up, we went out for sushi and then went back to her apartment to hang out and visited with her friends. Hearing about finals, all nighters, etc. brought back memories and made me happy I was through with all that. The next morning we finished packing and found Laura had a flat tire. We had her little donut tire put on and headed out to a gas station for a repair. They wouldn't repair it because they felt it had too much age damage and we would run the risk of it exploding. Fine then! I didn't want to get new tires from this place so we decided to start driving to our next destination, Camarillo. Our plan was to pick up some stuff from Stephen who was also moving out of his apartment. You are not supposed to drive over 50 mph on a little donut tire so it seemed to take forever to get there. I kept speeding up to 55, then 60 but follow the rules Laura wouldn't budge much over 50. Since we had about 5 hours of driving still to go to get to San Jose, we decided to get tires in Camarillo. Stephen called ahead and found a good deal for us. Four tires, loading Stephen's extra stuff and some lunch later, we were on the road again.

Here we are driving up the 101 with Laura and Stephen caravanning behind me. We made it home safely and in time for me to clean up, change and meet Dave at a dinner party!

A long run that was surprisingly fun:

I'm training for the Surf City marathonHuntington Beach which will be February 5th. I'm following a Hal Higdon plan that so far is working well for me. I used the same plan for my first marathon, the Napa Valley marathon last March, but this time around I think I'm stronger and fitter. I had IT band issues when I was training for Napa and so far I'm feeling pretty good this time around. Todays long run was an 18 miler. I planned out a route where Dave could drop me off and I would run home. My Dad hasn't been feeling well and last night had to be admitted to the hospital for some IV antibiotics. My niece, Janine, was in town visiting my parents which I didn't know since I had been out of town moving kids out of apartments :) She's a runner and said she would love to go with me for part of my run! I planned a new route so she could run the first 10 miles with me. It was so fun to run with her and the 10 miles went by so quickly. The next 8 were a little slower but I did it! Finished in 3:17. I've been working on finding the right nutrition that works for me for these long runs. For the second time on a long run I put 4 gels in a flask with a little bit of water. The consistency of gels kind of gross me out so adding a little waters makes them go down easier. My flask is a small hand held bottle that is easy to carry. I also carried a water bottle with a hand strap. I've worn waist carriers before but my stomach just doesn't do well with anything putting pressure on it. I sipped some of the gel solution every mile with a little sip of water. This worked really well for me. I felt like my energy stayed the same throughout the run. The energy was there but my legs were toast by the end!

This is me and Janine (with Dave being silly in the background) visiting my Dad after we finished our run. I'm really hoping that Janine decides that Surf City will work out in her training plan. It would be so fun to do a race with her.  My Dad was feeling much better today and we're hoping he'll be discharged tomorrow!

WW, hockey, Horsecam, happy birds and a long run.

It's been a fun but busy week. After getting back from Vegas on Tuesday I hit the ground running. With a quick stop at home to pick up Buddy the big black dog, we headed to the barn to meet my farrier, Scott. M had his hooves trimmed and he, surprisingly, was not fidgety even though he had the whole weekend off to think of ways to annoy Scott. I think since it's been so cold at night, Scott outsmarted him by trimming him in the sun so he went into a Vitamin D coma.

Wednesday I went out for a bike ride with my Wednesday Women cycling group. I love these girls! They are inspiring and motivating and have been a good push for me. I have to push to keep up! We rode a 44 mile loop and I think I'm having an easier time keeping up.

Dave and I bought a 10 pack of Sharks tickets this season with our friends, Ron and Louise. After a quick stop at Mondo Burrito for dinner we watched an exciting 5-2 Sharks win!

I took M out for a couple of trail rides this week. On Fridays, I try to plan a barn girl ride to explore a new park or at least a trail that isn't one of our regular spots. We have a lot of great trails so close to the barn but with time restrictions, we often ride the same 3-4 trails so it's nice to go out a little further. This week four of us went to Harvey Bear County Park. This hasn't been M's favorite park in the past because of many encounters with big herds of feral pigs when I took him there when he was younger. I think I scarred him! He's matured quite a bit but this park still brings the sassyness out. Luckily, this week was not one of them :) We rode by a lot of cows and quite a few babies. I think it's pretty cold at night for new babies and I thought it was kind of early in the year to put the bulls out but I guess not!

I always take a Horsecam picture through M or Rio's ears.

We rode up above the morning fog.

This was my first Horsecam shot a few years ago. I was out on a ride by myself, turned a corner and this was my view. I love the Fall!

I'm also easily amused so I had to take Horsecam on a trip. M's ears went to Vegas with me a few years ago and did some shopping at Cowboy Christmas :)

He even went to my book group.

About once a week I do a good clean up of the aviary and refill feeders. I like to tie millet around the branches to give them other places to find treats. They were all waiting for me to get out of there so they could go to town on the new food.

Saturday I went for my long run. Kathleen has been riding her bike with me to keep me company and get her workout in. She rides back and forth and it motivates me to keep running because I know she's going to be coming by at any time. I was scheduled to run 17 miles but I was done at 15.5. I think Kathleen rode 25 miles. With other things going on this week, I didn't prepare as well as I usually do. I like to plan a day off the day before to rest my legs and I'm usually careful about hydrating and eating well. That didn't happen this week and the run showed it. I was dragging the whole way. I got most of it in which I settled for. It was a good reminder of how important what I eat, drink and how much I rest affects these big workouts.

Buddy was tired after this week too. He would really prefer I take my stuff out of the backseat of the truck but he made do with using the step as a pillow. This dog can sleep anywhere!

Girls NFR weekend and the Las Vegas Rock n Roll 1/2 Marathon

For the last 10 years or so, I've been meeting some of my college girlfriends in Las Vegas in early December for a girls weekend. Our main purpose is to go to the National Finals Rodeo but we cram in a lot of other fun stuff too.

The NFR is like the Super Bowl of rodeo. The top 15 competitors in each event are eligible to compete for 10 days straight. At the end of the rodeo, an event winner and an overall winner is announced. This rodeo showcases the best of the best and it's amazing to watch. The town of Las Vegas is totally transformed into a small town with cowboys everywhere.

Four years ago, while we were there, we decided to train for the following years 1/2 marathon. None of us had run that distance and we thought it would be a fun challenge to do together. This year our runners were my friends Diane, Chris and Dave came too. Denise decided not to run because she is nursing a sore knee and ankle. Dave decided to run even though he's been fighting a foot/hip injury that is yet to be fully diagnosed!

The past few years the race has been held Sunday morning. This year they changed it to a Sunday night race. I think the novelty of running down the strip at night was a big selling point because the race sold out with 44,000 racers signed up. While we were there we heard on the local news that they would like to increase the participants to 64,000 next year so they could run the biggest 1/2 marathon in the world.

We all met up in Vegas Saturday morning to get to the check in.

Here we are, all checked in! Diane, Denise, me, Chris and Dave. I met Diane and Chris in our Cal State Long Beach dorms 34 years ago. I've known those girls longer then I've known Dave :)  I met Denise when we moved back to California 16 years ago!

Afterwards, we went downstairs to do a little shopping in one of the rodeo gift shows. It was a lot of walking for the day before a race but since the rodeo and shopping was our main reason for being there we just decided to have fun. Afterwards we had a nice dinner and headed back to our hotel to watch the rodeo in one of the lounges.

Sunday morning we went to our favorite coffee shop, Blueberry Hill. Yum! I had pumpkin pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon. It was kind of tricky trying to decide what to eat for a night race but I thought this was a good choice and I had all day to digest it. Then we headed back to get a parking spot at our hotel before the deluge of runners showed up. We stayed close to the start line so it was quite convenient. A little more shopping at another rodeo gift show in the hotel next door and then we headed back to our rooms for some rest time before heading out to the start line. 

We didn't want to go out too early because it was cold! I think it was high 30's-low 40's at the start. Our hotel has an indoor walkway to the next 2 hotels so we took that route and then headed out to our corrals. With all the body heat, it was surprisingly comfortable outside :) The race folks do a good job of setting up corrals and having good live entertainment to get everyones energy up. Even with corrals numbering over 30, it was still crowded but that's just the nature of this race. 

Dave and I waiting for the start.

Diane, Chris, me and Dave ready to go.

We were in corral 17. The race started at 5:30 but I think it took us until about 6:00 for us to cross the start line. 

I usually don't have to run when it's this cold (I love California!) so I had to think about what to wear. I wore running tights, a short sleeve shirt, a long sleeve running pullover, a hat and my gloves. This worked pretty well. The sleeves went up after the first mile and the gloves came off after the second mile but then I was comfortable for the whole race. 

I've been working on some running goals lately and by big one is to minimize my walk breaks. The longest I've run without a walk break is 8.25 miles. My big goal for this race was to run the whole thing. No walk breaks. Through the whole race, I kept telling myself, 'You're doing a freaking Ironman next year! Buck up!' It worked. I ran the whole race. First time ever at this distance! I was so excited. In a way, having such a big crowd helped because when I would get tired I would just put myself behind a group for a while and slow down my pace until I regrouped and then I went on my way. The crowd never thinned at all. Even though they sent the corrals out every 2-3 minutes, it stayed crowded the whole course. Between the people racing, the big crowds watching and the Vegas Strip lights, there was so much to look at. It was a fun race. It was big, crowded, had walkers walking in the middle of the road, Sponge Bob, many, many Elvis's including one with a big boom box he pushed in a stroller, people getting married and all sorts of other crazy stuff. This is what this race is like. To me, it's more of an 'experience' race. I was happy with meeting my goal. I was happy with my time (2:25:44). I was happy running with my girlfriends and Dave. It was all good :)

After the race we met back up in our rooms. Showered and changed, we headed out in search of food. That is where it all fell apart! Some restaurants were closed and the others had a 2 hour wait. The race organizers need to work with the hotels to give us more options. We grabbed a quick snack at Una Mas and ate in our rooms.

Monday morning (the race done!) we finally were able to fully concentrate on rodeo fun. More shopping , a good dinner and then.........

The Rodeo!!!

Denise and I waiting for the show to start.

The National Anthem being sung.

All of the cowboys and cowgirls parade in with one of the participants leading their state while carrying their state flag.

There was a barrel racing arena record broken and fastest times in a few events. It was a great rodeo!

We decided we're going to skip this race next year. I think, 2 weeks post Ironman, I won't be ready/willing/have any desire to do it and we all really want to get back to having our regular NFR girls weekend fun without having to race. Life is all about balance and setting priorities :)