Triton Run with Irene!

This morning was the last long training run with the SDTC for the Rock n' Roll Marathon and 1/2 next weekend.

Side note: OMG! It is next weekend!

This week, instead of running from Hospitality Point, we trekked to La Jolla and the UCSD campus to do our run. To be honest, I love this run. UCSD is full of interesting things to look at. To be honest, the run is quite hilly, but none of the hills are exceptionally long, so every uphill is followed by a down (and of course vice verse).

Even though there are about 700 people in the track club, and probably a good 300 who turned up this morning, I thought I'd end up running pretty much on my own since none of the rest of the herd could make it. Where were Mik and Kat? (running at Mission Bay) Where was Betty? (on a vay-kay) Where was Elsie? (I have no clue. I'm guessing with the BF). Where was BBJ? (????)

Then as we were stretching, I spotted Michael, Irene's DH...and then I ran into Irene. We decided to run together. I figured that Irene could pace me, and since she's coming off an 8 week foot-injury hiatus, I thought we'd do just a leisurely run for about 1.5 hours.

Boy was I wrong.

I'm not really sure who was pushing who, but we did manage around an 11:02 pace for a little over 7.5 miles

This is something I need to work on next weekend so that I can finish the race without a major meltdown at mile 10 or 11 (such as what happened at Surf City or Las Vegas). I tend to go out pretty slowly (which is a smart thing), then about mile 4 or 5, I start to feel warmed up and pretty good, and then I speed up.

Speeding up to an 11:15 or even an 11:10 pace is one thing. Speeding up to a 10:35 pace (see Mile 6) is a recipe for disaster come mile 9 or 10. You'd think I'd know that by now, but you'd be wrong.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun running with Irene. We chatted about families, races, running, remodeling. We both laughed when the sun came out noting how we both think of Penny (and how much she'd hate it) whenever the sun comes out...and this morning it did.

Which brings up another issue for next weekend, the sun. It's been a relatively cool late winter and spring in So.Cal. Typically by now, we've had a couple of opportunities to run in the heat. Not this year, this was the first long run that I've done this spring where I actually noticed that it was getting warm and I started actively looking for the shady side of the street to run on, which during the RnR next weekend, won't matter so much because by the time the sun comes out, if the weather is like this morning, by 7:55am, I'll be in an area that pretty much has very little shade anyway.

((sigh))

After the run, Irene, Michael, and I sat with the rest of the club  to take the RnR oath (I, state your name, ...) in which a good number of people say, "I, state your name..." and then we promise to have fun, run our race, and know that we are already winners. It's corny, but it's not a bad thing to do before a race.

Irene and I baking in the sun

The club listening to Coach Paul. We also had a guest speaker who gave us some last minute "hints" before the race next weekend. Also, in the background is some college or high school soccer tournament...which was quite the distraction to Michael and me...The best part was when Michael audibly appreciated a Goal Shot by uttering, "NICE." Luckily, I think the comment also fit whatever the speaker was talking about at the time. I, of course, giggled. I'm pretty sure Irene was mortified.

So...training is over. I'll do some really light running this week and I'll have another 1/2 Mary  under my belt. This will be my 9th half marathon, which I guess qualifies me as an "experienced" in the event.

Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend. I'm going to go have a margarita (I fresh squeezed lemons and limes from our tree for the mix) by the pool...like I said, it finally warmed up around here.

YUM!