Friday night, Clark and I went to a French restaurant in the village, PAON, for his birthday dinner.
I don’t think I’d ever had escargot served in the shells before:
Piping hot in garlic butter with pesto.
Those were good, and so were the entrees we got, but my favorite part was dessert. I love mint chocolate chip ice cream, so I got their “house made” mint ice cream, and it was unlike any other version I’ve tried. It tasted like it was made with actual fresh mint instead of artificial flavoring. Also, each scoop was served on top of a kiwi slice, which doesn’t sound like it should go together, but it really did.
We were both stuffed when we left, so we went straight home and fell asleep on the couch.
The next morning, we slept in kinda late. Eventually I got up and got ready for my run.
I had a 10-miler on the schedule, so I decided to make it a little more challenging and run it on the Lake Calavera trail. We’ve run a 5-mile loop marked by one of our run club members there a couple times, as part of a group run/hike, so I thought I could remember pretty easily where to turn.
Turned out it was a little tougher than I thought it’d be without the markers haha. I got lost a couple times on the first loop but I hit all the major intersections and turns along the way, so even if it wasn’t exactly the way we ran with the run club, it was close enough.
I strongly dislike this first major downhill in the second mile. It’s just loose sand on a rock and it feels like I’m going to wipe out every time.
Then you have to climb up that hill and go down again, but the second downhill isn’t as bad.
The next mile or so is mostly downhill, which is fun, but it’s a ton of criss-crossing trails that look to be popular with mountain bikers, so I was never really sure if I was going the right way until I got to the bottom and came out by a high school.
Tree along the way.
The last stretch back to the beginning of the loop is straightforward at least. Someone placed a sign for each planet along the trail, starting with Mercury where the loop ends/begins, so it feels like you’re close to the end when you see Pluto. But the signs are placed relative to how close together the planets are in space, so it’s actually still pretty far before you even make it to Neptune.
I stopped by my car between loops to eat a gel and drink some water. The second loop was faster since I knew where I was going. In the end, I ran 10.2 miles at an 11:08/mile average, with almost 1,200 feet of elevation gain.
Sunday, I actually did my long run. All 20 miles of it!
My legs were pretty sore already from all that climbing the day before, and I was definitely fighting myself the whole way to the halfway point because I kept wanting to turn around early and cut it short. But 10 miles down Coast Highway from our house is Swami’s in Encinitas, a point break popular with surfers and a really pretty spot to watch the ocean for a bit. So I made a deal with myself that when I got there, I could take a little break.
I sat right here and ate a gel. Then I climbed back up the steps to the top of the cliff and headed back.
I walked a lot more on the way back. My legs were tired and my feet were sore (I’ve had these long run shoes since the end of September and I think they’re getting near the end) but I eventually finished 20 miles at a 10:37/mile average. I also got another 510 feet of climbing in that run.
So, over two days, I got in 1,700 feet of climbing over 30.2 miles in about 5 hours and 25 minutes. I think I’ll be OK for the 50K in less than two weeks!
Today, I was supposed to do another short easy run, but I decided to just take a rest day.
Which wraps up January, so it’s time to sum up the month.
Mileage:
Week 1 (Jan. 1-8): 28.5 miles
Week 2 (Jan. 9-15): 23.1
Week 3 (Jan. 16-22): 34.3
Week 4 (Jan. 23-31): 56.5
Total: 142.4 miles
I got off to a slow start but the second half of January picked up, when I finally stopped skipping long runs altogether.
I ran one race this month, the Carlsbad Half Marathon, which wasn’t that great but it was also the day after a 9-miler, so I didn’t really set myself up for anything speedy there anyway.
In February, Shamrock Marathon training continues. Part of that is the Algonquin 50K on Feb. 12, which I’ve done every year since 2017 in place of the second 10+20 training weekend. This will be my sixth crack at this course. Looks like it’s going to be another wet trail this year, with all the snow they’ve gotten recently and rain in the forecast, but hopefully the temperatures there at least warm up a little!
Happy 39th birthday to my favorite person in the world!
Believe it or not, that’s not Clark’s real hair. On anyone else, it looks like an $8 wig from a CVS, because that’s what it is, but on Clark, it looks like the most glorious mullet ever grown.
Tonight, I made reservations at a restaurant we’ve not tried yet. Somehow the mullet wig made the trip across the country when we moved, so who knows, maybe Clark will wear it for old times’ sake haha.
Anyway, this week, I got a little training done.
Monday evening, I wound up not running. Instead, I rode my bike to meet Clark at a place for happy hour.
Tuesday, I went out and ran as soon as I got home from the office, 3.1 miles at an 8:58/mile average, and then I did a strength training class.
Wednesday, there was a pretty big turnout for run group, to celebrate Milad’s birthday. Milad is like a really persuasive cheerleader (Clark works with him, and he’s the one who first invited Clark to join the run club and then the gym when we moved here) and he’s also a Team Mom, always bringing a “snack bag” full of gummy orange slices, protein bars, water and chocolate milk to all group rides and runs. So we had a surprise birthday party for him at the pizza place next to the gym and gave him a bunch of cash to spend on anything other than snack bag items.
His favorite color is orange.
With some cupcakes he took home “for his kids” haha.
A handful of us ran a little bit after the surprise. I wound up running two laps of a hilly loop, 3 miles at a 9:24/mile average, 254 feet of climbing.
Thursday, I ran in the late afternoon again.
I did a total of four miles. The first three were fine but I really had to use the bathroom near the end so I had to walk a lot of the last mile, which lowered the average pace to 9:49/mile.
Today, I haven’t ran yet, but I’m pretty much done with work, so I’d like to get in another run.
This weekend, I have a 10- and 20-miler on the schedule. We are two weeks away from my 50K, so it would definitely be in my best interest to actually finish both of these runs.
Saturday morning, I ran north to the Oceanside pier and back, 9 miles at a 9:36/mile average. I got kinda hot on the way back and slowed down.
When I got back, Clark and I went to San Clemente and picked up our bikes.
Mine is on the left, Clark’s is on the right.
We rode them into the village to watch the football games, first at Pizza Port and then at Pure Project.
When we went to leave Pure Project, it was dark out, so we were going to turn on the red rear lights strapped to the backs of the bikes. Well wouldn’t you know it, those lights were the only thing on either bike that wasn’t locked up or bolted down, and some asshole had already stolen them both. Seriously!
We managed to make it home in the dark with no lights without getting hit by car. No thanks to whoever just had to have them. They’re rechargeable, by the way, so once they die, they will be useless because we still have the cords.
Anyhow.. Sunday morning, I went out for my long run.
I had a plan to run south, turn off Coast Highway to run to the end of the Batiquitos Lagoon trail and back, run a little farther south on Coast Highway and then turn around and come home.
The first leg went fine, but after I turned around at the eastern end of the trail — just short of 8 miles in — I talked myself out of that extra mileage on Coast Highway real quick.
On the lagoon trail.
When I got back to Coast Highway, I just turned north and went home.
Somewhere along Coast Highway on the way back.
I did take a slightly longer way back, along the other lagoon closer to our house, so I wound up running a total of 16.2 miles at a 10:02/mile average.
It wasn’t quite the 19 miles I’d had on the schedule, but it was the longest run I’ve done without the promise of a half marathon medal at the end in quite a while.
We watched the other two football games, called our parents and then went back to the village for dinner.
Today, I just have an easy 4-miler on the schedule.
Tuesday, I couldn’t get my butt out of bed before work, and after, I decided to finally do a strength training class. I hadn’t done one since Dec. 16!
Wednesday, I again slept in until I had to get ready to go to work, but the daylight is hanging around just long enough now that when I got home, I could squeeze in a 4-miler at an 8:59/mile average.
I still think it’s cool seeing the sunset over the ocean here!
I think someone made a wrong turn… that’s a walking trail, not a road haha.
Then I met Jennifer, who used to dog sit Pepper, in Encinitas for a free comedy show. There were three stand-up comedians and they definitely appeared in the right order. The last guy was actually pretty funny. After, we went to the Bier Garden across the street for dinner. I hadn’t seen her since a few days after Pepper died so it was great to catch up with her. Hopefully it won’t be another five months!
Thursday, I could’ve gone for a run at any time but I just didn’t. I did do another strength training class though, so I was happy about that. I’m going to try to do that at least twice a week again going forward. I’m still paying for it, after all. And it’s good to not only run.
Today, I ran 5 miles at an 8:51/mile average. I walked down to the beach where I was going to turn around, because it was such a nice late afternoon and I had plenty of time.
Tide pools.
A lot of the holes in the rocks had these mounds of shells stuck together in a ring. Kind of looks like maybe there’s an oyster shell or something at the bottom and that’s what they started building up on.
Clark has been in Canada for work all week, but he’s on his way home now. He should be back late tonight.
This weekend, we’re going to pick up our beach cruisers tomorrow, and I also have a 9- and 19-miler to do.
Good news — I ran an entire half marathon without a SINGLE bathroom break for the first time since I led the 3:00 pace group at the Island 2 Island (Ocean City) Half Marathon in 2015. Almost seven years!
Bad news — my legs were completely dead from the start due to the 9-miler I’d run the day before and I finished in 1:57, a few minutes slower than the last half I ran, in Rehoboth, where I’d had to make two bathroom breaks.
Back to Saturday. Clark and I woke up to a tsunami advisory. That was a little scary until we read further and saw it could cause waves of… 1 to 2 feet. I think our house, a mile uphill from the coast, was safe haha. (The currents were the bigger concern.)
I ran a 9-mile out-and-back to the Oceanside pier. There weren’t a lot of surfers out in the ocean, but the ones who were seemed to be enjoying the conditions.
I finished the run at a 9:15/mile average. It really felt like a nice easy pace and I thought I’d be able to run a decent half the next morning. Ha.
That afternoon, Clark and I stopped by his office to get our race packets from Milad, who’d picked them up the day before, and then we went to a bike shop in San Clemente.
Our late Christmas gifts to each other were a pair of new Electra beach cruisers, since Clark’s old one got stolen out of our garage. Now we’ll be able to ride to the village together.
They were both in stock, but not assembled, so they’re putting them together for us this week. We also each got bike locks and a rear basket, and Clark got a surfboard rack for his. I can’t wait to pick them up next weekend!
Neither of us had ever been to San Clemente before, so we had a couple beers at Artifex Brewing and then walked down to the pier around sunset.
We went back to Carlsbad and went to bed relatively early.
Sunday morning, we got up at 5:30 and got to the Shoppes at Carlsbad, where the race started and ended, around 6:15, since the 5K — the first part of the Double Down Challenge that Clark had signed up for — started at 6:45.
Not long before it started, he noticed another runner with a bib that said “Double Down” on it, while his just said “half marathon.” So we went to bib pick-up and found out he was only registered for the half. We went back to the car to get his phone so he could find the email from when he registered, and sure enough, it was just for the half. He even looked up his credit card statement from October and he’d only been charged for the half.
So, Clark was never signed up for the Double Down, he just thought he was for the last three months haha. We’d also gotten up an hour earlier than we needed to, but oh well.
The half didn’t start until 7:45, so we sat in the car for a bit. Other runners were getting prepped for the race at their own cars. Normal stuff. Except for the guy parked right behind us, who caught my eye in my rear view mirror because he was, uh, shirtless and vigorously Body Gliding up anything that might chafe. If I hadn’t seen him holding the stick of Body Glide before he jammed his hand down his shorts, I’d have thought he was doing something that could’ve gotten him arrested for public indecency haha.
Then he put on his shirt, which featured several “taco cats” (hard tacos with cats’ heads on them — I don’t know how to better explain it) in space. And finally, he took an enormous piss right on the pavement inside his open driver’s door. There was a mulched median 20 feet away, or, better yet, the huge bank of port-o-potties in the parking lot between ours and the start line, but anyway.
I got myself ready — just took off my sweats, put one gel in my shorts pocket and put on my hat — and then Clark and I met our running group at our little tent near the start/finish area.
The whole iRun Vista crew between the 5K (which is why a couple runners already have medals) and the half.
Clark and me.
It was a perfect morning for a run — a bit chilly standing around in shorts and a singlet, but it was definitely going to warm up quick once we got going.
I got in the first wave somewhere between the 1:50 and 1:55 pacers.
The first mile starts out flat and then climbs a decent hill up Jefferson Street. I hit the first marker in 8:31 and figured that was the worst hill on the whole course, that’s why my legs already feel dead, it’ll get better.
The second mile was mostly flat or a little downhill and I ran it in 8:21.
The third one, we did a little out-and-back at a traffic circle, and then we had another climb up toward the village. I ran that one in 8:40.
Now we were on Coast Highway, aka the 101, which I run pretty much every day in one direction or the other. It was mostly flat for the next bit so I tried to settle into a groove, but man, my legs were fried. At like mile 3.5. Not great!
I ran mile 4 in 8:30. There was another long-ish uphill in the next mile, which slowed mile 5 to an 8:53. Mile 6 was still continuing in the same direction, toward the turnaround, and I finished it in 8:43.
This is where it started getting ugly. In the seventh mile, we had one more long-ish uphill. There was an aid station at the top. I was completely gassed when I got to it, so I used it as an excuse to slow down to a walk, eat my one gel and wash it down with water. I got running again and made the U-turn to head back, but mile 7 was 9:27.
I really tried to pick it up a little here, at least back to the splits I ran in the first half, but I just could not get my legs to move any faster.
Around mile 7.2, I got passed by a familiar shirt — taco cats in space!
I finished mile 8 in 9:05, 9 in 9:01 and 10 in 9:07. My legs felt like they were filled with cement and I was just clomping down the road.
I passed the intersection where I get to the coast on my daily runs and thought “if I turn here, it’s only a mile to home, instead of 3 to the finish… but then I’d have to go back anyway because I have the car key… OK fine I’ll just keep going to the finish.” It was a struggle!
Then we ran through the village and a spectator yelled to me that Abby is her cat’s name haha. I’ve met a lot of dogs named Abby in my life but that was the first cat I’ve heard of.
There was a little more uphill getting out of the village, and mile 11 was 9:26. Two more miles.
Mile 12 was 8:59 — hey, I’m back under 9:00 pace, barely! — and then we hit that long hill from the beginning, which we now got to run down.
There was this group of teens or young adults who were all wearing volunteer shirts, walking down that hill, probably from one of the first water stops back toward the finish. They were right in the middle of the course, getting in runners’ way. A woman running near me asked them to please move off the course. One turned and gave her a dirty look and the rest ignored her completely. That was annoying.
We hit the bottom of the hill and made a right. The finish line itself couldn’t be seen yet — we had to make one last left turn into the mall parking lot — which always makes it feel farther away than it is. Even with all that downhill, I only managed an 8:50 in the 13th mile.
Then I made that last turn, and there it was! The finish! I officially crossed the line in 1:57:27.
Boy was I glad to be done running! I’d wanted to run a half on tired legs, and I got it.
I was also really happy to have gotten through a race longer than a 5K without needing the bathroom once. It was so nice never having to worry about how close I was to the next port-o-potty and if it’d be open! I have no idea what I did differently this time, unfortunately. Just luck.
In the finisher’s chute, we got our medals, water, chocolate milk and a little paper bag full of food. I stopped by the iRun Vista tent for a second but then I went back to the car to get my phone and see where Clark was on the tracker app.
I picked it up right as a notification popped up that Clark had just finished in 2:16 on the dot, which was faster than he’d expected. He said not running the 5K probably helped a lot, so that worked out.
I changed into dry clothes and went back to the tent. Eventually our whole running group got there.
Just about everyone after the half.
Clark and me. I forgot my flip flops again! At least I didn’t have blisters this time so it didn’t hurt to put the shoes back on.
Then a handful of us went to the beer garden.
Ballast Point beers and Clark’s bare feet.
We noticed a guy who kept running past us, slowing to a walk as soon as he went by, then speeding up to a run again — just doing laps around the inside of the beer garden fence. Finally one of us asked him what he was doing. I can’t remember the order now, but he’d run a marathon the day before and the half that day (or vice versa) and then he wanted to run some more. I still don’t know why he was doing laps inside a fence rather than just going out on the sidewalks, or better yet, on the trails at Hosp Grove Park right across the street! But I hope he finally got his fill.
We stayed until they were shutting everything down, and then Clark and I made the five-minute drive back to our house.
The rest of the day was low key. We watched football, called our parents and then went to the village for dinner.
Clark’s and my bibs, medals and the race shirt (men’s is crew neck) and zip-up jacket we all got.
And finally, my stats:
Carlsbad Half Marathon
1:57:27
42nd/252 F 35-39
232nd/1,638 women
714th/3,066 total
So it wasn’t a fast race but it was definitely faster than I’d have done any long run on my own, and I got in a total of more than 22 miles this weekend.
Which is good, because I have the Algonquin 50K in less than four weeks! I have 19- and 20-milers scheduled for the next two weekends, which I really need to make myself do.
Monday evening, I ran a 3.1-mile out-and-back at an 8:48/mile average.
Tuesday, I didn’t get up and do a short run before work, and then when I got home from the office, I couldn’t peel myself off the couch to go do the track workout.
Wednesday, I did get up for a run before work — 4 miles at a 9:06/mile average. It was still dark enough out, the lights on the Oceanside Pier off in the distance were still on when I stopped at the turnaround.
That evening, Clark and I met the running group for the last neighborhood run before the Carlsbad Half this weekend.
Everyone else is tapering for the race so we only did a hilly 1.5-mile loop. I ran it at a 9:11/mile average.
Yesterday, I waited until late in the day but I finally went out for my run. Since I’d skipped the track workout, I tried to do five half-mile intervals on my own along the coast.
My splits weren’t very fast compared to the last time I did 800s on the track — 3:51, 4:04 (half uphill), 3:56, 3:51 and 4:01, which translate to paces between 7:44 and 8:08/mile.
I also ran a mile to warm up, a quarter-mile of recovery between each interval and a mile to cool down, for a total of 5.5 miles at a 9:24/mile average.
I still need to run the 9-mile easy run I was supposed to do Tuesday and I’m waffling on whether I should do it later today so I can take tomorrow off before the race Sunday, or just do it tomorrow morning so it’s a more typical training weekend.
Speaking of the race, I’m looking forward to it, if not because it will force me to FINALLY do a long run for the first time in weeks. I have a 50K in less than a month, after all.
I’m only doing the half, but Clark is signed up for that plus the 5K that starts an hour earlier, so I might do a couple extra miles before the half starts, to get in a longer run, since I’ll be there early anyway. I didn’t sign up for the 5K myself because it was an extra $50 to do that on top of what was already a pretty expensive half.
In the race itself, I’d like to run faster than the Rehoboth half a little over a month ago, which I finished in 1:54. If I could just get my digestive system under control and avoid two in-race port-o-potty stops, that would help a lot!
I wonder how long it will take me to stop writing “21” when typing out the date? More than 10 days, so far.
Friday night, Clark and I went to his company’s Christmas party. It was a much smaller crowd than the last time they got to hold one of these, two years ago, probably because COVID is still going around. It was a nice evening though, and best of all, they held it at a resort hotel only a few miles from our house, so it was a quick trip there and back.
Saturday morning, Clark no longer wanted to run the 10-miler he’d talked about earlier in the week, so I just ran on my own, and did the 8-miler on my schedule. I finished it at a 9:01/mile average.
There is absolutely no good reason why I didn’t get up and run the 17-miler on my schedule Sunday morning.
The Ravens and Steelers were one of the early games, which start at 10 a.m. here, so I put off my run long enough that I couldn’t do it before the game started, and instead, we went to the village and watched it at a restaurant there.
The “social media manager” there was taking a bunch of pictures of customers and our food for Instagram. This is the face Clark and I make when we want to dig in to our eggs Benedict but someone is making us pose for pictures first haha.
I was pissed the Steelers won. The Ravens really fell off over the last month and a half — they haven’t won since Nov. 28! — and I wasn’t that upset about them missing the playoffs, but I really wanted them to at least send Ben Roethlisberger’s stupid potato face into retirement with a loss. Bye.
Anyway, since I am married to a Steelers fan, we’d placed a little wager on the game. Since I lost, I had to pay for whatever Clark wanted for dinner from Seaside Market in Cardiff. We drove up there later in the afternoon and got two high-end steaks, a bunch of asparagus, some kind of weird fruit (one is a dragonfruit but the other looks like a yellow chew toy for a dog) and a bottle of red wine.
Then we came home and turned on the late game. Clark fell asleep almost immediately and I at least made it to the end of the game, but not much further. So it looks like we’re having fancy steak and wine for dinner tonight.
I’m about to finally go out and run the easy 3-miler on the schedule.
I am getting annoyed with my own laziness when it comes to these long runs but I’m registered for the Carlsbad Half Marathon next weekend so there’s at least one I won’t back out of! I hate wasting money way more than I love skipping training runs.
We are already a week into 2022 and I’m just now posting my first training update.
So, a week ago was New Year’s Eve. After my run that morning, we drove up to L.A. Bart and Janelle wanted to watch the college football games that day, so we wound up at a Dave & Buster’s at noon. That turned out to be way too early of a start for any of us to make it to midnight. We were back at our hotel by 9:30 p.m.! I turned on the TV to see the ball drop but I slept through it. All the fireworks going off in L.A. well past midnight woke me up though.
That turned out to be for the best, because for once, I woke up on New Year’s Day without a hangover.
We got an Uber to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, arriving about three hours before kickoff.
Since it was L.A., there was a guy impersonating Alan from “The Hangover” just hanging out in one of the parking lots. I gave him a tip so he could get some more formula for Carlos there haha.
We went in the stadium and saw the ESPN “College GameDay” crew broadcasting live.
And then it was game time. We got one of the coolest fly-overs I’ve seen at a sporting event:
B-2 stealth bomber!
The Goodyear blimp was out too:
It was a pretty good game. Utah led most of it but then Ohio State tied it up. It was getting pretty chilly there at the end, after the sun went down, and I was starting to worry they were going into overtime, but then Ohio State kicked one last field goal to win 48-45.
I didn’t really care either way but Bart is a huge Ohio State fan, so I was happy for him. There were definitely way more Utah fans there though, so overall the stadium crowd was not thrilled with the outcome.
It was an ordeal getting back to our hotel. We figured it would be impossible for an Uber to get to the stadium to pick us up, so we took a free shuttle to downtown Pasadena and then tried to get one there. Drivers kept canceling on us when they saw how “far” away it was (11 miles?) Then the one who finally picked us up seemed annoyed about it, but whatever. We made it back to the hotel to pick up our car. Bart and Janelle had a very early flight out of San Diego the next morning, so they just dropped us off at our house on their way to stay a hotel near the airport.
Overall, the Rose Bowl was cool to see live but I don’t think I’d want to make that an annual thing!
Sunday, I skipped the first long run of the year. Off to a great start haha. Instead, we took down the outside Christmas lights. I’m usually kind of sad about taking that stuff down, but Christmas was such a letdown this year, it didn’t bother me in the slightest. I put away all the indoor decorations this week too.
Monday morning, Clark left very early to go to Canada for work. I worked from home that day. I just could not make myself go outside and even do the little 3-miler on the schedule.
Tuesday, I made myself get up early and knock out a run before work, 3.2 miles at an 8:45/mile pace.
That evening, I really was intending to go to the track workout with the running group, but I found out the high school was still closed for winter break, and I just assumed that meant the track would be locked up.
Wednesday morning, I got up and ran before work again, 4.8 miles at an 8:27/mile average. I ran a couple miles a little faster than my usual easy pace since I’d skipped the track the night before, 8:12 and 7:56.
It was a beautiful morning!
And I saw the Carlsbad Marathon organizers have already put out signs letting drivers know Coast Highway will be closed off a week from Sunday:
Wednesday night, I went to Vista for the neighborhood run with the running group. Pretty much everyone is running the Carlsbad half, so we just ran a short 2-mile loop at an easy pace.
I don’t know that part of Vista very well so when I lost sight of the guy I was following, I just turned around and went back the way we came. That wound up getting me 2.6 miles total, at a 9:11/mile average, and a total of 7.4 miles for the day.
We’d met at Bear Roots Brewing’s downtown location. A couple of our club members had skipped the run and were playing as part of trivia team, so the rest of us joined when we got back. We wound up winning (out of three teams ha) and immediately used the $60 gift cards to the pizza place next door to get us all dinner. It was a pretty fun evening.
Thursday, I didn’t have to go to the office, so I waited until the late afternoon to run. I did 5.5 miles at an 8:38/mile average.
It was really pretty out there at that time too, just in a different way from the early morning.
I was going to do a strength training class when I got back, but no one ever signed on at the gym, so that was a bust. I just took a shower instead and called it a night.
Today, I’m gonna go do another short easy run, and then Clark and I are going to his company’s formal Christmas party. We had to test negative for COVID to go, so we just took more rapid tests at lunchtime. Mine is finally negative again.
This weekend, the running plan is 10 miles with Clark one day and 15 on my own the other. I really need to get in some decent mileage!
It’s already the second day of 2022, so here’s my wrap-up of 2021 before it gets any later.
Mileage:
January: 146.2 miles
February: 123.3
March: 130
April: 101.7
May: 102.9
June: 101.3
July: 115
August: 130.3
September: 102.8
October: 105.5
November: 115.4
December: 102.5
Total: 1,376.9 miles
I thought 2020 was a down year in terms of miles, but I managed to run about another 200 fewer in 2021. I believe this is the fewest I’ve run since 2010.
The continued COVID-related race cancelations for most of the year definitely had something to do with it. Even when I finally got to run my first marathon in two years, in October, I had a hard time making myself stick to the training plan because I kept waiting for the rug to get pulled out from under us again.
But it didn’t, and in spite of the recent spike in cases (including my own) thanks to yet another variant, it looks like live races are back for good, knock on wood. In the first six months of 2022, I’m signed up for two half marathons, two 50Ks, an 8K + marathon combo and a 5K, so hopefully I can get back into the training.
Outside of running, 2021 was a mixed bag. On the bright side, thanks to getting our COVID vaccines in the spring, Clark and I got to actually see people for the first time in a long time. But, on the other end of the spectrum, we had to say goodbye to Pepper in August.
Everything else was pretty neutral — no big house moves or job changes in 2021. It’s nice to feel like we’ve settled in here.
January
January was nothing exciting, just training for the Algonquin 50K. The 146 miles I ran turned out to be the most I’d run in a month all year.
February
I flew back to Maryland and ran the Algonquin 50K for the fifth time. We got a hell of a day for it — freezing rain all day, on top of all the standing water on the course — and it took me 6 hours and 48 minutes to slog through the entire 32-plus-mile course. But I was happy to cross my first finish line since that same race a year before!
This part of the course is normally dry.
March
Usually in March, I run the Shamrock Marathon. After holding it virtual-only in 2020, the race organizers had an “unofficial official” option in 2021 — you could run a certified course on your own in Virginia Beach at any point over that weekend, or you could run it virtually wherever. I did neither. So my streak ended and I’m no longer a legacy runner, but whatever.
I thought I was training for the inaugural Calgonquin 50K in April, but sometime in March, the race organizers announced the area where it was supposed to be held would definitely still be under COVID restrictions in April, so it got canceled and we were all deferred to 2022.
The highlight of this month turned out to be a road trip to Boulder Creek, Calif., near San Jose, with Clark and Pepper to pick up a restored 1961 SABA record player console.
Pepper with the console in the SUV we rented to pick it up.
April
The best part of April was my younger sister coming out here to visit us. We got to see the Carlsbad Flower Fields in bloom for the first time (they were closed in 2020 due to, well, you know.)
Julie and me at the Flower Fields.
Clark and I also got our first doses of the vaccine.
May
In May, Clark’s friend Glenn and his wife Lauren came out to visit us. While they were here, Clark was making breakfast one morning and a neighbor’s husky wandered in through a gate we’d accidentally left open and then our open back door haha.
“Feed me.”
Clark and I also got our second doses of the vaccine in May, and I signed up for the St. George Marathon in October again. Training officially started May 31.
June
Thanks to the vaccines, we got back to a little bit of normalcy in June.
On June 15, I went back to my office for the first time since March 2020.
Since then, I’ve been on a permanent hybrid in-office/work from home schedule, and it’s been working out great.
Pepper didn’t accept the new routine willingly however, and got in the habit of pooping in my car on the five-minute drive to his sitter’s place on a regular basis. I wound up having to get dog diapers for him.
Also in June, we took Pepper to a Padres game:
I don’t think he had as good a time as we did haha.
And Clark and I went home the last weekend of the month to see Kelly and Corey get married in Cape Charles, Va.:
Newlyweds at sunset.
Clark, me, Susan (we were both bridesmaids) and Gretchen.
July
In July, St. George Marathon training was going in stops and starts. I got in a couple half-hearted attempts at speed workouts, and I managed to do a 17-miler — what would turn out to be my longest training run.
We had some more visitors in July, people Clark either used to work with or works with now through one of his company’s other offices. That weekend, we took Pepper to Coronado Dog Beach for what would be the last time. It’s weird to look back on the pictures from that visit, when he looked as healthy as ever, knowing that a month later, we’d have to put him to sleep to due to cancer. We had no clue he was sick until it was too late to try to do anything about it.
August
The first week of August was fun. I went back to Maryland for the week and just visited people. I got to ski behind my brother’s newly refurbished MasterCraft boat for the first time, did a couple 15-mile long runs with Kelly and Susan, and spent a couple days in Ocean City at my family’s rental condo.
I was the first skier behind the new-to-us MasterCraft!
Kara, Becky, Julie, me, Jake and Corey on the beach.
I also ran my first 5K race in two years, the Run for the Paws 5K in Dewey Beach, Del. It was day eight of a nine-day vacation so I was a little extra sluggish anyway, but that couldn’t explain away the entire two-minute slow-down between the last 5K I’d run and this one! It was painful!
On my way to a blistering 24:42 finish. Not my worst 5K ever but not far off!
When I got home, I got another nice surprise — the people who ran a daycare from the house behind ours had MOVED OUT at the end of July! No more screaming children on the other side of the backyard fence five days a week. I didn’t mind their clucking chickens or husky that howled any time they left him home alone, but those feral children drove me insane. Someone else has since moved into that house but so far they have not established a daycare there, thankfully.
On Aug. 24, I took Pepper to the vet to see why he hadn’t been eating well lately — honestly thinking it was just a bad tooth that needed to be extracted or something similar — and was shocked to find out he had a huge mass in his chest and the cancer had already metastasized to several other organs. We had to say goodbye to him that night.
The last picture I took of Pepper, two days before.
September
Remember the St. George Marathon? Ha yeah me neither. I barely broke 100 miles in training in September, after losing Pepper. I was just sad and didn’t feel like doing much for a while. And then it was time to taper anyway.
Pepper came home from being aquamated.
October
The first weekend of October, Clark and I drove to St. George, Utah, and I did in fact run my (undertrained) marathon. The last 10K was painful but I made it home in 4:03.
In the park after the finish.
Three weeks later, I ran the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Diego Half Marathon, which is usually the first weekend in June but got postponed this year. I never felt great and had to make a couple bathroom stops, and I barely kept it under two hours, finishing in 1:58.
And the official post-race beer is Heineken 0.0. In spite of this, I signed up for 2022.
The last weekend of that month, Clark completed the IRONMAN 70.3 Oceanside on pretty much zero training haha. He crossed the finish line three minutes before they were going to close it. But he made it!
I also volunteered at an aid station on the running course, where, since it was the day before Halloween, we dressed up as “tacky tourists.”
Believe it or not, Clark is also signed up for this one in 2022, which will be held on its normal weekend, the first one in April.
November
At the end of October, I finally started going to our running club’s Tuesday night track workouts again. Intervals hurt after not doing them for so long but it also felt good to start to feel fast again.
Track workout group.
For Thanksgiving, Clark’s parents and aunt came out here, and we all ran and/or walked the O’side Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, another race we didn’t get to do our first year here in 2020 because of COVID.
Clark, his dad and I all ran the 5-mile race first. I had to stop to use the bathroom at mile 3.5, which messed up my official time — 41:03 — but the running part was the fastest I’d managed all year.
Then we all walked the 5K, along with Clark’s mom and aunt.
Clark, his mom, dad and aunt walking the 5K.
December
The first weekend in December, Clark and I went back to Delaware for the Rehoboth Half Marathon, which we’d all had to miss last year.
I had a decent-ish race. I had to make two bathroom stops once again and felt like I had to go again the entire last 5K, but I finished four minutes faster than the San Diego RnR half a month and a half earlier, finishing in 1:54.
The after party was awesome as always though! Dave had run the half in 1:34 and my younger sister came for the party. She was inspired by seeing the wide range of paces in the race and wants to run it herself next year!
The weekend before Christmas, Clark’s brother and girlfriend visited us, and then a couple days later, Clark and I went home to spend Christmas with our families for the first time since 2018.
Well, not so much. Clark’s brother let us know Christmas Eve he and his girlfriend had just tested positive for COVID, so we got tests as soon as a pharmacy opened Christmas morning. Mine was positive. I wasn’t sick but I couldn’t be around some of my unvaccinated family, so we spent Christmas by ourselves after all. Womp womp. Better luck in 2022.
So with this new year now under way, it’s time to think about what I’d like to accomplish.
Here’s what I’m signed up for so far:
Jan. 16: Carlsbad Half Marathon
Feb. 12: Algonquin 50K
March 19-20: Shamrock 8K + Marathon Whale Challenge
April 30 (tentative): Calgonquin 50K
May 22: Carlsbad 5000
June 5: Rock ‘n’ Roll San Diego Half Marathon
Pretty much, I just need to start training again. I haven’t been to a track night workout in a MONTH, thanks to stupid COVID exposures and weather cancellations, but I can get back to that this week. I also need to do my long runs, which was definitely the thing I was missing the most that last painful 10K of St. George! So that’s my main objective in 2022.
A Simple Running Log 