Talk about falling off the wagon

I keep slacking at updates. That sucks. Okay, back to updating.

We were in New Orleans back in the middle of May and found a 3 miler to race called the Al Briede Gold Cup. It was a nice flat course through City Park with people at every mile yelling out times and encouragement. For a small race they did it up right. Friendly people, music, jumbalaya after the race(?!) and best of all a Budweiser trailer. Four taps, 2 Buds, 2 Bud Lights. Free. No one busting your balls for a ticket. No limits. Just drink after the race until the thing is empty. Nice. Kristen was 2nd female overall and 1st in her age group. I won a t-shirt so I got that going for me which is nice.

We signed up for the Laguna Beach Memorial Day Half Marathon, but we really didn't think about it enough. We weren't able to pick up our packets and bibs the day before which meant that we would have had to get there by 6:15 to give us time to park and get our stuff and get organized in time for the 7am start. We live in Long Beach so as any runner knows, there's a morning pre-race ritual and then you have to drive to the race. To be in Laguna Beach by 6:15am we would have had to get up at 4am. We had a party to go to later that day so the night before we decided to bag it and eat the fee. We offered it up to friends, but I guess they were all smarter than us.

On June 11th we ran the Long Beach Wrigley River run 5k/10k which I've done in the past. It's a nice event. Small, but well organized. Kristen had a bum toe, but still managed to PR for the 10k and win 1st place in her age group. I was off my 5k PR by 10 seconds again. Whatever dude.

So I picked up a new hobby. I've been brewing beer for a few months and have really gotten into it. I have a 5 gallon batch of Kolsch fermenting now that I will bottle tomorrow. It needs to condition in the bottle for 2 weeks and then it'll be ready to drink. 5 gallons equals anywhere between 43 and 48 bottles of beer. Sweeeeet! I have to figure out which beer to brew up next. Hmmm. Maybe I'll have to change the name of this blog. Winebeerandthefinishline?

Palm Springs Half Marathon

Ahoy landlubbers! Kristen and I ran the Palm Springs Half this past Sunday and had a helluva time. It wasn't the best course we've ever run, but it was a bit challenging. The course was promoted as one with slight hills, but it was "mostly flat". What a laugh. As it turned out, the course wound (and I do mean WOUND) through the foothill neighborhood of PS and sadly didn't go by the homes and landmarks that make you think of the city. Most of the homes on the course were behind walls and gates so that kept the sightseeing to a minimum (which was sort of a good thing since Kristen is an architect, loves PS, and would have mostly likely tripped and fell if she had more eye candy). Instead of "mostly flat" it was a series of long, gradual hills, woop dee doos, and two big hills interwoven with turn after turn up and down the same streets. It wasn't frustrating or horrible, but it was a bit of a let down. Most people that ran the race had the same opinion. The upside to all the hills is that you went up and then back down the same hill which was nice.

I didn't train for this race. In fact, my running as of late has been mostly 3 to 5 milers with one or two 8 milers in the last two months. The reason why this is funny is that I ran a better time (by almost 2 minutes) than I did at Long Beach which I actually trained for. Go figure.

Kristen, of course, ran a PR and came in 1st place in her age group and 10th over all! Amazing!

We ran with a bunch of people from our running group (AREC Long Beach) and two of our best friends, Paul and Wendy. Wendy kicks ass and Paul, madman that he is, road the Century bike race the day before and ran a great time.

All in all, a good day.

Shameless Self Promotion

I (Kristen) have been designing jewelry as a hobby/freelance business for the last several years and just got into it again with the launch of my line of jewelry just for runners (chickie runners) called Aspiration Designs. Just this past weekend I created a site www.aspirationdesigns.etsy.com where you can find my latest creations and would love any word of mouth sharing with your lady runner friends!

CRUSHED IT!

I CRUSHED my best 5k time today at the HB Surf City race. My previous PR was 28:22 (lame) and I destroyed it today by posting a 24:28. I was (and still am) on cloud 9! I guess I earned the right to wear that skin tight Under Armor shirt (I will probably feel like a dork anyways). It was chilly and overcast, perfect conditions to run. They didn't put mile marker signs for the 5k race in highly visible places so I wasn't able to keep track, but in the end I think that helped me. I had an idea of how I wanted to run, but since I couldn't keep track I just ran at a pace that was uncomfortable, but manageable. Around the two mile mark (I guessed) I saw a guy about 15 yards ahead of me so I just fixed my sights on him and stayed at his pace. At a certain point he began slowing down and I caught up to him and said, "Come on man, I'm pacing myself with you," at which point his chuckled and picked up his pace. We ran side by side for the rest of the race and once I saw the finish line we both started cranking and I think I beat him by about one or two seconds. I think that not being able to keep track of my pace and just going on feeling (and friendly competition) allowed me to post a good time. Crazy. I ran for the Michelob tent and had a beer to celebrate.

Anyway, I'm drinking beer, dinking around and kind of watching football. Not a bad day.

I (Kristen) didn't do too shabby today either. I beat my last - and only other to compare to - half marathon by 13 min. It felt good... I didn't have much of my "juice" left at the end of the race so I'm not sure how much I can improve in the future. Next Saturday is another 10k and I get nervous about local 10k's since I usually place around 2nd or 3rd and feel like I need to defend my hometown of Lakewood with a good time. That's lots of pressure for me - more so than just surpassing my last PR.

Speaking of pressure, yesterday I worked on remodeling my friend's kitchen all day, didn't have a sip of wine (never do the day before a race) and I couldn't imbibe today until I finished my annual "self assessment" for work. Yeesh, I hate those things. Anyhow, I just finished that tedious task, am sitting out back in the studio and have in my fist a gorgeous glass of 2006 Beckman Estate Cabernet. Mmmmm. Good enough to almost ignore the football inside the house.