Marathon training

The AREC MOB



Kristen and the leaders of the pack.

Well, Saturday marked Day 1 for the AREC training regimen and a record number of people showed up for this run. When Kristen and I signed in we were 83 and 84 and I know several more people showed up after us. Pretty cool. It was just a quick 5 miler to get the new people familiar with the area so we'll see how many stick it out when the miles start to add up later. It's really great to see that many new people join the club and get into running. It makes the whole experience that much better.Oh. by the way, I rock!

Intervals

I decided to start doing intervals once a week now. Baby steps at first. Today I just did a quick maintenance 3 miler with 5 intervals starting at the 2 mile mark. I was just doing a light 9 minute pace and then would run an 8 minute pace for 1 minute and then go back to 9 for a minute and did that 5 times. Felt good when I was done. Hated it while running. Oh, I did it on the dreadmill because it's so friggin' windy in LA today so I didn't feel like adding wind resistance to my run.

Bad Blogger

I'll admit it right off the top. I've been a bad blogger. I've been bad about updating on a regular basis, but sadly I don't think I've had a whole helluva lot to say in regards to running or wine-ing. Kristen and I haven't been running many races because life has gotten a bit hectic lately. Our house is under construction right now because we are adding a dining room, 3rd bedroom and a 2nd bathroom. As a result our money and our time has been gobbled up by the endeavor. That said, Kristen is running as part of a team for a half Ironman Triathlon up at Lake San Antonio this weekend so she's been training as usual. She's an animal and runs 8 to 10 miles a day so she's sure to do a kick ass job. The only other race on our horizon is the San Francisco marathon, but we haven't signed up yet. Again, slackers. I'm still putting my miles in and at the end of May the Long Beach AREC running club is starting their Long Beach Marathon training routine so I'm looking forward to cranking up the miles again. I just hope I don't drop another 12 pounds.

On the wine front we haven't made an cool trips to wine country ANYWHERE so I might want to change the blog's name to "Cheap" Wine and the finish line. We're all about the Trader Joe's and Sprout's Market weekday wine. And before you chuckle, there are some surprisingly inexpensive wines out there for daily consumption. Trader Joe's $4.99 line of wines are pretty damn decent for after work and Sprout's has Crane Lake wines on sale that are pretty tasty. Their Petite Sirah is surprisingly tasty.

So, I'd say that I'll be a better blogger, but then I'd actually have to live up to that and if you're reading this you might be saying to yourself, "Um, Mike, I don't think people really give a shit." Anyway, I hope everyone reading this is doing awesome and I'll hopefully have something interesting to say soon.

Crush!

Kristen and I ran the Seal Beach 10k yesterday and I CRUSHED my old PR by 1:52 seconds coming in at 52:11. Now I know that's not all that great for most runners out there, but I'm stoked. It was a good race, better than last year from what I'm told. They started us in waves (something they didn't do last year) and it made the beginning of the race pretty painless. Kristen ran a 42:19 which isn't a PR, but it's pretty close. She got 5th place overall for women and 3rd place in her age group. Something we found out later was that the overall winner was a woman which is pretty rare at these events. She ran something like a 33 minute 10k! Insane! And she was in Kristen's age group so she was really curious to find out who this woman was. Turns out she's an Olympic athlete living in Hawthorne originally from Nigeria. That made Kristen feel better about her 3rd place finish. I, on the other hand, came in 57th in my age group. I don't see a medal in my future any time soon I guess. Oh well.

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!

Lakewood Mug Run

Kristen and I did the Lakewood Mug Run for the second time last weekend. It was great weather this year (last year it was miserably rainy) although I didn't run any faster than last time. Apparently last year I was 3rd in my age group but didn't stick around for the results because of the rain. I only found this fact out when I was looking for my results a week before the race. WIth that information in mind I was hopeful that I would place again this year. As we all know, its not really about how fast you run, but who else shows up (and how fast they are). Results were posted late into the week and it looks like I was 5th in my age group. The day, however, wasn't lost since my lovely wife took home a first place medal for her age group. An interesting thing about this race is the naming for the different age groups. 0-19 is called "junior", 20-29 is called "open", and 30-34 is called "Senior A" and 35-39 is called "Senior B", 40-44 is "Master A", 45-49 is "Master B", 50-54 is "Grand Master A" and 55-dead is called "Grand Master B". Kristen didn't like being called a Senior and when her age group (Senior A) was called and her name announced as first place she didn't understand and thought she had written her age incorrectly on the entry form.

Firecracker!

Kristen and I and two of our friends, Steve and Maureen from AREC, ran the LA Chinatown Firecracker 10k race last Sunday. It's a great, tough run that starts in Chinatown, goes uphill to Elysian Fields where you get a killer view over Dodger Stadium into downtown LA and beyond, and then you get to make up for that lost time by flying downhill the rest of the way. It was a beautiful day and everyone ran pretty good times considering the elevation change.

Kristen, of course, won 2nd place in her age group.