Pre-Race
I woke up at 6 this morning and made it to the race site at around 7:15. Even though I wasn’t intending to race the Firecracker, I was feeling nervous. There were a TON of people there, and I was all by my lonesome because Christine got sick and had to sit it out and I wasn’t able to hook up with Greg before the race.
I picked up my bib and jogged back to my car to drop it off. I made it back in time for their opening ceremonies which included
The Race
The race totally didn’t play out like this for me. It looks deceptively flat in the beginning, but it really felt like a soft incline (verified by Maggie) that built up to that crazy ass hill that was every bit as painful as it looked. I tried running as much as I could up that hill, but eventually had to stop to walk for a bit when the burning sensation on my calves started to be too much. That’s when I got a chance to snap these pics.
This is the view in front of me. You can see that 99.9% of the people are walking up that bad boy. I walked for about a minute and then started jogging up again.
Toward the upper portion of the hill, I saw Greg on his way down and I yelled out to him. He joined me for the final trek up, which was pure torture.
I can honestly say that if Greg hadn’t been running with me, I probably would have walked a lot more but he really pushed me to keep going. As we rounded the turn around and were on our way down the hill, I told Greg that I needed to walk a bit, but he told me to keep on trucking! We slowed down the pace a bit, and I was able to build it back up after a min or two.
Here are my stats, and I’m damn proud of them! I did negative splits for the very first time and I finished strong. Ran the last quarter mile of the race at a 9:34 min pace =D (totally blows my 400m time target out the water by 2 mins!)
Split 1: 13:14
Split 2: 11:17
Split 3: 10:18
Split 4: 0:24
Total Time: 35:37 (chip time)
Average Pace: 11:29
Average HR: 168
Max HR: 179
Calories Burned: 371
Age Group 30-34: 90 out of 218
Overall Finish: 1132 out of 2336
Right smack in the middle of the pack! =)
Greg thinks I could have run a lot faster than I was running because I was still talking fairly easily and he could hardly hear me breathing. But physically, I felt like I was pushing myself pretty hard. But it’s really got me thinking about redoing my time goals and aiming for something better. Maybe I can do better next time during my next 5k (the Deena Kastor 5k) =) I’m still chasing after my 5k PR set in 2008 (32:35). Maybe this’ll be the year!
Post-Race
As we were chowing down on our post-race goodies and catching up, we randomly ran into Tony (and his girl :), who we worked with at Aesop. What are the odds! We had a good time catching up and then bid each other adieu.
After the race, Greg and I went to walked over to Sam Woo and had some goodies!
We chowed down as we talked about some of our fave shows (Modern Family) and I told Greg about some of my other fave shows (Biggest Loser & I Survived…), and of course there was talk of running, diet, and running books.
Thanks for joining me at Firecracker and for a fantastic brunch, Greg! =) As always, good times!
My weekend was filled with lots of baby festivities.
On Saturday, I reunited with some awesome Aesopians to celebrate Sarah’s baby shower. Little Jonah will be joining us sometime in September and we can’t wait to meet him! =)
After the shower ended, Greg, Marvin and I went to the Irvine Spectrum to watch Bruno. I haven’t seen Borat yet, but I have a general idea of what it’s about and the stuff that’s in it. Bruno was pretty funny although it had a few slow spots and several completely uncomfortable situations! A fun movie to watch on a lazy summer afternoon =)
On Saturday, I drove up to Santa Monica for Colin’s 1st birthday party! It was a sunny, breezy day, perfect for a day at the park. And it’s always great reuniting with Aesopians =D
It was a fantastic weekend, full of friends, laughter, and babies. It’s funny how we’re all moving into such different stages of our lives. When we first met, we were all young singles. Over the past few years, many of us got married. And now, people are starting to have little ones. I’m glad that we’ve all managed to stay friends throughout the years, and I’m looking forward to the years to come =)
So, finally catching up on the blogging here now that I have a little bit of down time.
On Sunday, a few of us Aesopians visited Sunny and family bearing gifts of delicious foods =) We spent the day gobbling up those juicy little dumplings from Mei Long Village, watching a Laker game, playing some guitar hero, and hearing some scary tales of motherhood! Now, normally I don’t really enjoy watching the Lakers, but it felt awesome to finally have someone else join me in the I hate K0be Bry@nt club. ::high fives Sarah and Marvin:: haha! And Sunny’s scary stories, made me and Sarah re-think having babies haha ok, not really =) But hopefully we’ll be blessed with babies as good as Natty! She was such a perfect little angel, no fussing or anything even while she was meeting so many new people!
I didn’t get to take too many pics from the day.
daddy and Natty playing – soooooo cute!
family portrait! =)
The Aesop Gang: Marvin, me, Natty, Sarah, and Sunny
the imprint kit we gave Sunny after she gave birth to Natalie
It turned out really good!
It was really nice seeing everyone =) It’s been a while since we’ve all gotten together. We’re hoping that Greg will be able to join us for the next visit, and hopefully it won’t be in 2009 Mr. Social Butterfly! I can’t believe your next free date is in the middle of June! That’s just crazy! =)
On a last note, I brought a fruit tart from Portos and oh man, was it GOOD. I actually haven’t had it since last April and had forgotten exactly how delicious it was. I think I might be picking another one up for our early mother’s day celebration next weekend =D
You are currently browsing the archives for the Aesop category.
