Las Vegas Marathon

Yesterday I signed up for the Las Vegas Marathon on Dec. 7.
That leaves me with exactly 100 days... or 63 days after the San Jose RnR half marathon.

This week is going pretty well so far. I posted about Tuesdays Temporun earlier, last night I did some yoga, and I had a really nice easy 3 mile run this morning. It was actually the first enjoyable morning run (pre-work) I ever did. I managed to maintain an average heartrate of 148 bpm while keeping a 8:27 pace. It seems I am getting used to it! :-)

This F'in rocked!

Just got back from my 4 mile tempo run...
I have to admit, that I was a little scared of doing it. But it was awesome...Felt really good!
4 miles in 30:20, slightly slower than perscribed, but I am still happy with it.The best part is that the last mile was the fastest.

More Races

One of my goals for this year was running a full marathon. Due to some changes in my worktravel plans it is actually going to happen. I'll do a marathon in early December, Dec. 7 to be precise. I am not quite sure which one though... The Las Vegas marathon, where I ran my 1st 1/2 last year, and where I have good memories, or the California International Marathon in Sacramento.
I should come to a decision in the next few days...

I am also thinking about a 5K race at the end of October...

Workouts this week

After getting back from Tuolumne (report for the Regular Route on Fairview Dome is still to come) Sunday was supposed to be a rest day. Well, my running trainings plan told me that I was to run 5 miles, but on Saturday I felt like I would need to rest. Anyway, resting became boring real quick, so I ran 5 miles as perscribed. So last week I missed one 5 mile run, leaving me 5 miles short of the mileage goal.

Last night I faced the challenge of the first gym climb in four weeks. It was not nearly as bad as I had expected. OK, my endurance is down a bit, but I managed 8 climbs, including 3 11a's, two 10c's and a few cracks. I sucked on the cracks though!

Still to come this week:

• Tempo run tonight
• Yoga tomorrow
• more climbing Thu
• 'Long' run (8 miles) Fri
• Recovery run (4 miles) Sat
• Climbing trip Sun/Mon (yay, for Labour Day!)

Exhausted!

Why?

Thu: Last evening in Carlsbad Celebration 3 beers bedtime 10PM MT

3AM wake up, can't go back to sleep
6AM get up, pack
8AM leave Blue House Cafe, drive to El Paso, TX
11:15 AM Sit down at gate B10
12:15 PM Take off to SJC via PHX
3:15 PM (PT) Touch Down SJC
4:15PM back home
4:45PM leave for lunch/dinner & grocery shopping
5:30PM back home
8:00PM (approx) fall asleep
10:30PM wake up, can't fall asleep until 1:30
4:30AM Alarm goes off, get up
5:10AM leave for Sam's place
5:30AM leave for Tuolumne
9:30AM drop off food at Cathedral trailhead
10:30AM start climbing Regular Route on Fairview Dome
6:30PM top out
7:30 PM pick up food, leave for the Bay Area
Now: back home

Details later!

Upcoming (Film)Events

The tradition continues!

Faster, Steeper, Higher, Deeper...
Radical Reels return to Santa Cruz on September 27th. It has become somewhat of a tradition to me, since it will be the fourth time that I'll visit the event.
Radical Reels is a spin-off of the Banff Mountain Film Festival dedicated to "dynamic, high-adrenaline films featuring sports such as skiing, climbing, kayaking, BASE jumping, snowboarding and mountain biking."

Less of a tradition, but also returning to the Bay Area is the ReelRockTour. This event (Berkeley (Oct. 15/16) Santa Cruz (Oct. 9) and San Francisco (Oct. 23) features two full length movies... Dosage V and The Sharp End, the new production from SenderFilms. The trailer for the later is AWESOME!

Who wants to come?

19 miles...

...was the running goal for this week...and I reached it.
5 miles on Tuesday, 3 on Wednesday, 6.5 on Saturday and 4.5 today.

Compared to the previous runs here in Carlsbad, the 4.5 miles today were rather fast. I managed a 8:35 pace. It is really important to keep the heart rate low though! I can sustain a HR above 170 for a bit, but it's hard to recover from that.

Other than that the week was pretty eventless, still haven't made it to the Guadalupe Mountains :-/

Hopefully I'll get some climbing in on the next weekends, back in the Bay Area!
Running-wise the next week will be a little bit of a 'recovery-week' with only three runs of 5 miles each. One will be here in New Mexico, the other two on Friday and Sunday in Mountain View. Can't wait for those flat trails!

One mile short...

I stayed one mile below this week's scheduled mileage.
Today I wanted to make up for the shorter than planned runs on Tuesday and Friday, but my choice of trail was pretty unfortunate... The Octoillo trail in the Living Desert State Park proved to be pretty steep, and on top of that I turned out not to be a loop as I had hoped...
Well, I ran four miles, and I guess the uphill was worth something as well.

I won't be running there again though...But I could have used that hill in my backyard while training for the Diablo 25

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns National park is located 20 miles west of Carlsbad, NM. Today was my second visit to the caves, but I was impressed once again. The bottom of the accessible cave is 754ft below the surface and can be reached by a hike from the Natural Entrance or by elevator.
The Big Room at the bottom of the cave is the world's largest limestone cavern with an area of 600000 sft.

This area is packed with impressive formations! It just makes me want to explore other caves in the area... and elsewhere. I guess it's time to take a caving class. Here are some pictures of this amazing place:

"WOD"

Due to the lack of climbing around here, and since it's a rest day from running I 'created' my own WOD today. Well, there's no gym either, so I did the following at the place where I stay:
3 rounds of:

• 15 squats
• 20 push-ups
• 30 crunches straight
• 30 crunches left
• 30 crunches right
• 30 whatever they are called for the lower back

I didn't time the effort, but I was pretty spent in the end.

Next time it will be for time!

Ok, off to the caverns in a bit...

Getting used to it!

Yes! Just came back from my third run of the week... It was the first one that actually felt really good. Probably because it was pretty cool tonight, only 30C (86F). It was supposed to be a long run of 7 miles, but I ended up running only 6 miles... This means that I am two miles short for this week...Well, I got Sundays run to make up for it.
The trick to keep runs out here pleasant is apparently to really watch the heart rate and go real slow... The high temperatures, the relatively high humidity (approx. 50%) and the rolling terrain are pretty taxing otherwise.

If I get 5 miles in on Sunday, I got the mileage, no speedwork though :-/
I'll work on that once I get back to the flat and cool trails in the Bay Area!

Most likely I'll visit the Guadalupe Mountain National Park this weekend...
Perhaps I'll re-visit the Carlsbad Caverns as well...

A tough 'easy' run

I am in Carlsbad, NM since yesterday. Despite travelling for work, I try to stick to my training schedule for my upcoming races. Today asked for a speed workout... Ok, here comes the first modification to the program... There's no track available... Well, I figured I go for a longer easy run. The 'easy' run turned out to be pretty tough. It was scorching hot all day, and even at 7pm, half an hour before sunset, the thermometer still showed 92F. I headed out anyway, taking a bottle of water, which I would not have done for a 5 mile run in the Bay Area. I ran along the road through the 'Living Desert' State Park, which is essentially right outside the place I stay at. The road climbs a hill for the first mile, then drops of a little and finally flattens out on a dirt road. The climb turned out to be quite a challenge in the heat, it also didn't help that Carlsbad is at 3500ft. I was looking forward to the downhill on the way back. I had planned to run a 8:40 - 8:50 pace which I realized was not achievable on the first section...
I turned around after two miles, and I saw a lightening storm on the horizon. During the next few minutes I also felt a distinct temperature drop and the wind picking up. Unfortunately it turned out to be a headwind. Half way through the way back to my house it started pouring down on me... the rain and teh headwind made sure that the downhill part was no faster than running up the same hill. Easy is definitely the wrong category for the run... anyway...4 miles, 9:29 pace at a super high heart rate...(Avg: 169, max 180) was a first running experience in the desert, I hope it will be better in the next days.

Stinson Beach Photos

Here are some photos of the bouldering trip up to Stinson Beach:
Again, it was an amazing day!

Stinson Beach Bouldering

There's a new mark on the map with my favorite spots: Stinson Beach.
Originally had planned to go to Yosemite this weekend to climb the Dana Couloir and Regular on Fairview, but several circumstances, like a huge fire in Merced Canyon, and the upcoming trip to New Mexico kept me from going. Instead I followed up on something I had been wanting to do for quite some time - bouldering outside.
I had seen some photos of boulders along the Northern California Coast (around Humbolt County), which triggered the idea of bouldering at the beach. The closest spot to the South Bay to do so is Stinson Beach (or perhaps Mickey's Beach, but there's no big difference).
The tide table showed low tide for 6:30 PM, so Dan and I headed up there in the afternoon. Traffic through the city was pretty bad - it took us a full two hours to get there (it's a 60 mile drive). It was worth every second though! The last nine miles along the coast are just amazing! the views from the winding road out to the ocean and down to the coastline were payback for time spent in the stop-and-go traffic. The weather was also perfect. We were a little worried before, since the temps in the city were in the 50's during the last week, but yesterday it was just perfect... Hitting the beach it felt more like Southern California than Marin county!

The boulders are on the southe end of the beach, and although the main stretch was pretty packed there were just a few people hanging out back there. We climbed on the "Old Woman" and "Old Man" boulders, starting out with the V0 arrete followed by some V1-V2's on the Old Woman, and some tries on the V4 arrete on the Old Man. I actually got the start of that one! There were a bunch of other lines we did, but we essentially made them up as we went along.
Bouldering is pretty different to 'real climbing' in that respect...It's not for the gratification to get on top of something, it really is more about finding a way together some moves, and a problem might end half way up the rock... It was fun though!

After wrecking our fingers for about two and a half hours we took a walk along the beach before heading back to the car. On the way we decided to have dinner at the Park Cafe. Their Menu says: "Park Cafe - Eat Well, Be Happy!" It definitely worked for me...This day definitley reminded me of a day I spent surfing almost three years ago: Back then I thought: "This can't be real...Something like this only happens on TV!" The exact same feeling returned yesterday...
A perfect beach, absolutely blue sky, nice rock, good food in the evening... Too Good to be true!

I'll definitely be back!

Photos will follow...

upcoming races

I just signed up for the Palo Alto Moonlight 10K and the San Jose Rock'n'Roll Half Marathon.

I am still not sure about the full Marathon...
Silicon Valley, Las Vegas, California International in Sacramento?
Or none at all?

To some degree it depends on work related travel...