7 miles and a ride

7 miles. That's all I ran last week. Partly, I was just recovering from Firetrails, but also I was babying the crap out of my right foot. Lots of ice, massage, stretching and wearing my Thermoskin Plantar FSX to bed each night. It seems to be working and right now I have almost no heel pain during normal activity. I have no doubt it will resurface at some point during the race this weekend, but keeping it from hurting until after mile 50 will make a HUGE difference than if the pain starts at mile 10 or so.

All of my 7 miles have been bundled up treadmill runs in my attempt to get in some form of heat training before the race. The latest forecast for the weekend in Fountain Hills, Arizona (the closest city to the race) shows a high of 89. While it has warmed up this week in the Bay Area, it is nowhere close to that. I liked it better when the extended forecast said 84. Anything above 85 constitutes warm weather running in my book. My runs have all been done wearing rain pants over shorts, long sleeve shirt covered by my new Marmot windshirt from Firetrails, gloves and a running hat. It is amazing how much sweat one can work up in this sort of getup over just 2-3 short miles on an indoor treadmill! Other than this I have just been trying to stay generally warm as much as possible. I am wearing more clothes than normal; a jacket or sweater in the office and warm clothes to bed even though I tend to sleep warm. Hopefully some of this helps.

The RD sent a bunch of information over about the race. I am going to be #203. All the first-time Javalina runners will have pink bibs starting in the 200 range. I have heard that going out too fast is almost expected at this race so I figure "why fight it". I don't mean that I am going to charge out from the start, but I am not going to force any walking in that first loop unless I feel it. I figure it will be one of the coolest parts of the race, temperature-wise, so why not get a decent time on that loop (but, without pushing too hard) and plan to take it easier on loops 2&3 which should be in the hottest part of the day.

This is actually going to be my first race out of state and the first time I am traveling for an ultra. I need to force myself to get my things together sooner than the night before I leave. I am a little worried about things like my Blistershield and S!Caps making it through to Arizona without too much TSA scrutiny over the unmarked capsules and strange white powder. I need to do some research to see where the closest local shop might be for replacement supplies. I also plan to buy my Ensure and Red Bull once I am there. I know a number of people who are driving down from the area (some after doing races last weekend), but I am going on the "cushy" side. I have lots of airline miles so the flight is free and I am taking the nice hotel option rather than camping at the start. I will be staying in Scottsdale on Friday night and near the airport on Sunday night before flying back early Monday. My son may drive up from college in Tucson on Sunday if he isn't working. Hopefully, I can finish early enough to have a nice nap before taking him out for a BIG dinner :-).

Last week I took Monday off and ran 2 miles on the treadmill on Tuesday. I did another 3 treadmill miles on Wednesday as well. Thursday I had family obligations and I ended up taking Friday off as well. On Saturday, my wife had to work in San Mateo so I planned a bike ride up to San Francisco from there. From the San Francisco Bike Coalition web site, I found the Peninsula Bicycle & Pedestrian Coalition site which has some maps of a great route up the Peninsula to San Francisco. The route starts all the way down in Palo Alto which means that if I ever got really ambitious I could follow this all the way form my house in Fremont since it is possible to ride over the Dumbarton Bridge. For Saturday I started from the Hayward Park Clatrain station in San Mateo. The route pretty much follows the tracks as closely as possible which is nice since it allows you to "wimp out" at any point and basically just wait for the next train. I planned to follow it all the way to San Fran and then around the Embarcadero to Chrissy Field. The reason for heading there was that it was the location of the PCTR San Francisco One Day race. I knew a number of people running in this as well as some helping out.

It was a actually a lot of fun being out there and seeing everyone going lap after lap. It is a cool venue, but I still just don't personally find it very attractive as a race for me. I helped out a bit at the aid station where I could, but also just enjoyed saying hi to everyone running, watching and working. Of those running, I think Craig Slagel was the craziest as he is signed up for Javelina as well and did over 100 miles at this event. I hung out most of the time with Rick Gaston as we tried to get emails from the website to the runners, a cool feature that may just have been too successful. Finally, just before I left, Leslie Antonis showed up and was nice enough to snap a picture of me before I headed back out on my bike.



Yes, the "Yellow Jacket" was intentional for anyone who gets the inside joke. The rest of my outfit is actually equally as "hornet colored" and matches my yellow and black Felt bike. I only rode back as far as the Caltrain station which I took back down to San Mateo (after waiting for nearly an hour since I missed the 5:00pm by 3 minutes). The total ride was about 34 miles and not terribly difficult at all. There was one really windy section along Lagoon Rd. which goes along 101 between Candlestick and the Cow Palace. I only had one car come really close to me on San Mateo Blvd (a Prius, go figure). The section along 3rd St in the city would probably be a bit scary during the week, but weekend traffic was quite reasonable. The biggest challenge was probably all the tourists along the Embarcadero and through the Fisherman's Wharf/Pier 39 area. It was perfect weather and a great day to be playing up in the city by the bay!

I finished off the week with a couple more treadmill miles while watching Sunday night football and then did a Yoga workout before bed. This week I may get in one final run, but I think rest is more important. I have cut out my afternoon caffeine which seemed to help last 100. I think I fall asleep faster at night and it also makes the race-day caffeine intake that much more effective. I just need to stay awake at work the next few afternoons before I head off to Arizona!