Last race

Well there it went the last race before the marathon 18mile friendship run well it was suppose to be 18 it was a little short. I never really liked this race so i didn't begin to care about my time as long as I beat 4:50 I was fine with it. Like a previous race I decided to help some of my teammates out with their goals i helped my friends JB and Michelle since they were both struggling JB was feeling sick because the heat and Michelle didn't think she was running so she ran in someone else shoes which were a size to big a no socks for 9 miles (i advise people not to try that)along the course we passed some teammates walking and I asked if they were okay and the kids were so rude i hate when kids on my team are rude to me but I didn't let me bug me and i kept going and I'll probably never tell them good job again until the can be nicer but anyways JB Michelle and i all finished in the time limit so we were happy with that. when we finished we got our medals and headed to get our shirts and neon shoe laces Nike was giving us for the marathon. I think the course was a little better this year because of Nike having them at the top of the hill before the damn got us pumped and having them at the finish made us all happy and the water stops actually didn't run out of water this year so it was nice but the absolute best thing about running 18miles on Superbowl Sunday is eating whatever you want and I'm proud to say i downed hot wings like no other. i also noticed that I'm never sore anymore i don't know if it's a gift or I don't run hard enough for my legs but I love it!!

For this weekend we have a easy 10miles on Saturday then uniform pick up for the marathon on Sunday and the following weekend is our annual 22mile practice which I'm hopefully ready for.

Another great weekend it sure was it started Friday when I went to my old high school to visit my friends I haven't seen in a while and boy was it amazing to see them and to hang out with others I always see. Then along came Saturday with 11miles for practice which is nothing in my mind the first half I ran it really hard and took it easy on the way back and I felt good about it and feel ready for the 18mile race we have this weekend hopefully I PR I've been looking for one all year. After practice I went home and fell in love with how quite my house is (cause my step family moved in and are way to noisy) but that only lasted a while until they came home. The next morning my dad, 2 step uncle, step aunt, step cousin, and I woke up to go on a hike at Malibu creek and did I love that morning pay back is amazing when you are up before the noisy people :) but anyways this hike was amazing we did a 2 mile trail then found more trails to go on I found this one with such a steep incline you could touch the dirt as you were walking up it, then we found this little lake with a whole bunch of huge rocks I wanted to climb but didn't have a chance to cause it started to rain way to hard so we headed back home all together the hike was 8and half mile and I loved how I wasn't even tired a little from putting 19 miles on my legs the past two days and I think I'll do it more often.

Wow I haven't blogged in such a long time and so much has happened since the last time I blogged but lets just start with everything happening since the new year started. With out a doubt I'm running LA again and this training season has been another tough one for me between getting a stress fracture in my foot, having knee problems again, and my asthma acting up I was having my doubts on running the marathon this year but at the Irvine half marathon in early January I remembered why I push through all these injuries and hard running times. It was my 20th half marathon which I was so excited about I couldn't believe only 19 and already racing my 20th half marathon but I knew I wouldn't PR so I had another goal in mind to me time doesn't matter anymore so I wanted to help one of our runners out getting to his goal all he wanted to do was break 3hours since 2and a half was out of the question when I caught up to him so we set out on his second goal and sure enough he barely did it by a few seconds the smile on his face was priceless and I couldn't of been happier to help it also had me realize something about myself how much I care about my team mates and I hope I can help him reach his goal of 2:30 next half marathon. Since that race I've been running pretty bad until last Saturday when we had a choice between 15-18.5 miles I knew right when I started I wanted a taste of that 18.5 and I sure did attack it I haven't felt that great running in such a long time it felt like the old me and let me tell you the course wasn't easy it was 3 loops in our town one loop had 3 major hills in it to add to the 15 miles I love getting to our 2nd water stop every time around because it was the water stop with some of my favorite adults Tony and Bob who encouraged and boosted our confidence. I hope the rest of my running season is like last Saturdays practice if it is I'll for sure PR at the marathon this year less then 2months away!!

2 amazing races

Wow it's been a long time since I blogged! Where do I begin let's start of with the marathon. The marathon this year was amazing,the course was awesome the weather was great and everything seemed to go right my knee didn't hurt, I didn't feel dehydrated and it just felt like my day. Since it was my 7th marathon I didn't care so much to PR so I decided to help one of my teammates out (which was his first marathon) . He caught up to me at mile 3 and asked if he could run with me so I said of course I helped him all the way until mile 21 and than left him cause he need to use the bathroom. Along the way we picked up and left some of our team but at the end it was just me which was kind of disappointing cause I wanted to finish with someone but I was happy because I got a PR. I'll never forget how big of a smile I had on my face crossing the line that day and the smile my coach had was one to die for after the marathon I felt so lucky cause my legs weren't sore at all so I took a week off and got back to training for the Ragnar Relay.

The Ragnar relay was one of the best races you could ever run. 200 miles with a 12 man team was something I would never think about running this race tested us so much. The lack of sleep the sitting in the car for such a long time than running 3-8 miles,the night eating a lot and the running at night was a true challenge. Our school brought 3 teams to this race and our only goal was to finish. When we first got there we we're all pumped because it was finally time to dominate something new to us we listened to the rules and safety got our bibs and sent our first runner to the start line where the introduced every team that started in our time slot. After the started we all jumped in our cars and drove along the course cheering them on our first 3 kids stayed together through the first leg unfortunately we didn't know the runners course and the driving course were different so we stopped and sat on a wall waiting for them after a while we were wondering where they were and realized they didn't come that way so we all jumped in our cars again and rushed to the first exchange and there the runners were sitting waiting for us luckily we were smart and had our next runner ready and sitting on the outside seat so she jumped out and ran. During this leg our runner got lost because she didn't know where to turn so we had to go get her and make her turn around which set us back 2miles and 45min from our other 2 teams after she exchanged to the 3 person we were in catch mode we wanted to be back with our other 2 teams which we did catch up at the 6th exchange where we were neck and neck with our 3rd team until the 11th exchange. After we left the other team we decide to try and catch the other team so everyone on our team ran their hearts out when it came to my 2nd leg it was already midnight so i was super tired and really sick thank god my running coach was on a bike next to me the whole time pushing me through the rough hilly 10k I had to do after that I was done until 9 the next morning where my coach thought it would be best to switch me and someone else on my team since she had a shorter leg and i was too sick to run further. now this is when all the drama started to happen between my team and the faster team we wanted to catch by the 4th to last exchange we passed that team and they got super mad and thought we cheated to catch up by switching my leg witch wasn't the idea at all it was for my health so after that we were neck and neck until the finish we beat that team by 30sec which was amazing to us cause we were behind by 45min but we weren't so happy to finish because that team was so mad at us and thought we cheated so it ruined our experience but the fact we finished 200 miles beating adults was something amazing we finished in 29:28:50 I would do it again in a heartbeat and cant wait to train for the next years.

So this is my first blog and of course it's going to be about running! So here it goes I got into running my 8th grad year (2005) and everyone always asks me how I got into it so I tell them that my 7th grade health teacher was the running coach at our school he does a program SRLA and he would always talk about it in class so I decided to give it a try I had no idea what I was getting myself into besides the fact I was going to be running a long distance so I went out for my first day of practice and fell in love with the sport because you didn't have to be the best at it. My first race was the OC half marathon it was pouring rain,our bus broke down,we started the race 30minutes late and I had to sit in this shack type thing for a hour freezing when I finished as I was sitting there I was thinking to myself if I could run through that I can stick with this sure enough I did and completed my first Marathon in 7hours 40minutes I couldn't explain the feeling I got crossing that finish line even if the time was slow just knowing I accomplished something amazing was all I needed, from that day on I told myself I will never quit running and come back next year trying even harder which I did my 2nd marathon I knocked a hour and 35 minutes of my time which was amazing in my eyes and every year since than I always wanted to do better but never did breaking 6hours has been the hardest thing for me but it never brought me down and makes me push myself even harder every season.

Now that the LA marathon is 9days away I've never felt so nervous and ready for a marathon I'm nervous because I've been fighting a knee injury since the middle of December which totally made me think I wasn't going to do this marathon but I wasn't gonna let it stop me so I took a break and sure enough it's a lot better now but from this injury it made me realize how lucky I am to be able to run let alone walk and it made me push myself so much more at practice it made me want to run faster and faster which i have been thankful my knee is letting me do it so now going into this race I'm so much more confident in myself and I'm ready to break this 6hour curse I seem to have on me :)

So good luck to all you first time marathoners it's something you will never forget and fall in love with