30 December 2014

2015 - The First Six Months

I have registered for races for the first six months of 2015.  Here is my schedule.

1/4/15 - Camarillo Marathon
2/28/15 - Road Rage Duathlon
3/14/15 - Zion Half Marathon
4/12/15 - Summerlin Half Marathon
5/9/15 - Vegas Sunrise Duathlon
5/17/15 - Hot Chocolate 15K - Las Vegas
5/30/15 - Sand Hollow Duathlon

I've also registered for a pair of duathlons (Kokopelli and Las Vegas) in September.  I have a few races that I am interested in for the second half of the year but I need to wait until April to see how a few things are shaping up schedule-wise at work.

Here are races of interest:

8/1-2/15 - Devil Dog Duathlon and Solana Beach Duathlon - This would be a great weekend to head to San Diego and knock out a couple of sprint distance races for both my wife and me while also doing a few fun vacation things with the kids.

8/8/15 - Bootleg Beatdown -  This has 5 and 10 mile distances.  It is a hot run on a technical trail in the local area. This one is put on by Desert Dash.

8/29-30/15 - E.T Full Moon Midnight Marathon, Half, 10K & 51K - If I decide to do this one, I want to go big and make it my first ultramarathon.  I like Calico Racing events

9/19/15 - Twilight Red Rock Half Marathon - This would be my third year running a Twilight Red Rock race.  I have already booked the duathlon as part of the Las Vegas Triathlon for that morning. This is another Calico Racing event.

9/26/15 - Saints and Sinners Half Marathon - This is a race at Lake Mead with a fair amount of downhill and is a decent mix of road and trail.  I wanted to run it this year but the date conflicted with Twilight.

12/5/15 - Death Valley Trail Marathon - Death Valley was the site of my first marathon.  It would be fitting if it is the site of my first trail marathon.

The other big thing I want to do this year is a century ride on my bike and am looking at options that aren't ridiculously far from Las Vegas and do not conflict with one of my wife's events or mine.

28 December 2014

Operation Jack Las Vegas Satellite Race

big finisher medals
A couple of weeks ago, I was looking at the Running In The USA site and saw a new local race.  It was the Operation Jack Las Vegas Satellite Race and both my wife and I decided to run the three hour race around a 1.67 mile loop in Kellogg Zaher Park which is within 15 minutes of my house.

About Operation Jack - The Operation Jack Autism Foundation was founded as a charity in 2009 as a way to honor Jack Felsenfield who was born in 2003 with severe autism.  It promotes autism awareness and raises funds for autism related charities.

On to the race - We showed up at the park at 7:25 and picked up our bibs.  It was a brisk morning with temps hovering in the 33-34 range.  At 7:50, we got some quick prerace instructions and promptly at 8 AM, we were off.

something for the wall
The loop was easy to follow.  It was basically a big rectangle around a bunch of active soccer fields.  Half of the loop was uphill and half was downhill.  The race started/finished by Bathroom #3 and was also the site of a small aid station which was well stocked with water and munchies.

Sarah and I ran the first loop together and shortly after completing it, I began to move ahead on my pace and she settled into her's.  The laps ticked away and I made certain to call out my number to the counter as I passed him on each lap.

Early in the race, a group of guys took off and by the time I was a lap in, they were a substantial amount ahead of me. Around the 12 mile mark, I began to catch/pass them and was pleasantly surprised to find that I had moved into 3rd for men when I crossed the line to complete Lap 10 at 2:54. Sarah finished 9 laps and was 2nd for women. Instead of trophies or medals for placing, we each received a hand painted oil painting.

The legs felt good.  Clipping along at a 10:20-30 pace for that distance does not feel overly taxing and I plan on knocking out the marathon at Camarillo next Sunday to kick off my 2015 year of racing.  I used this race to try out a nutrition plan with Gatorade Prime Energy Chews.  I ate two right before the start and followed that up with two more every 45 minutes.  For hydration, I stuck to my standard Powerade Zero (yep...I mixed Gatorade and Powerade products) but made it a point to drink it at a regular basis starting at the one hour mark with a drink every 30 minutes after that.  The plan was pretty simple and is what I will go with next weekend.




24 December 2014

Christmas Eve Running

I got in 11.1 miles after work.  It took me over the 1300 mile mark for 2014.  In other news...


20 December 2014

a free race

I checked my e-mail today and was happy to see that I received another free entry from Racegrader.com. This one is to the Camarillo Marathon which also has a half, 10K and 5K with it.  The race is on Jan 4th.

I am undecided about the distance and will knock out a long run in the morning to think about it.  This month, I am on pace for my normal 100-110 miles of running.  However, it has been a big month already for cycling with 175 miles logged. Also, I am at 22 hrs of total run/bike time for the month which means that I am going to crush my highest month (27.4 hours last December) in terms of total workout time since I started keeping track of my workouts in 2011.  Finally, I am running the three hour 2014 Operation Jack Las Vegas Satellite Run on the 28th which is three hours of racing laps around a 1.69 mile loop in one of the city parks.

Decisions, decisions, decisions...

01 December 2014

November Stats

MapMyRun sent me my monthly stats this morning and it ended up being a solid month with 223.2 total miles. 100.75 of that was running which made November my 13th out of the last 14 months where I have run at least 100 miles.  The remaining 122.45 miles were on the bike.