Pickin apples and....oh yeah a race!

Waking up to a little chill in the air for a 9 miler/3 miler through the Orchards of Apple Hill. Good part is that the race was slated to being at 8:30am which gave the sun a little extra time to rise and warm us up before venturing through orchard-land. Another good/great part of this race is that Diane from Breakout Racing was the course director and she puts on a great race. Now that I got the plug in there for Diane, lets get to the meat of this little blog...
So onto the course we roll! There were actually a ton of people at this race. Way more lined up at the start/finish line than I was expecting. Hmm, looking around I saw some familiar faces, a lot of new faces, and a few faces that I know are fast fast fast! Brian from the Folsom Series was there and he dominated me at a race during that series but....who knows what today would bring. Okay, so we started up a little hill and then down we went onto the road and veered left into the orchards. Good thing it hadnt rained because it would have been a slippery mess but the trails/dirt roads were great! Up, down, up, down, up, down....Seemed to be the main theme of this little course. I will have to admit that my favorite part of the course came between mile 6 and 8 where we were truly running on trails through the trees. Awesome! That was about the time that we started catching some of the 3 mile runners/walkers but they were extremely courteous and knowledgeable about moving out of the way. I even saw some people pushing strollers at this point. Im not sure about this but I believe the word for them is CRAZY because it was tough enough without pushing the kiddos. More power to them, so congrats you crazy stroller pushers! Winding down and back around to the finish was cool with a downhill crossing of the finish line! Amen, race is over!
First place overall in a time of 58:11 which will work for today. A few kids went out fast and I couldn't believe it. I thought "damn, not again" but held my own and actually ran my race for a change. Maybe thats cause Chris B wasn't there and I wasn't trying to keep his fast ass in my sights. How weird, no matter how hard I tried that it didn't work anyways. Okay, so best part of all was that my parents ran the 3 miler. Dad, if you know Dad, thinks runners are crazy so.... He must be one of us crazy people now! Mom, well shes all jacked up with injuries, but shes amazing and ran it right along with pops! Congrats guys, love ya! They were there for the high 5 at the end of mine. What a perfect day! Pizza on the way home and a nap. Doesn't get much better than that.
Good luck at Rocklin Chris. Let me know how it goes. Peace out until next time!!!

Step back in time....

So here we are in April of 2010 in which the time seems to be flying by. Running is going great with the exception of a slight calf injury at the moment which really made me think of stepping back into last year. Why is this?, you are asking. Well lets see, it all begins in May 2009 when some jackass decided to steal my truck. Holy crap! Yeah, thats right but thats not the crazy part of this whole situation. Yours truly decides to play superhero and jump on the side of the truck to stop the little thug from driving away in said pickup truck. Well stuff like that doesn't happen like it does in the movies because the window wouldn't break like a Bruce Willis movie or some other crazy S.O.B. with insane movie strength. Okay, so back to the story....I then proceed to get dumped off the truck while he runs over my right foot breaking a bone on the top of it in the process. Needless to say I didn't realize it was broken until later in the morning when I finally decided that the ER was a place for little running midgets with an injury.
Here is the real reason for telling you all such a story as that. Dr. Lundeen, a runner as well, was the lucky fella to deal with an overly paniced, self-motivated runner with a broken bone in his foot. Yes, you guessed it.....that would be me! After a few visits of not doing a dang thing, he decided that I could slowly get back into the training. I wouldn't really call it training during this time because I would walk and jog at a very slow pace for like 2 miles with tears in my eyes. This lasted for a few more visits to the great doctor of the west. After time and reluctant approval from Dr. Lundeen, I was able to run and begin my training at the higher level again.
It's almost a year later now and I have gotten stronger and faster every single month. It's amazing how the body can come back from certain injuries with the help of the right person. Dr. Lundeen you are amazing and I pretty much owe all of my success in this wacky ass sport to you over the past year. How many people live to run like this? Not too many! Not too many can actually accomplish their goals and really focus in on greater things within the whole running gig. So I guess, this was just a mega shout-out to my boy, Dr. Lundeen who has been able to keep me running through all of it! Thanks Doc.

Just running news....

Alright well another week is almost over in the life of hard training. Things have been moving along awesomely since the last race. I wasn't quite sure how long it would take for my body to really get back into the swing of things since I was actually surprisingly sore after the Xterra Race in Folsom. Oh well, guess that means I was putting out some effort.
This past week wasn't too hard, overall, with the exception of the long 16 miler on Monday night. That really wasn't even that difficult after about mile 7 which is where my legs finally felt like they could go the whole distance without collapsing under the weight of carrying me around. Rest of the week was pretty much recovery miles with todays challenge being a 10 mile total run with some quick speed intervals in the middle. Bring on the pain!!!!
Good news is that I have one more week until the Apple Hill Blossom Trail Run which should be challenging and amazing at the same time. Diane puts on a pretty good race! The best part about this race is that my dad is going to run the 3 mile course....and I think mom, hoping her ankle will be fine, is going to do the run with him! SWEET!!!! The whole running thing is finally becoming something that we are all doing together.
Alright, well have a great day and I'll throw you some news later about what else is crappening in the running circle that I like to call life.