The Carlsbad Half Marathon, in Pictures

I'm not down with lengthy race reports- mostly because I kind of black out while running long distances and couldn't tell you much about what happened every second of every mile like some people. Most of the things I do remember revolve around thinking about food, admiring the Lululemon girls' witty signs, feeling horribly embarrassed when I almost took down a nice water-providing volunteer, wondering why I smelled like butt, and feeling proud to make the hills of Carlsbad my bitches. 

So here are some pictures that mostly reflect the race that was the Carlsbad half marathon 2012: 

Climbing various things the week before in the name of preparation. 

Getting my hair ombred made me faster.

Pre- and post race fuel.

Chillaxing the night before.

The race course.

Porta potty action.

The elevation- or as I like to say, the reason I still can't walk today.

At one point I thought this was a near perfect race, and I would do this again in a second. I took some shot bloks throughout, ate an orange slice, enjoyed the scenery and the encouraging spectators and course music. I was way too worried about the hills beforehand, but I usually train on hills so they weren't as much of a problem as I made myself think. They made things more exciting and challenging; the going down really fast balanced out my climbing up kinda slow, and with a 1:46:55, I was able to PR by about 5 minutes.

PR, Baby!

What hills?
I loved this race! More to come...

Oh, the Fear...

Cruised the Carlsbad half marathon course today after packet pick up. I'm hoping for a small earthquake in the morning so I don't have to face this.
Good luck tomorrow, all! (Especially me).

I Compress!

In anticipation of being severely undertrained (and therefore in a lot of pain post race) for the Carlsbad half marathon this weekend, I ran to Road Runner and bought these CEP compression socks:

Hot pink FTW.

Teaching and compressing at the same time... nothing wrong with that!

Sunset Run

Yesterday was one of those days when I was psyched all day to run... then it hit going home time and all I wanted to do was lay down. Motivation was lacking and the temperature was dropping with the sun. But after putting on lots of sweat wicking clothes, I headed out for a 5 miler down the beach path and was rewarded with this:

Thank you, nature.

I love it when 5 miles seems like nothing in the midst of a training cycle. 

How have your midweek runs been going?

Monday Confessions

Yes, it's true... I have the post-vacation blues. How could I not, when leaving a place like this?

Poipu sunset.

My new home?

But of all the places in the world to come back to, Newport Beach isn't so bad. The 80 degree weather yesterday certainly helped. It took me forever to get motivated to run yesterday, but eventually I knocked out 7.3 miles. 

I need to get back to not eating just one big meal a day, drinking champagne and mai tais every night, and wearing more clothes than a bikini and, on special occasions, a sarong to cover it up. I have to get back into half marathon training mode, damnit!