You know one way to prolong a cold? Run stupidly hard for 3 hours, barely sleep, wake up at 6am the next morning and run another 6 mile race way faster than you should. Then think you're ok, barely eat anything both days, and do groceries and prune your tomatoes for the rest of the day.

Sorry, that was me virtually slapping myself in the face for this insane weekend. I'm okay now. *deep breath* Here's my race report for today's Summer Scamper.

I woke up this morning at 6am after another restless night due to my continued cold. I will be so happy when I can breathe out of both nostrils in my sleep.

I carpooled with two of my co-workers, and we arrived around 7:25. Parking seemed to be pretty plentiful, although there were a lot of cars in a long line waiting to be parked. If you do this race, it's best to arrive obnoxiously early to avoid a late start.

I hopped out early and picked up my bib to be safe. I also hit one of the many porta-potties that to my amazement had NO line. My bib came with this adorable light blue tech tee. I'll be happy when the Summer Scamper actually gives out women's shirts as well, but I understand that it's difficult to make cost and numbers speaking. I just never wear the men's smalls, my 5'0" frame drowns in them.

I was super thankful that they had a really easy gear check there. They had paper bags and just wrote your bib number on them. I had mindlessly jumped out of the car with my keys and jacket, and now the summer scamper shirt that I didn't know what to do with, so that solved that problem.

I had convinced a group of approximately 20 people to sign up for this race, so we tracked each other down at the starting line. Storm8 graciously allows me to design team shirts for this race, and it really helps us find each other amid the thousands of people attending.

The Summer Scamper is one of the two races (the other being the JP Morgan and Chase Corporate Challenge) I spend organizing for our Storm8 group because it is a well supported, highly attended, family friendly and walker friendly event. People have the choice of a 5k run, a 10k run, or a walker. It is important to note that they close down at 9:30 which means you need to run/walk faster than a 15 min mile. There's also four kids runs splitting them up between ages 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, and 9-10. Being a race that is created to fundraise for the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, it is a very family friendly event. The cherry on top was that it's Father's Day today! Kids had a lot of fun playing the games in the finisher's area.

Back to the race. A group of us had decided to push forward toward the middle of the 9 minute mile pace corral. One of my co-workers mentioned that she wanted to finish in 58 minutes, which came out to around a 9:25 pace, so I thought I'd stick with her and try to help her to her goal.

We bolted when the gun went off. It was quickly clear to me that her 9:25 pace was a LIE and that she was a shark in the water. Here are our mile splits.

2015's Summer Scamper

This is the third or fourth year I've attended, and this route this year was different than last year. Last year I vividly remember a hill that surprised me in the middle.. This year we went up a little bit and then down hill a lot. We were all groaning about all the downhill since we knew it would go up again, but amazingly it didn't. I guess in the first couple of miles we were going up an unnoticeable incline.

2014's summer scamper

The weather was definitely sunny and warm out, but not unbearably so. There was a cool breeze, and a lot of the streets that we ran on were shaded. There were plenty of aid stations, but I tend to not hit any aid station that's under a half marathon's length. There were also plenty of supportive and sweet volunteers cheering everyone on. A giant thank you to them for their time and energy.

Photo courtesy of my friend Masato

My only issue with the race was that the mile markers were off and I'm fairly confident that the course was short. I wasn't cutting the tangents too much, yet my watch had still only clocked 5.8 miles, not the 6.2 that is a 10k. When we hit the 5 mile marker, my watch had only displayed 4.5 miles. :S My friend mentioned that the 5k course also was a bit short. It's CERTAINLY okay for me, and I definitely didn't need the extra .4 miles, but to those that were aiming for a serious race PR it's something to note.

Either way, we finished strong with a time of 49:20. My co-worker demolished her time goal, to the displeasure of my already sore legs. It was worth it though.

I hung around the finish line to catch my other co-workers crossing through. Everyone had done so well, and it was a really beautiful and happy morning with a lot of good energy. I was really shocked when one of my ol' running partners ran through with both his 1 year old son in a stroller, AND his dog Truffle.

We wrapped up with some group photos, and then I took a brisk walk around the finisher's center where they had quite a few booths set up with freebies and samples. I didn't partake in the post race food, but I noticed some bagels and fruit. Since I had raised $425 (thank you to everyone that had donated), I got this little frame for free. I'll have to print out one of our group shots.

Not my family. 

All in all, I think it was another successful race for Storm8, and I'm hoping we'll be back with another group next year! There's not much that makes me happier than seeing or helping other people reach their goals, so I was thrilled to hear that so many people had done so well. I know that the hardest part for most people is rolling out of bed at a ridiculous hour on a Sunday morning, so thank you all for doing that. :)

After the race, I continued buzzing around, getting errands done. After a full day I decided to lay down for a quick nap which turned into a two hour battle for consciousness. My legs started to get super sore, especially my calves. Anddd I'm still sniffling, so I'm going to chill out for a while to let my body heal up. MUST BE STRONG FOR MY BABY CHICKS.

But check out the coop! It now has a roof and is just waiting to be primed and painted!

Alright, enough talking, more sleeping. :) Thanks for reading!

10k race race report road race storm8 summer scamper

Summer Scamper 2015

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Ah, the end to probably one of the most active weeks of my life! I will sleep well tonight.

This weekend was packed full of activity. Saturday, Rini took me out for some outdoor rock climbing in Cragmont Park in Berkeley. This park kind of popped up out of nowhere in the middle of a very residential area. There was one porta potty there, which was nice, and the park was full of climbers. We got there around 2:30, and after a half hour everyone cleared out and we had the place to ourselves!

I need to give another special thanks to Rini, because she taught me a lot, and was brave enough to have me belay her (first time outdoors). Honestly, it was terrifying. I'm not used to climbing on a wall without noticeable holds. It didn't help that I started out with a 510.b for my first climb. I was hoping for like...a 5.4 ladder. Did I mention that I have a slight fear of heights? What you can't see from the static photo is that my legs were visibly trembling. I was also pretty scared to hold someone's dear life in my own two hands, using a device that was new to me. :| Luckily, the simplicity of the device, combined with my sheer terror resulted in the safety of my friend. 

After a handful of climbs to get myself a bit more used to it, a couple of Rini's very experienced and buff rock climbing friends joined us, and we decided to try out some bouldering at Indian Rock which was four blocks away. 

If you don't know all the climbing terms, what we did with the rope was top roping. Bouldering is without a rope, and you have these portable pads that you bring to land on. I prefer bouldering in the gyms for speed, technique, and independence, but outdoor it scares the daylights out of me because the pads aren't as thick, and you have to land more precisely on them. If you land wrong, you can hurt yourself pretty quick.

The thing about Indian Rock was that the climbs were pretttttty long. I definitely start to get nervous after about 13-15 feet. Some of these climbs reached a point beyond no return, so I decided to stick with either the super easy stuff or playing around with traverses (just sideways climbing). Once I build up some confidence, I'll come back to give it another shot.

Prior to all this climbing madness, Jon and I drove to the nearby Wunderlich County Park for a "quick" trail run. I wasn't feeling the run, and almost chose to sleep in and not go at all. I seem to have a lot of inner conflict when it comes to choosing whether I want to wake up early to run or not.

Following Jon through the eucalyptus and redwood trees

I have to say that I think Wunderlich might be bumped up to my new favorite trail to run on. I still love Huddart's shaded and soft paths, but Wunderlich varied a bit more, and I feel like the ascent was more gradual but regular. 

After two miles in, I really started to get into the groove, and my original plan of doing 5 miles turned into a 9 mile run. 

The best part of it was getting to the 4.5 mile mark, and hitting the cloud line. I thought it was raining! The forest looked so eerie and mystical. Not to mention that's when I turned around and coasted the 4.5 downhill miles. 

Entering the eerie forest

This awesome burnt stump was probably over 5' across.

Jon and I ended our Saturday with some food at Mission Heirloom. It was a bad time for a paleo dinner, because all I had eaten before this were three eggs and a protein bar. PROTEIN PROTEIN PROTEIN. I wanted to gag. I also wanted carbs. BAD. We had an extremely active day and a burger salad wasn't going to cut it.

After crashing from all that activity, I woke up bright and early to head out to a Superhero 10k Fun Run for a Cure (benefiting blood cancer research). Rini and I had won spots in the race through our premium active.com membership. I will definitely be donating to the cause though, because it was well worth it and a very cute and fun race!

We jogged two miles to the start from my house, and then went all out for the 10k. I tried keeping up with Rini but apparently her cape gave her superhero powers and she was uncatchable. She moved even faster on the 2nd loop around!

My heart was PUMPING. I have a hard time pushing the pace now a days, so this was a real effort for me. My hr average was 173! It seems about right for race pace.

The funny thing is that Rini and I actually finished 1st and 2nd overall in the 10k race! Granted, I doubt many people even signed up for the 10k race. And it's the same day as the super duper popular Bay to Breakers race, that attracts tens of thousands of participants. I'll still take it though.

I loved seeing all the little kids dressed as super heroes. They had their own kids race around a small circle, it was so cute! Amazingly almost everyone that ran had dressed up! It was really fun, and I'll be back for more next year!

Alright, that's enough out of me. Time to hit the hay to start another crazy week! I'm going to try my best to focus on slowing down and giving my heart a break. :)

10k race bouldering cragmont park indian rock race rock climbing running top roping trail running wunderlich park

Rock Climbing, Trail Running, and a Superhero Fun Run 10k

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