Bye 2015

Happy New Year! A quick round up of what happened this year before I figure out how we're ringing in 2016!

Ordnance 100k, Jan '15. Photo by Jesse Ellis

Goals relevant to this blog set for 2015:

• Run every day (Part of a run streak challenge)
• Run <26:30 5k
• Run a 100 mile race
• Run 2,015 miles for 2015
• Ride 750 miles with Bugsy
• Complete Bugsy's first LD or endurance ride

Lake Natoma 50k, photo credit: stranger at the finish line :)

So how did we do? 

• I am about to set out for my final mile of 2015, which will also be the 365th day I've run this year! It's also the official end of the run streak, at least a mile every day since November 24th, 2014. 403 days. Since I always run on New Years Day, then we have Saturday trail run, then Sunday group run, so I guess it will be 406 days streaking.  
• PR'd the 5k at 24:37, so definitely smashed that goal! I also PR'd the 50k distance by more than half hour, and set two distance PRs.
• Completed Zion 100 within the allowed time
• Missed 2015 miles by quite a long way. I think I'll be finishing out the year with about 1600 miles. Well over 2015km though :)
• Bugsy and I just missed the 700 mile mark this year. Close, and we had some great rides.
• Bugsy completed both the Humboldt State Redwoods 35 mile ride, and the Cuneo Creek 50 mile ride. Huge success!

HRSP 35 - photo credit Elicia Kamberg

Other goals were reached, such as buying a truck and trailer. The truck came in October, and I completed it last night with the purchase of a really nice 2 horse slant at a great price with a late night road trip to be first in line. Yay for great friends willing to jump in the truck at a moment's notice to haul it home for me. Still sad that my 4runner's gone, it was most definitely my favourite car and I didn't realise how attached I was to it. But I finally have my own trailer, so I'll be happy :) Will post 2016 goals tomorrow, I have one last mile to run! Hope you've all had a wonderful new year, and I'll see you in 2016!

Grand Canyon trip on the way to Zion 100. Credit: Richard Handley (my dad!)

Lake Sonoma

Photo by Matt Trappe

Yippeee I got in to Lake Sonoma 50! It's a tough course, with no flat anywhere. 10,500' of climb, and 10,500' of descent. I have some hill training and heat training to do. It's actually the perfect run up race to San Diego 100, which will be hotter, but relatively less hill with only (only!) 13,470' of climb. For visual comparison of what I'm getting myself into:

Eeeep! It's also not unheard of for it to be pretty warm at Lake Sonoma, even hitting the 90s although it's only April. Guess I'll be hitting the sauna from mid-February...

LS50 is also a cupless race. One of the biggest problem with these races, and most running events in general, is the huge amount of waste generated. Ultra Adventures, who put on the Zion 100 as well as other events on my to-run list, are a zero waste event (those potties were interesting once there were a few miles on the legs...). Mendocino Coast 50k will also be a cupless race, featuring the same UltrAspire 6oz cup. No more non-recyclable dixie cups would be wonderful!

Dialing in my nutrition during training will also be a huge focus for me this time around. Fueling while training for Zion was pretty awful, thank you body for not bailing on me! Fortunately for me, S is a nutritionist and ultra runner, and shares tips with me on our Saturday adventures - I did point out that ideally I just need someone to follow me around and extract the bad choices from my hand before it hits my mouth. In the meantime I have to use my own brain, and am really shaking up my diet. I see a lot of fruit and far less cheeseburgers in my future... For example, on Saturday after a hilly 8, I had a banana on the drive home, followed by whizzing up 2 bananas, an apple, and a cup of strawberries with a cup or so of water. It took me forever to drink, but would have been even longer to eat! And there was meant to be an extra banana and apple in there. Yup, a whole lotta fruit, at least my sweet tooth is happy :)

It took me forever to figure out how to copy this picture over from Instagram, why can't I save my own photos? Much more effort than result, but now I know, yay smarts :)

Gearing Up

I just about have next year's racing schedule planned, for both myself and my horse.  At least, planned as much as you can in these sports. I planned on riding at Lake Sonoma in September, conditioned, checked tack, loaded a healthy fit horse, who promptly fell off the trailer and sliced his leg. Things happen. So when I say I have it planned, I mean lightly sketched in pencil and fully prepared to toss it out the window and start from scratch as needed...

First off, I really need a trailer. My 4runner is now for sale, which makes me sad but we really don't need 3 trucks and a car between 2 of us. (Yay, hubby is on the phone with someone now...) I could potentially lose my trail access from Bugsy's house, plus I can't rely on friends to come get us whenever we want to ride together. Yay independence!

I very much want to do a 100 miler next year, and it made sense to select from the WSER qualifying list. There's a few on there I'd like to do, and unsurprisingly there's a lottery entry for several. I have opted for San Diego 100 in June, which is going to be hot hot hot!! I already have a pacing and crew offers, and we hope to make a mini holiday out of it. I have a lot of work to do in between now and then. There is a four day application period next month, and if they receive more than 300 entries it will go to a lottery. Should I not get in, the back up plan is Pine 2 Palm in Oregon.

We had a great run finally finding the correct route for the Mendocino Coast 50k for the segment we keep going wrong on. Not lost, since both times we have found fabulous trails for training runs, but not the route we were looking for. It was quite the climb today:

Profile for Miles 9-16

Ignore the last mile on the chart, we ventured a little way down the next section, so the last mile is our climb backtracking up to the truck. From this point it's mostly down hill and flat all the way to the finish! There are some gorgeous trails in store for the runners. I took a little video on our way back (excuse the loud breathing - don't video when going uphill at the end of your run on a mostly uphill route...)

 I was trying to practice breathwork today.  Breathe for 3 steps in, and 2 steps out. Turns out I'm not great at counting, and moving my feet, and breathing, all at the same time. I would get the hang of it, be able to go back to chatting, then get myself all confused again and have to start over. Who knew such basic skills were so hard to combine. Guess that's my homework for the next couple of weeks :)