Belated Donut Celebrations and Back to the Long Runs!

Happy Monday! Ready to start a great week? I am so excited to get through Monday-Thursday because from Friday- Sunday, I am going up to San Francisco! I am going up for a work event and Anthony is coming. When I’m not working, I’ll be visiting all of my friends that moved to San Francisco after graduation. Favorite city with my favorite friends- it’s going to be a good time!! The lines for all donut shops on National Donut Day were crazy!!! I postponed the celebration until Saturday morning. After an hour and twenty minutes on the trainer, this coconut chocolate donut sure hit the spot. The rest of Saturday consisted a lot of relaxing, time on the couch, and with my good friend, Netflix. Bo Burnham just came out with a new comedy piece that Anthony and I found hilarious. Near tears at some of his jokes!! This Snapchat was pretty accurate with a cute snoozing pup next to us:) Sunday ended up being a lot more of a productive day, starting with an early puppy training class, then acai bowls in Pacific Beach. Does anyone else have problems with their name being spelled correctly? Happens to me all the time no matter where I go. Post acai bowls was time to go up to Encinitas for a new bike helmet at my favorite bike shop, Nytro Multisport, and then a visit to the best dog park I’ve ever been to. Anyone in San Diego with a pooch, I highly recommend the Encinitas Community Park. It is family and kids friendly with baseball and football fields, play areas, and a skate park!Does anyone know how we can get a puppy to look at the camera? Since we don’t end up in Encinitas very often, we wanted to take advantage of local hot spots and of course, had to cross of a brewery on our list, the Lost Abbey. And finished off the day with 7 treadmill miles. Great way to end the day and I’m so happy to be incorporating long distance running back into my schedule 5 weeks after surgery. I was feeling pretty bummed when I woke up this morning because it was the first time in 4 years I wasn’t doing some version of the Rock n Roll 1/2 Marathon or Full Marathon. Excited to get back out there soon stronger than ever. Had to sit on the ground for awhile after that one. Thank goodness for a cold bottle of water and Miss USA playing at the gym to keep me entertained during my stretch and cool down period.

A Blog Post Sure is Hard to Type with One Hand…

So remember how I was super excited to race my first triathlon? And how it’s been a race I’ve been training for about 4 months? And I was super excited to just get my race season started in general? But also remember how I’ve mentioned that sometimes life happens and it’s a good thing I’m not a pro and this sport is just something I do for fun? Well… good thing I had that perspective… Because I broke my collar bone on Friday… In preparation for my first triathlon that was suppose to be this upcoming Saturday, I took my new tri bike out to Fiesta Island with a girlfriend, Jackie. I tried to come out of aero position and next thing I know, I’m waking up in the hospital trauma center with a broke clavicle and a couple doctors saying I need stitches in my head. Don’t worry everyone. My bike is just fine and I took the hit for both of us ;) In the x-ray, you can see where my left collar bone is disconnected from my shoulder and another bone found its way to be lodged in the middle. Super fun stuff that is going to require a bit of surgery to realign my collar bone with my shoulder but at least I get to be bionic woman in a couple days after the surgery! Throughout this entire process, I’ve been trying to stay positive. I’ve had such wonderful friends and teammates who have been visiting and sending their well wishes. Thanks to Rocio, I have all the fruit my heart could desire- how did she know chocolate covered strawberries were my favorite? Alberto and Talia brought over flowers, food, and enough laughs to make my collar bone hurt- but the good kind of hurt that I needed after a rough 48 hours. Jackie is just as big of a coffee feen as I am and knew there was nothing I would like more than a big cup of coffee, breakfast, and a good heart to heart the next morning after a sleepless night in the hospital. Not to mention she was brave enough to take me out on my first ride in a new bike and was cool as a cucumber during and after the crash. My coach, Felipe, visited right after the accident, providing me with positive next steps and reassuring me the rest of my season wasn’t ruined. Despite having a broken collar bone, I spent an hour crying to him about how I was going to lose all my fitness and progress and him knowing exactly what to say to get me out of that funk. Then of course, my saviors, Jason and Christine who kept me from starving after the cafeteria closed and the nurse was only able to provide me with chocolate pudding and juice. Never have I ever been so happy to see carne asada fries- not even when I was drunk. Big shoutouts to emergency puppy sitters like Andrea, Brittany, and Alex. Love Anthony’s family for their love and support and my roommate Marie for providing my first meal home. Adam, thanks for sharing all of your collar bone injury experience, including some great surgeons. Oh and of course Anthony. Thankful for his entire existence. Poor guy has seen me in the ER one too many times this year. There are so many people and things and blessings for me to be thankful for. But, I’m still human and underneath the sling and stitches and appreciation for all my loved ones, is grief, anger, frustration, and fear. Grieving over the progress I’ve made the last 4 months in swimming, running, and cycling. Anger that I would do something so clumsy right before a big race (goodbye Duathlon Nationals in a month as well). Frustration that I feel completely and totally useless for a couple of days. Who knew having two arms would be so valuable?! And fear. Gosh for anyone who knows me, knows I pretty much pray every time before (ironically, this is the one time I didn’t…), and after I get on the bike and literally stress myself out before every ride about getting into an accident. I ride painfully slow and do whatever I can to ease my anxiety before a ride. Slowly but surely, the fear and paranoia have been replaced by the thrill and excitement of riding with my teammates and new adventures. Until Friday. That is the square one that will take the longest to build back up.Onto the road to recovery and missing runs like above more than anything!

SoCal Ragnar Relay Recap: Best 2 Days of My Life

Good morning everyone! Hows your Tuesday going so far? My past two mornings have been a little tough getting out of bed post-Ragnar and my brain has felt like mush up until today, so I can finally type out a recap! Let me just start off by saying, Ragnar was the most incredible experience. The teamwork, the friendships, the laughter, the running, the sleep deprivation… 100% worth it for this experience. We made sure we packed a lot of food and baby wipes to last us through the next few hours!I was in van 2, so we couldn’t start running until van 1 one finished their first legs. We got to start a little bit later (sorry van 1 for having to wake up at 5) and drove to exchange 6 to hang out, stretch, check out the expo they had, and stock up on Nuun! Here comes Janice, meaning it was our turn to start!And van 2 has started! Brandon was leg 7 and I was leg 8, so I spent the entire time during his 12 miler feeling extremely impatient to start running. I wasn’t scheduled to run until 5:50PM and as a morning runner, I experienced a lot of angst waiting for my turn. The last few minutes before Brandon was scheduled to come in so I could take off! For Ragnar, any time from 6:30PM-6:30AM is considered night time and you have to be wearing reflective gear- even though I started my leg around 5:50PM, it was going to be considered “night time” once I started going. My first leg was 9.3 at 7:55 min/ mile! My coach and I discussed Ragnar strategy of having two tempo runs and 1 marathon goal pace run during Ragnar. I didn’t believe I could do it and kind of regretted how fast I ran the first leg!!  This one was a little tougher- 5.4 miles in the dark at 2:30AM! I was definitely feeling a little anxious about running this leg, especially since the longer your leg is, the less people in between you there are. However, something about the fear and adrenaline caused this leg to be ran at a 7:56 min/mile average, knocking my two tempo runs out of the way! The next morning after our van finished by 6AM, we found the nearest Denny’s we could for real food. Even diner food tasted good after nothing but peanut butter, bread, pretzels, and bananas. It didn’t necessarily feel good a few hours later, but no regrets in the moment. My last leg was the toughest- 8.8 miles through La Jolla. I was definitely familiar with my surrounds and where I was running since I’ve ran a lot in these areas but I didn’t know if my legs could handle such heavy elevation. Finished in 9:19 min/mile, 19 seconds slower than my marathon goal pace! I’ll attribute that to all the hills ;) Anthony and I both finished our legs! Time for 3 more teammates to finish theirs before we have finished our FIRST RAGNAR! Rachel was our last leg so we were so excited to run to the finish line with her. She absolutely killed it, sprinting the 100 meters, making it very hard for us to follow! 29 hours, 22 mins, something seconds later, and our SoCal Ragnar Relay was done! We probably got a total of 2 hours sleep during that entire trip, but it was well-worth it. I am hooked and ready to relay again! Medals and beer- the perfect combo. Cheers to the perfect and best 2 days of my life! Oh yeah, my legs were in serious need of some TLC after. These elevation legs were great and served as massaging compression socks. I was a little skeptical at first but once they started, I was in heaven.