RNR Recovery and Amsterdam

I've been super lazy on the workout front ever since I bailed on the San Jose Rock 'n Roll Half.

How Lazy?  Well, let's just say I did Bikram the day after, and then didn't do a single workout until arriving in Amsterdam the AM of 10/12, whereupon I commenced my standard travel cross-training regimen of personal physical transit coupled with all the good local beer, wine, and food that my belly can handle.

Amsterdam is a beautiful city full of canals and bikes.  (Also, it is a direct flight from SFO and a good, fun weekend layover city if you're headed to Barcelona). 

It's such a bike-friendly city that our hotel had bikes for free use.  We took full advantage and it was awesome.  I did much walking, biking, and sight-seeing, but no running in Amsterdam.  So, despite several miles of non-running self-propelled transport, and some bikram, I completed my first run-free week in quite some time.  (Also, I was ridiculously relaxed.  I'm hoping these two facts are unrelated.)

Typical Intersection with bike and walk lights

Rijksmuseum

One of too many canals to name

Gorgeous street night view. 

Self-explanatory.

Night bike and canal view.

Royal Palace

One of many ridiculous red light district views.

Red light district part 2.

Transitioning out of the red light district...

A fashion alley to make @Arvay proud...

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Barcelona: A Short Story

On our last full day in Barcelona, after an awesome Bikram Class, I went in search of delicious goodies to take with us on our next travel leg. Since it treated us so well last time, I originally planned to go to to the Boqueria, or Mercat St. Josep:

The Entrance to the Boqueria on La Rambla

One of the many awesome preserved meat vendors.

Fruits

Escargots (en Catalan) -- one of the examples of how Catalan sometimes makes more sense than Spanish to me.  I do *not* know the word for snail off the top of my head in Spanish, but I do in French, and it's pretty close to the Catalan.

So many delicious olives!

And while I love food markets in general, my real goal was to re-create the scene below, only with me doing the selection of meat instead of E.

Because we'd already seen the Boqueria, and there are so many markets in Barcelona, I decided to walk to one that was well-reviewed, less touristy, and closer to our hotel:  The Mercat de Sant Antoni.

It was a lovely walk.

Tortoise Sculpture Under Naked Children

Typical intersection -- love the trees, ironwork, architecture and pedestrian and bike-friendliness of this city.

Unfortunately, despite checking the website for hours and concluding I should be able to get there during operating hours, my plan had a flaw:

Not what I wanted to see...

Looks like a gorgeous market that will be even better when the reconstruction is finished.

Even with the disappointment, this story has a happy ending.  The supermarket near our hotel had several displays like the one below, plus aisles upon aisles of preserved awesomeness and a bakery and a butcher ready to slice anything and everything I might desire.  Did I mention I love this country?  

In keeping with tradition, we will have amazing sandwiches on our travel leg out of Spain.

The End.

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SJ RNR 6 miler

Yeah, you read that correctly.  6 miler.

Yes, I had registered for and half-assedly trained for the half.  But it was not to be.

I decided the night before that the weather was not on my side, so I'd just take it easy and do a nice easy half.  Given the Zoom Point Pinole half time of 2:09, I'd previously thought I could target an attempt to beat last year's time of 2:06:25. It's a fast course, whereas Zoom Point Pinole had some hills and gravel, so I figured it was possible.  But, after a long week of work, a predicted high in the 80s, and the knowledge that no matter what I wasn't in close to PR shape, I decided to just start a corral behind my assigned location and go for an easy long run.

The last 2 weeks before the race were pretty lame on the training front. My last long run was supposed to be 10-12 miles, but I settled for 8 with F at a 10:30 pace on Friday before a weekend off in Santa Cruz.  The last week was simply 8 miles total, all easy jogging or walking except 10X1 min fartlek in one run and 3 miles containing 1.75 miles of speed/strength work at 8:49; 8:34; and 8:06/mile paces.  I took the last 2 days completely off before the race due to work and a quick visit to my hometown to see my mom, a friend, and to go to dinner with my bro and niece and to watch her soccer game.

In other words, I was *very* tapered.

Saturday -- I just made it back to San Jose in time to pick up my bib.  I was supremely annoyed with myself because I'd gone to family court in downtown San Jose on Friday before I'd left town, but I'd completely forgotten about the expo that was one block away from the court.

Obviously, if you forget about the expo and bib pick up, you're not exactly excited to race.  And I wasn't.  But I'd paid the registration fee and trained without a GPS watch, so I was committed.

On Sunday, I got up, parked in my usual spot, used the bathrooms in the convention center (so much better than the porta-potties), and walked to the corrals.  It wasn't as hot as I expected, and I headed out at a nice easy effort.

I was shocked to hit the one-mile marker at 9:12 -- due to my broken watch I had no idea what pace I was running, but it *felt* like a 10ish pace.  No complaints here.

I kept my effort nice and easy and hit the 5K at 29:24 and re-assessed.  Perhaps I *could* beat my time from last year.  That would be nice.

At some point right around this time, I saw Paulette up ahead in her Oiselle tank, so I sped up a bit to chat with her.  I lost her at the aid station, but that was fine.  I walked through nice and slow taking in gatorade and water and got back into my easy groove.

Somehow, I missed the 4 mile marker, but hit mile 5 at an average pace of 9:35.  Thanks to walking through the aid stations, I was slowing, slightly, but, I was surprised at how great I felt and still thought that it was very possible I may be able to dig deep and just squeak past last year's time. 

My favorite part of this course is the out and back where you get to see the leaders.  As soon as they started to approach us, I checked out and cheered and ran, inspired, during this portion.  Fast runners are so cool to see.

Unfortunately, something happened while I was checked out.  I'm not really sure what it was, but when I hit the 6 mile marker, I hit the lap button on my watch (9:56/mile -- apparently cheering slows me down) and realized that I had a sharp pain in my left quad and hip flexor with every step.  This had happened at the end of the SLO marathon and Point Pinole as well -- in both races I'd had searing pain the last couple of miles and had obviously pulled my hip flexor and quad.  But in those races it had set in at mile 10 and mile 22 respectively.  Here, it was setting in at mile 6.  And I was running away from the start line.  There was no way this was going to end well if I continued.

Could I have finished?  Absolutely.  Did I want to?  Nope. Not if it meant I would injure myself or be in pain for the next 7.1 miles.

So, I decided to throw in the towel.  I stepped across the opposing traffic of speedy folks and hit the sidewalk for a nice 2 mile cooldown walk back to the start.  I stretched later in the day and met up with a friend I hadn't seen in years for brunch after her 2:01 finish.

The next day my leg was slightly sore, but obviously just fine.  So, I'll take the 6.1ish miles at 9:40ish pace as a good solid effort.  My only regret is that I didn't realize there was a 10K mat.  It would have been nice to have an *unofficial* time for the distance, but since they seem to have erased all evidence of my participation in the race due to my DNF, it really would have only been for my own short-term enjoyment on Sunday when my 5K result was briefly available with a "Runner may have stopped running?" qualifier.

Take home on running without a GPS watch?  Meh.  There are some benefits.  I slowed down more than I realized on my long runs and it didn't seem to negatively affect my race paces too much, so perhaps that's the benefit I'll take away.  Easy runs should be crazy easy.  I can do that.

Even so, I'll likely buy a replacement GPS watch this week.  I just like data too much... 

 

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