Had a wonderful weekend in Phoenix, always a pleasure to relax by the pool, eat til we burst, catch up with the fam and hang out with those kooky nieces!

The 'pretty' part of the LA to Phoenix drive.

So hip in the Beemer.

We celebrated Campbell's & Sinclaire's birthdays! Goofballs. :)

Sinclaire and Campbell LOVE their Uncle Chad, and it tickles me to no end to hear them constantly asking "Where's Uncle Chad? Uncle Chad, do you want to play hide and seek?" In the picture above they were "watching a movie" together, which was just about the cutest thing I ever saw so I had to snap a picture.

Sigh... vacations are always much too short, aren't they?

Quick update and thence - To The Phoenix!

Dropping by for a quick how-dyah-do, as we are on our way to Phoenix for three wonderful days visiting with Jim, Patti, Grandma O, Erina, Jeff, Sinclaire and Campbell! Whew!! It's gonna be a full house. And a full pool. :) Chad and I love taking road trips together, and golly have we taken a few. It'll be so nice to get out of LA for a bit, and we can't wait to see our family for the first time in six months, especially those little nieces!!

Things have been rather busy around here I'd say! Chad did a commercial, I shot a short movie for the web (coming soon!), and the both of us have been going out on a good number of auditions. In fact, Erika and I are interviewing to become members of a theatre company on Sunday, and I have callback for "The Seagull" on Monday, a play I have always wanted to do. Not sure if any of it will work out of course, but the nice thing is that if one thing doesn't pan out around here there is ALWAYS something else just around the corner.

(On set for "The Set Up", the short I did.)

We start our official marathon training program on Monday, which is pretty exciting, too! I think we'll be running between 16 and 30 miles per week - not too much, so hopefully I won't injure myself. But I gotta new plan that includes lots of core and strength training, which has already seemed to help. I also discovered this amazing online tool that helps me track my training, nutrition, everything! Now if only I had a Garmin , then I would be the hardcore running nerd I aspire to be.

I tell ya, there are so many different great things on the horizon right now, so many different paths to take! I drive myself absolutely crazy trying to figure out what I'll do down each path, when I know I should just take the journey and figure it all out when I get there. God has such amazing plans for each of us, and I know we never quite understand the scope and magnitude of it all. But He does! And I'm trying to trust in that through all my excitement and live in the now.

And now we are going to Phoenix!

The clouds parted today...

...so I snapped a few sun drenched pictures. Now I'm off for a 6 miler...in short sleeves!

Ten on Ten :: June Gloom

Race Report - Fontana Days Half Marathon

Race: Fontana Days Half Marathon
When: June 6th, 7:30am
Course: 13.1 Miles with over 2000 feet drop in elevation
Time: 1:45:12
Weather: VERY chilly and windy at the start, warm and sunny at the finish

My legs are still grumbling at me after 13.1 miles of fast downhill running, but it's all worth it: I got my PR, and avoided any serious injury! :)

Some quick hits on Fontana for you:

Brrrrrrr so cold and windy at the start line up in the misty hills of the San Bernadino National Forest... Pretty, but get this thing going already!

Friendly folks at the start line, including an older man in front of us with a "100 Marathon Club" shirt on. We overhear that his first marathon was in 1978, and now that he's run 100 marathons he's working on 100 1/2 marathons. Wow!

We warm up fast with a nice quick pace going downhill the first half, I figure around 7:30 per mile, and no side cramping!

...At the beginning of a race or long run I tend to get this song in my head to keep my breathing even (Charlotte Martin's "The Dance" -- bum-buh-duh-bum, bum-bum-bum, bum-buh-duh-bum, bum-bum-bum...). But around mile 6 it slips out of my ears and all I have is breathing -- in-hale, ex-hale, in-hale, ex-hale...

Mile 7, our pace eases up a little due to a bathroom break and shortly after that an unfortunate strained hamstring for Chad. But together we push on towards the finish line, slower than we want to due to the injury, but still crossing the line together at 1:45:12 - PR for both of us, 8:02 pace per mile average, and pretty darn close to my goal time! And not only that, I placed 8th of 54 in my age division!




Both of us are certain we could have done better time wise had it not been for Chad's hamstring pull, but in the words of Sam Elliott, "Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes...well, he eats you." In the end we both PR'd, and now we have a great benchmark to shoot for next time we do a half.

Which probably won't be for a while, since now we are focusing on the Long Beach FULL Marathon! Here come those 20 mile long Saturday runs... :)

Fontana Days Half Approaches!

Chad and I are gearing up for our next race - the Fontana Days Half Marathon is this Saturday! I have probably been a bit of an annoyance this week as it is all I talk to Chad about: what time we'll have to get up, how long it will take to get there, what we should eat beforehand, where we'll go out for breakfast afterward... I find it helps me calm down about the race itself when I visualize what it will all look like, even if nothing goes accordingly.

This is my second half marathon, and in spite of that I don't really know what to expect... this race is very different from the City of Angels half, most notably because it is entirely downhill. So even though my training has not been as intense for this race, I will probably PR significantly, and I have NO idea what that PR will be. Now you might think that a PR on an entirely downhill course isn't very fair, and I thought that at first as well. But then I realized, "hey... a huge PR like that just means I have an even higher goal to aim for at the next half." And that is my plan - whatever my time is on Saturday, however insanely, shoe-meltingly, smoking fast it is, I'm shooting to best it whenever I do a half again.

I will probably need someone to hold me to that...

My main concerns with this race are twofold.

#1: Avoiding side cramps. This is my big issue with downhill running, the jarring foot strikes put me in stitches, so to speak.

Solution: regimented breathing, engage abdominals and relax.

#2: Avoiding hip/knee injury. I've been very careful with my training since screwing up my hip earlier this year, and I do NOT want to reinjure anything now.

Solution: Pre & post race hydration and serious stretching.

Other than that, my race plan is to start easy, keep even pacing, take short & quick steps, and save some gas to burn in the final mile.

Goal time: 1:45:00

Wish us luck!