Valencia Hills

This weekend, my family and I decided to take a trip up to L.A. to visit my sister and her family. After renting for a year and watching home prices plummet, they found a great house in Stevenson Ranch. Our kids are similar in age and love playing together, so we figured it would be a fun time hanging out for the weekend.

I had an 8 mile run with 8/100m strideouts on schedule for Saturday, and because our day in L.A. was already filled with a trip to see Noah's Ark, dinner, and a movie, I decided that it was best to run early Saturday morning. Knowing that I had a 14 miler that I was going to run the next day, I decided to run around 9:00/mile pace. It was great being outside early in the morning just as the sun was rising. There's something therapeutic about being outdoors with the mountains in the background, sun just rising, wind in your face, and no one to have to share the world with (except for a few other runners!). It was a little chilly out, so I wore my gloves. My hands always get cold for early morning runs. The rest of my body always acclimates within the second mile and stays relatively warm. The run itself was relatively uneventful, but peaceful. At the end of the run, I ran my strideouts. I really enjoy the speedwork that I only started doing this Pfitz cycle. It's definitely challenging, but it's the favorite part of my workout. Here are the numbers for this run:

8.0 miles/1:09:17/8:40 pace

Sunday's run was a 14 miler, the longest since my injury a few weeks ago. Because I was staying in L.A. until Monday, I knew that I would have to run this in my sister's neighborhood. I initially mapped out a 3.5 mile loop in her area that I figured I would just run 4 times. When we got to my sister's house on Saturday, I decided to drive the route so I would be used to the turns and the street names. Turns out, my sister lives in a pretty hilly community. They're up on a big hill so there's nowhere to run but downhill, which means that I'd have to run back uphill at some point. After driving through the route, I made the decision to not run the 3.5 mile loop 4 times. The uphill climb back up to my sister's house was a mile long, and I figured that if my legs were pretty shot after the first loop, I wouldn't go back down and would end up running a short 1/2 mile loop on the street where my sister lived, 20 times to make up the last 10 miles of the run. Instead I decided to let my legs take me in every different direction, as I descended the initial hill and then down another hill into a retail district. There, I made a few loops around the shopping center. I started my run at 7 a.m. in the morning so there was very little traffic.

After getting to mile 12, I decided it was time to run back up the hills. I picked the street with the most gradual slope and began the uphill portion of the run. Because I had run even further down the hill than I had originally planned, I had a 1.5 mile climb with 500 ft. of elevation. The first mile was okay, as I slowed down my pace and shortened my strides. However, the last half mile was the steepest portion and I had to break down the climb into shorter portions where I would identify a spot ahead, run to it and then take a short 10 second break. Eventually I got up to the top, ran an additional .5 mile to get me to 14 miles in all. This hill was definitely the most challenging hill I've run, more so because of the length of the hill, more so than the steepness of it. The run overall was good, but hopefully not too taxing on my legs. I have a pretty big mileage week coming up. Here are the numbers:

14.0 miles/2:11:51/9:25 pace

This week is my Spring Break, and I'm looking forward to getting lots of rest, spending time with my family, and focusing on the 55 mile week ahead.