Wrapping Up Running

The running "season" in Saudi is from September to March obviously due to the extreme heat.  Even in September it is still pretty hot.  As I recall, it was 43 degrees C on the first race of the season. (109 F) It really doesn't cool off until October but who can wait that long?

Looking back on the past season, I must say that it was not my year!  Between ITBS and constantly getting sick my running times all increased significantly.  Despite all this, the roadrunners was and is still my favorite thing to do in Saudi.  Such a nice group of people.

 Things started looking up around February of this year.  My ITBS started to subside and I managed to get my vitamin and mineral needs met so I stopped getting sick and felt better in general.  Unfortunately, by February the running season is almost over.  I did make it to the marathon in March, but Matt and I ran it as a team.  (We each ran half.)  My time for the half, was about 2 hours and 15 minutes.  No where near a PR, but a huge improvement over my dead last time of 2:38 back in December.  It was nice to end the season on a good run.  FINALLY!

Here is a pic of Matt's half of the marathon.  Clearly not a ton of people on the course! By the time he ran it was quite warm.  (Much better to run first if you can talk your partner into it!)

We also ran a 5K Terry Fox Charity Run about a week later.  I ran it in about 27:40 so I was happy with that.  It wasn't officially timed because it was a fun run but that's what my Nike+ said.  It was nice to just do a short run.  The long ones had been getting to me a bit.

This was us at the finish.  Our friends went for another couple of laps. 

We went straight to breakfast!

When I went home, I ran one more race.  It was just a 10K but it was a doozy of a course.  Luckily, it was super close to home so I was able to manage to squeeze in 3 training runs on the course itself.  It was the Verdugo Hills 10K Trail Run.  It conveniently worked out that the race was the day before we were set to fly back to Saudi.

This was my first ever trail race.  It was actually probably my first ever trail run.  I loved it! In fact, I can't believe I've never actually tried it before.

The race was 3.3 miles uphill on an average 9% grade.  Then, back downhill for 2.9 miles.  The course map and profile looked like this:

Since there are no hills like that anywhere near us in Saudi, I had to do all of my training at home.  The first time I ran the course it took me an hour and 23 minutes.  The next day my EVERYTHING hurt and continued to hurt for about three days.  A week later I ran it again and shaved off about 5 minutes.  I still hurt the next day but not nearly as bad as the first time. I skipped the next week due to vacation but I was able to get in one more training run a week before the race.  I stopped to take a few pictures because I knew I wouldn't have time to do it during the race.

 On the way up...

 Almost there...

 At the top!

Stopped on the way back down because a deer was on the path.  

The race was a week later and there were about 650 people there.  It was really only crowded at the beginning and after about the first mile, the crowd was better spread out.  The race was really well organized and they even hauled a port a potty all the way up there!  

My official time up to the summit was 49:04.  (Yes, there was plenty of walking going on in between bouts of running.)  My time on the downhill was 21:52.  Previous to this race, I think my fastest mile may have been an 8:30.  I always figured that the only way I would break 8 minutes would be to run downhill in a hurricane but evidently, I only needed the downhill part because I clocked 2 miles in the low 7's.  

New fastest mile, 7:11!  And, unless I run this particular race again, I will probably never see that time again!  This was also the only time I have ever run all out on a race.  At the end I had absolutely nothing left over.  A couple of people passed me at the very end and there was absolutely no room for me to go any faster.  Also, I don't think I could have continued at that pace for much further.  All in all, I was very proud of myself.  My final time was 1:10:57.  I was hoping to break 1:10 but I got pretty darn close considering I had only a month to train.  Overall, I finished 238 out of 653.  For my age group, I finished 7 out of 48.  

Going up!

We recently had the end of the year awards banquet for the road runners. It was held at the French Embassy in the DQ.  And, despite my less than stellar times I still won an award!  And it was really nice too.  It was for 2nd place in the Female Veteran category in the 10 mile series.  

There were three ten mile races.  Here we are at "The Maze." It was the last of the ten mile series.  I was the only female in my age group that showed up.  Also did I mention that overall I was second to last for this particular race? 

It was very cold and windy! Luckily it had rained the night before otherwise 

the dust would have been terrible!

Here is my award.  Really nice!  But less impressive when you know that there were only 4 female veterans total who showed up to race! Still, it is my favorite race, which is why I always showed up.  (There is a lot more competition in the 5K, 5 Mile and 10K categories.)  Also my time last year was a full 10 minutes faster than this year but Cest la vie!

Currently, I have only been running inside.  Not only is it hot right now, but it is constantly windy and therefore dusty.  It seems like there has just been sandstorm after sandstorm! Of course none of them have been quite as bad as my first real sandstorm (which was Mission Impossible 3 quality) but it's enough to keep me inside.  It's just too crunchy for me outside these days.  I don't remember it being like this for so long last year.  I guess I will just have to wait for either a vacation or for Fall.