Happy Halloween!

2017 Year in Review

Yikes, I am well overdue for a year in review post.

I suppose the reasoning for that is pretty obvious.  As you can tell, my fitness commitment for the last year has been ... lackluster, to say the least.  And being that this is a somewhat fitness oriented blog, it's hard to admit publicly that I"m not working out enough.

Sure, sure - I have a good enough excuse for my lack of fitness with a new child in the house and all, but still!  In the end, an excuse is an excuse, no matter how good it may be.

Disappointment in fitness aside, my life has been filled with a lot of other fun things ... and still a few races despite it all.  So ... let's do this.  Let's recap 2017.

2017, a year in review!

Races

For 2017, all my excuses left me with the smallest race completion list ever on this blog - a whopping 7 races complete in 2017:

Tri-U-Mah, more aptly named "Dumpster Fire"

Bay to Breakers, easily my best race costume to date

Rainbow Run, a tradition 7 years running (literally)

Freedom 5, where I passed the torch ... again ... and again ... and again ...

Lake Run, my first family costumed race

Howl'oween Kids Run, where I spent my day chasing burgers

Terror Trot, the last of my costume recycling in 2017

Total miles raced - about 23ish miles

Cumulative info:

     Races 82 - 88

     Bibs 78 - 83

Costumes

As you can see above, I was somewhat less creative here in 2017.  This is partly due to the fact that I've saturated myself with race costumes over the last few years.  I mean ... once you've run as a pair of stewardesses with a pilot, a mermaid, a statue of liberty (handing out torches, no less), a unicorn, wonder woman, a skeleton, a hamburgler chasing hamburgers, a robot, a mariachi, a rainbow with a pot of gold side kick, a sriracha bottle, a Christmas tree (of sorts), and a woman on fire ... 

Well ...

Plus, my budget for InkNBurn clothing, and generally race registrations as a whole ... with an 18 month old in 4T clothing (yes, I said 4T clothing, as in the size of a 4 year old) ... you know where my money is going.  And it ain't on race registrations and workout gear.

Keeping Healthy

Yeah, may as well skip this category in 2017.  

Last year, I didn't complete the year of the swim (hence my lack of final recap there), I hardly did any races - and the few I did participate in weren't competitive anyway, and I even let my group fitness participation fall to the wayside.

Rather than focus on the negatives of 2017, what I will say is this: I got sick of being disappointed in myself late last summer, and have therefore started to work towards putting myself back on track.  

Right now, I can confidently say I am doing 4 group fitness classes a week (two of which I teach), am committed to starting back on a running program next week, and have signed up for year of the swim attempt #2.  

And ... I'm hoping that this re-commitment to fitness will help me in the weight gain area, as I am not happy with where that is a year and a half post baby (almost two years ... in April!) 

Changes

Aside from my fitness regime changes (at first in a bad way, and then in a good way), I am also learning to adapt to this "mom" thing.  Or rather, this "extra mom" thing.  Because, you know ... Talk Like a Pirate Day and Halloween are just two of the many reasons through out the year that I can dress mini me in a costume as well.

And honestly, my change in a "bad way" has actually been a good thing for me.  By carrying some extra weight right now, and by being "lazy" and not working out as much, I have had to practice self forgiveness and acceptance - two things that I have never been great at, but have gotten a whole lot better at in 2017.  So chalk one up to personal growth.

In regards to things NOT changing, I'm pleased to be able to say that despite having a child, my family's love for travel has not been lost.  In fact, we were fortunate enough to take two adventurous trips this year: San Francisco in the spring, and a summertime flying trip that carried us in a loop from Escanaba & Mackinac Island / Niagara Falls & Toronto / Dayton, OH / Madison, WI and then back home again.

Finally

In all of my year in review recaps, I take a minute to revisit my previous years of blogging ... and not to pat myself on the back this year, but it's kind of nice to see how I've grown:

2013 was when I was peaking in my physical fitness, my life was finally coming together, and I was feeling great about things.

2014 was a year of struggle where I tried to cope with a miscarriage, some physical setbacks, and I still tried to maintain a healthy attitude and life balance.

2015 and coming into my mid 30's, I finally settled into a happy place in my life.  Some time around 2012 or 2013, I learned to accept things in my life for what they were, and to eliminate things from my life that didn't make me happy.  In that process, I found an authentic me that I've just become ... happy with.  Which means, I don't really go into a year expecting it to be AWESOME or BAD anymore, I just hope that I can continue to maintain that authentic me, and have a good time while I do it.  

So aside from becoming a mom in 2016, and growing into that mom role in 2017 ... I just continue to focus on being an authentic me, looking forward to what more adventures are to come!

Rainbow Run 5K 2017 (7 Year Itch)

 

 

Rainbow Run 5K (3.15 miles) *short course, time below per chip

32:42

Average Pace 10:32/mile

Every year at the beginning of the Rainbow Run race recap I say this, so might as well repeat it again and officially make it a tradition: you may recall that I'm a founding racer for the Minneapolis Rainbow Run 5K.  Since the very first year it existed, I have run this race.

 

 

 

After participating in the Rainbow Run from 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and up through 2016 ... my sister and I are finally on lucky #7, AKA the 7 year itch.  Maybe that's why I thought this year's race was so uneventful?

Yeah, sorry to break it to you, but this is going to be a pretty lame race recap.  To make things better, at least I got a cool pre-race shot:

If you didn't know, the above photo is actually in downtown Minneapolis.  There is a super cool trail and bridge that leads into Boom Island Park.  I know I sing the praises of this trail every year but ... seriously, if you haven't been to this park, go check it out some time.

Anyway, on to race day.

For 2017, my sister and I broke tradition for this race and decided to park at the ABC ramps in downtown Minneapolis.  Typically, in year's past, we would park in a ramp at the end of the race course and then try to drive away from the parade route after the race.  But also typically, in years past, metro transit didn't close down Hennepin bus service pre-parade until closer to 9am. 

For some reason in 2017, Metro Transit decided to close Hennepin bus service at 8am.  Boo.  That meant for 2017, instead getting downtown butt early, or instead of walking almost 2 miles from our preferred parking ramp to the race start, my sister and I decided to split the difference by parking mid course at the ABC ramps.  This change required about 1 mile of walking to the race start, and then about 1 mile of walking post race back to the car.  The extra walking was no big deal either way, but we figured having 1 mile beats having 2 miles to travel pre-race when you're on a tight schedule and don't want to miss gun time.

The nice thing about this change is that we could delay our arrival time to downtown Minneapolis by about 30-45 minutes.  So we "slept in" (BAH!  6:30 on a Sunday morning -we are lush!), got dressed for the race, and arrived at check in with about 15 minutes to spare pre-gun.

Perfect timing.  We had just enough time to utilize the on site, flushing facilities ... grab our bibs ... and do a wee bit of people watching prior to the gun.

By the way, it seems like each year this check in process gets worse rather than better.  They never hang a sign at check in tables indicating which line is pre-registered and which is day of registration, and runners end up milling around in confusion debating which line to queue up in for check-in.  It kind of annoys me, since Pride uses Anderson Races to organize this event, and you'd think Anderson Races would have a little more sense on how to do these kinds of things.  (I do have to say, generally speaking, I'm not really impressed with Anderson Races.  Not that they're bad, but ... they aren't exactly top quality when it comes to race hosting.  In particular, I get a general feeling at the Rainbow Run that it's somewhat of a low priority, slightly unorganized mess each year.  And there is very little promotion from one year to the next that this race even exists, which is Anderson Races' job to do ... so ... I just dunno what to say.  Obviously it's not bad enough to make me stop coming to the event.  But I do think it's bad enough that the event won't ever grow beyond what it is now, which is a field of maybe 150 or so runners).

Regardless of the event organizer's quality of work ...

Thanks to the general confusion at check in, many runners were still milling around bib-less near to gun time.  That means come and go 9:30, we are still not even being directed to line up at the start. 

Slowly, just after 9:30, people begin to creep over to the start line.  Maybe an announcement was made to line up, but if it was, I couldn't hear the announcer from where I stood.

9:35 ... social media people are filming us with iPads to put up on Anderson Race's Facebook page.  Well, they are organized to promote POST event ... smh.

Waiting ...

Waiting ...

Per my watch, it looks like they finally staged us to get ready to start at 9:38.  Ok, only 8-10 minutes late ... I guess.  But considering the small field of runners and the literally 20' feet from check in to race start, there is really no reason for that.  Good thing my sister and I weren't worried about clearing the course within the time limit.

Bang - we run.

For 2017, we followed the same route as 2016, which has been generally the same route for the last three years (2014-2016):

 

Overall, the course is fairly flat and fast.  And typically, it's also ungodly hot.  Thankfully in 2017, the weather gods smiled on us and it was slightly overcast and cool.  (You'll notice, btw, that I finally got to wear my capris of choice for this race ... I ordered those rainbow lizard printed capris with this race in mind, not thinking about how smoking hot this course always is, and I never got to use them until this year!)

 

Though we ran the majority of the course, my sister's stress fracture ghost pains were rising from the dead just around the 1.75-2 mile mark, so we did take a brief walk break - as you can see in our splits:

What you may also notice, aside from our splits, is that my watch measured this course short once again this year.  While in years past this hasn't really bugged me, since this has always been billed as a "fun run", this year I did take some issue in the shortage.  That's because Anderson Races offered chip timing, which obviously leads to false time results since this is not a true 5K route (my previous GPS watch measured 2.9 in 2016 and my iWatch measured 2.8 in 2017).

I mean, compare my watch stats above (average 11:32 per mile) to the official chip results per Anderson Races (10:32 per mile).  While yes, it makes me feel good to "feel" faster ... it's not reality unfortunately:

 

Oh well.  Not that I'm exactly in tip-top shape this year anyway.  Imagine that, one year post childbirth and trying to take care of a soon to be toddler.  I'm not in shape.  How could that be?  (*sarcasm*)

In a tangent to that comment, I would like to say that overall I am pleased with my result on this year's course because, regardless of Anderson Races' chip time or my watch time, I was significantly faster than last year's pace.  Which yeah ... that isn't saying much being that I was barely 6-8 weeks post partum last race, but then again I haven't followed a running training plan in over a year either, so ... hey, I'm faster, I'll take it!

Of course, my sister is likely much less thrilled with our finish time, being that I drill sergeant-ed the hell out of her the last quarter of a mile.  But I mean ... when your original goal was to finish sub 35, and you can see the race clock is just barely 31 ... might as well get a 32 and change on your results, right?!

 

Heh.

As per the last few years, once at the finish line we were greeted with water, assorted snacks and finisher's Ts.  The last two years I have passed on everything food wise, aside from water, knowing that we were headed to Brit's.  But this year I saw bacon chips and said ... wth?  Why not?

The finisher's T this year was a nice fabric, though I wasn't really a fan of the overall design ... I guess it's a little too retro for my taste maybe?  That and, I just keep secretly wishing they'd do more with the name of this race and hand out some sort of super sweet rainbow design.

Actual shirt (ignore my 5- head ... sheesh it looks huge in that photo for some reason):

My dream shirt (AKA super rainbow fun time happy spectacular, which I'd gladly pay a higher registration fee for if it meant I would get it):

 

Oh - not shown in the above, we also got a free pair of socks again this year.  They were a less than attractive grey and blaze orange color combo.  Good thing no one can see the socks inside your shoes, eh?

After chowing (the less than delicious) bacon chips and slamming two bottles of water, my sister and I continued on to another race day tradition:

And after a few scotch eggs and some chicken pot pie, we happily headed back to the ABC ramps and took off for home.


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That's the story of how race bib #79 joined my collection - wow, I'm getting mighty close to 100 races!  (Though I doubt I'll hit 100 this year given my reduced training capacity after spending my days chasing a 1 year old around the house).  Regardless, here's to another race soon ... which will be reported on shortly, as I've already completed it, lol! 

Bay to Breakers 2017 (Rainbow Beads)

 

 

 

Bay to Breakers 12K (about 7.5 miles)

1:52:58

Average Pace 15:09/mile
*Hayes Hill Challenge: 10:07.67

I have been pining over racing Bay to Breakers for years.  Running?  Costumes?  Beaches?  Sunshine?  California?  Sign me up!

Yet, for some reason, every year since it came onto my radar, I've always been unavailable for Bay to Breakers weekend.  But ... in 2017 the stars aligned.  Well, technically, the stars started to align in 2016, as that's when my husband realized that point prices were REALLY low for airline and hotel reservations, and he had plenty of points (and then some) to cover us.

So late last fall, with my sister roped in to my shenanigans and our travel reservations booked, we started planning costumes for Bay to Breakers.  Because that's the most important part, duh!


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Thanks to Amazon, the starting point for our costume was this motor inflated set of wings:

And, immediately after receiving delivery of two pairs of wings via USPS, the starting point for my sister's smart ass comments (which paid homage to this race costume from years ago) was this:

Luckily, I did NOT need to run test these wings for flutter effect, since it was obvious they would work.  The elastic bands at the shoulders proved to be quite comfortable, and the wings were made of nylon, not vinyl like a typical inflatable is, so they seemed to feel fairly breathable (read - not sweaty to wear).  Plus, an added bonus was the motor fan that kept the wings inflated served as a nice personal AC unit.  Score!

Until race day, the rest of our outfit was a little bit of a toss up due to possible weather conditions.  Eventually we settled on a simple black wicking workout T and rainbow chameleon InkNBurn capris.

The net result ended up looking like this (don't mind my still saggy post pregnancy belly ... bah):

Yes, we got many questions RE: what we were supposed to be.  I don't know, don't ask me.  A butterfly of some sort, I suppose.  Although, in San Francisco we did get a lot of other interesting suggestions ... including rainbow vaginal beads.  Ok.  Huh.  Go figure.


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Traveling to San Francisco from Minneapolis went fairly smoothly, especially considering I had a 1 year old in tow on a 4 hour flight.  We had all taken Friday off work for travel, making for an especially relaxed day, which was nice.  Everything ended up about on time, and our mid day flight got us into SFO a little after 1 pm.

Although there had been some recent news stories in regards to crime on San Francisco public transit, I hadn't seen any headlines in the 2-3 weeks leading up to our visit.  Figuring the risk was relatively low, we hopped on the BART train from SFO to downtown.  The gamble proved successful, as we arrived to our hotel unscathed.

By the time we had checked in and settled into our hotel room, it was just after 3 pm.  The race expo was scheduled to be open until 7, and since we had a fair amount of time until it closed, it seemed worth a shot to head out that way.  I had read online that lines into the expo in years past lasted up to 3 hours, which sounded like no fun for a 1 year old, so I asked my husband to say back at the hotel with our son while my sister and I worked on getting our bibs.  That request proved unnecessary, as we were able to waltz right into the expo without any line at all.  I should have just had them come with.  Oh well, I won't complain!  No line is just fine with me!

Upon entry, we went to the wall to find our bib numbers:

And then off to check in to get our bibs and shirts:

After we got our bibs and shirts, we were dumped out into the sponsor area - Alaska Airlines was the person footing the bill for that this year, and their presentation was amazing! 

I was particularly fascinated with the giant streamer chandelier they hung from the ceiling, and the faux grass and carpeting they had for their entire section.

 

 

Oh - I should add here that it was the 50th anniversary of the "Summer of Love" in San Francisco, and to honor that anniversary, Bay to Breakers had chosen it as their theme:

Alaska Airlines, who ran with the theme 110%, had booths for tons of free stuff: photos in a hippy van, stations to make flower crowns and friendship bracelets (which included super cute enameled charms in shapes of peace signs, hippy vans, flowers, etc.), hippy themed temporary tattoos, and a station where you could get a live screened shirt of your choice (I chose a white, unisex shirt with a teal colored screen of the Bay to Breakers hippy bus logo on it). 

 

 

With so much free swag before I even got into the meat of the expo, my head was spinning ... or maybe that was just the contact high I got from the people smoking out on the street.  I dunno.  Heh.

The rest of the expo was your typical stuff - energy bars and drinks, store branded running gear, promos for other races and the like.  Since we had our fill of free things thanks to Alaska Airlines, we pretty much just glossed over the rest of the offerings and headed straight to the exit.

Overall the expo was very well organized.  I was amazingly happy about that.

With packet pickup out of the way Friday, Saturday we simply spent the day being tourists ... and pre race fueling, animal style of course.

 

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On race day, we were recommended via the official Bay to Breakers email to arrive into our corrals 45 minutes or more prior to race start (which was 8 am).  Having done other large races in the past, and knowing what a cluster corral entry can be, I was on board with that suggestion ... no questions asked.

Though our walk from the hotel to the race start for the most part was uneventful, my sister and I did have a brief moment of panic when a very ... not lucid ... homeless man started screaming things at us like "Imma slap the shit outta you bitches".  Luckily, we were able to quickly walk away from that scenario, and security at the starting area was very good, so no further problems ensued.

Though I did have a slight issue once inside, as I almost got a concussion from a corn tortilla.  Heh.

If you're new to Bay to Breakers, apparently this is a "thing" there.  Instead of bouncing around balloons or beach balls, racers bring packs of corn tortillas and throw them around like Frisbees.  It was extremely entertaining, and really broke down barriers among strangers in the crowd.  I mean, how can you not laugh if your neighbor (me) gets hit in the head with a stray tortilla and goes "ah!" as you are standing there waiting for gun time? 

Since I had read that most people vastly over estimate their race pace, my sister and I registered for the 4th group to be released on course - corral B (8-9 minute miles).  I knew this might be slightly aggressive when I signed up last fall, as my usual pace is closer to 10 when I'm in shape.  But from what I read in other reviews, if you didn't get into corral A ... or at least B ... you might as well walk the entire course.  Knowing I wanted to run as much as my body would let me, I definitely wanted to be in B.

Sorry not sorry.  I know I can't do 8-9 min miles over a 7+ mile course, but nuts to walking with a bunch of drunk back of packers (this race is known to get a little wild in the slower groups).

After the two elite groups were released, along with corral A, I realized I was just fine in corral B anyway.  With 20 minutes (roughly) on the clock, we were released, and many immediately began to walk out of the starting gate and onto course.

Even about 1 mile in, where my husband was scouting for pictures, people were still barely washing out to a 12-14 min pace.  It was a little frustrating, but I pretty much expected this given the size of the race.

 

 

 

 

To help pass the time, I began counting naked runners.  Yes, this is another "thing" at Bay to Breakers in addition to throwing corn tortillas at the start.

 



 

Another "thing" for Bay to Breakers is the "caterpillar" race category.  It's essentially a group of 6 people tied together who have to run the entire course at the same pace - which sounds pretty challenging when you think about the fact that everyone in the group must keep up with each other for over 7 miles.  I was pretty impressed by how many elite runners alone chose this option.

After counting about 12-15 naked runners, but seeing very few caterpillars, we came upon Hayes Hill.  For those of you unfamiliar with how horrendous running in San Francisco can be, let me present to you some photos:

 

 

Now, I couldn't find a good picture on the Google machine that showed Hayes Hill without people on it, but here is a similar San Francisco hill so you can get a feel for what I'm talking about, and an actually Hayes Hill elevation map for reference.

 



 

 

 

Yeah.  You let me know how you feel about running up that hill.  Especially knowing it is almost a mile long.

 

Seeing the above pictures, it should come as no surprise to you to hear that Hayes Hill is (1) the most difficult part of the course and (2) is known for being the biggest party spot of the entire race.  People with houses on course host huge parties on their front steps, and booze is offered all around for spectators and participants alike. 

 

Here's an example of one of the houses we passed in 2017 - you can see how it's basically like a giant frat party:

 



After experiencing some of the ... finer points ... of San Francisco on the days leading up to the race (ahem, bums pooping on sidewalks, people smoking strange things in public, ahem), I had my doubts about accepting anything from strangers on course.  My sister and I simply trudged up the hill and enjoyed the *sometimes naked* people watching as we went.

Hayes Hill is a little tricky, because while you're on it you think you've finally hit the last plateau a couple of times ... only to realize you still have another climb coming.  When it was finally obvious we had finished the climb (we passed the second set of chip readers indicating the special time read for Hayes Hill was over), my sister and I celebrated by partaking in our first water stop of the run ... and getting eye frisked by course security to ensure we had legit bibs and no booze in hand, both of which are large issues given the party environment on Hayes.

With the worst of the course behind us, my sister and I finished our celebration and water ... and then proceeded to be "parted" by various runners for the next 3 miles.  Apparently, our wings were an attractive gateway to be entered, and numerous silly runners opted to duck/run/dive in between us with their hands together in prayer position (much like you would to dive into a pool). 

Imagine this, but with more butterfly wings and less booty shaking

 

The majority of the runners who did this did so in good jest, cheering and laughing as they passed.  Knowing that we took up a fair amount of real estate on course due to our wingspan, and knowing it was part of the experience of Bay to Breakers, my sister and I took it in stride and just laughed.  To clarify though, it was never really like we were clogging the course, as things were tremendously spaced out at this point anyway and we were on a 4+ lane street.

With around 3 or so miles left of the race, we entered Golden Gate Park.  If you've never heard of this before (which I hadn't), it is almost like Central Park in NY.  In this aerial view, you can see how this massive stretch of green is almost out of place amongst the city:

 

 

I had no idea how beautiful this part of the run would be, and I loved every minute of it.  It was slightly hazy from the ocean fog, and fairly shaded due to the overhanging trees.  There were even old fashioned windmills and (fenced in) wild buffalo on course ... none of which would I have expected to see in the middle of such an urban city. 

 

While I didn't take many photos myself, here are a few I borrowed off Google for reference.

 



 

 

I really enjoyed this portion of the race, and for the Golden Gate Park piece of the race alone, I wouldn't mind repeating the run again in the future - that's how beautiful it was.  It was such a unique experience, and something I've never seen on any race before (which says something, being that I'm over 70 races complete at this point).

The only down side to all the trees and winding roads of Golden Gate Park was that it was pretty hard to tell where the finish line was.  Even with about a quarter of a mile left, I wasn't sure visually where we would end.  But - have no fear!  After passing a professionally hired group of Asian performance drummers, there it was.  The finish line arches were there, with the rolling ocean behind it.

 

Despite the large volume of runners, the exiting process was fairly smooth.  My sister and I both managed to quickly snag a bottle of water, our finishers medals, and a energy bar as a snack.  After milling around looking at what else there might be to eat or see, we decided that there wasn't much that interested us so we took off for the muni - which true to Natalie form, included going to the wrong side of the park (we wanted the N, but we were on the side for the 5, which required almost a 1 mile detour back through the park), boarding a train going the wrong direction, boarding another train that was packed like sardines, and having to stand for almost 45 minutes in order to get home.

Good thing we had pre-race fueled with a double cheese animal style at In-N-Out the day before.  After all that race day activity, and some more tourist roaming later in the day, we had earned it.

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And that's the story of how race bib #78 joined my collection.  Fortunately, I only had to see 37 naked men, and take a couple of corn tortillas to the noggin in the process.

Here's to another race soon!