Weekend Running

This past weekend we attended two running race events, back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday. At first I wasn’t sure if I could handle two races in a row, but now that I’ve completed both I can say that I’m glad we did it, we had a lot of fun. Even though I’m sore this morning it was a good challenge to push my body further into better shape and it made for a great experience.

The Great Race of Agoura Hills

The first race was on Saturday was The Great Race of Agoura Hills, a series of 5 different runs that included two half marathons, one trail and one road, a 10k, a 5k, and a kids mile run through the suburbs of Agoura Hills, California. Jenny signed me up for the Old Agoura 10k run, my very first 10k event run, while she did the Chesebro Half Marathon.

For some reason I went into this run thinking it was going to be mostly a trail run, but I was wrong, it was pretty much all road except for about 200 meters on a dirt trail. Still it was a nice run through Old Agoura neighborhood, many of the ranch style homes had horses. Being that this was my first 10k run my goal was to try to run it nonstop at a steady pace. To my surprise I was able to do keep at a controlled pace throughout the entire run and finish it without ever walking! I even surprised myself with a burst of energy over the last stretch as I sprinted down the last hill and once I saw the finish line I was hauling ass as fast as I could. It felt fantastic!

I finished my first 10k run in 1:04:50!

Jenny got the real trail run on the Chesebro Half Marathon, after about 3 miles they got off the road and into the dirt paths climbing up Cheeseboro/Palo Comado Canyons. Odd that the race uses Chesebro but the trail goes into Cheeseboro, I don’t know if they got something mixed up or if that’s on purpose as there is a Chesebro Road. Anyway, it was a good challenging run that reminded her of the Bulldog trail at the Malibu State Creek Park. Jenny finished with an official time of 2:2:59, a great time for a half marathon on a trail with over 800 feet in elevation gain.

Xterra Black Mountain Trail Run

My alarm clock when off at 3:55 am on Sunday morning. Since we live in Valencia, CA and the Xterra Black Mountain Trail Run is all the way down in San Diego, CA we had a good two and half hour drive ahead of us to make it in time for the race start at 8:00 am.

We got out of the house by 4:45 am and were on the empty roads heading south.

The Xterra Black Mountain Trail Run is a smaller group run that had two runs for this event, a 15k and a 5k. Jenny was doing the 15k and I did the 5k, my first official trail event! However once we got there the announcer said the 5k is was closer to 4 miles, my Nexus One GPS mapped it out to 3.88 miles.

We were a bit concerned about the weather as it was expected to be raining. As you know, when you mix rain and trails you get mud, so this could have potentially been a very dirty run. When we left the house we were getting a light drizzle, but it cleared out as we headed further south, it was nice and mostly clear when we arrived at Black Mountain. The temperature was in the 40’s and there was a mild wind that made it extra chilly as we waited for the race to start. We really lucked out on the weather, afterwards as we were heading home, once we were in L.A. it was pouring rain!

Once near the start line we met up with our running friend Mayra. Jenny and her did the 15k trail run while I did the 5k run. It was a good all-trail run through green rolling hills in the Black Mountain Park. The trail finished off with a few challenging hills that got me walking. Still, even with a little uphill walking I was able to complete the run with a finish time of 41:59. Not too bad, but I gotta work on being able to steadily control my running while going up hill.

Jenny and Mayra had not seen each other since the Las Vegas Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon a few months back, so they took their time on the 15k trail and caught up on life. This was good as Jenny had the half marathon she completed the day before. We were there towards the end of the event and they were giving away a bunch of the extra food, we ended up walking away with five bags of Bare Naked granola, a box of Kashi cereal, and a bunch of protein PowerBar‘s.

Field of Wild Daisy Flowers

I didn’t really notice it when we parked, however when we got back to our car after the race I noticed that we were next to a field of blooming wild daisy flowers. I didn’t bring my good camera but I had my phone and iPad with me so I ended up snapping off a bunch of pictures on the iPad.

It was beautiful with golden-yellow flowers in the green fields and blue sky’s.

New Trail Running Shoes

While picking up our bib and gear at The Great Race of Agoura Hills Expo there was a shoe vendor that had loads of shoes for $50! I ended picking up a pair of Saucony Peregrine trail shoes. I used the Xterra trail run to break them in. They are very different from the Nike Bowerman Zoom shoes that I’ve been using over the last 7 months.

However I’m not sure if the Peregrine shoes are right for me, the inner bottom arch felt like it was lacking the support that I’ve grown accustom to in my other shoes, and my feet were regularly trying to use that support but it wasn’t there and I was constantly compensating. It might just be that I need to adjust to this shoe style or maybe it’s not the right one for me. We’ll see. I still want to try the Newton road and trail shoes.

Overall it was an awesome weekend of running activities, friends, and good health.

Resources

• The Great Race of Agoura Hills
• Xterra Black Mountain Trail Run
• Terry’s Old Agoura 10k run on dailymile
• Terry’s Xterra Black Mountain 5k run on dailymile
• Jenny’s Chesebro Marathon on dailymile
• Jenny’s Xterra Black Mountain 15k run on dailymile

Have you run either of these events? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below and thanks for reading!

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