I went back to school today after an AWESOME 3 week break. How did you spend your vacation? I got BUSY.
I had a great weekend up in the LA area. My cousins were in town and we spent all of Saturday hanging out. It was super fun. Here we are in Santa Monica. One of the shops had this cool ping pong table out front so we played!
My uncle is the only other person in my family who is as big of a fan of Magic the Gathering as I am and this was the very first time since I became hooked on the game that we got to play each other. It was an all out battle. I won the first 2 games and he won the third. But in all fairness, he had to play with my second deck which wasn’t as good as mine. He taught me a few things and it was a blast!
After spending the entire day together, I had to get ready for my race at Mt. SAC the next morning. I knew it would be a big invitational so I was excited. The course is pretty difficult. There are large hills, switchbacks, and challenging loops. After my walk-through, I just tried to stay hydrated and off my legs.
When it was time to head over to the starting line, I was surprised at how many runners were in my division. I think it ended up being around 120 runners. It definitely felt like it because there was hardly any room to squeeze in on the line! This was taken right after the horn sounded. I was on the far left (or far right in the photo).
And after the start…
Here we are on one of the big hills we climbed. Actually it was more like the second part of a double camel hump. We look like ants!
Here I am just about to start climbing through the switchbacks.
More climbing…
Still about another half mile to go.
And finally… the finish!
This was a tough course. I was really happy to have had a good result. Thanks for reading!
This past weekend I ran in the OC Youth Cross Country Meet in Yorba Linda. It was a beautiful day and a great, mostly flat course. This was the first official meet of the season and I was surprised to see so many teams and runners. In fact, my division, the 11-12 year old boys, was one of the largest with 50 runners.
I am on the far left, above. I’ve made some changes over the summer and have been working with a new coach and team. For many reasons, I’m really happy with the change. I do miss my old teammates, but I still see them at meets and we still have fun.
I ran a strong race and am pleased with my results. It was a great season opener, and I look forward to working my way up to new heights!
Until next time…
Everyone has different reasons why they run. I run because I truly enjoy it and I love the thrill of competition. Recently, I heard about a great organization that matches runners with children with special needs who can’t run themselves. You get to be a support for your buddy and exchange notes on facebook in a private group. It’s cool because the child and their family gain support and the runner gains a new friend!
I can’t imagine not being able to run and yet there are so many kids like me who can’t. I requested to be paired with a child and after waiting for several weeks, I was matched with a girl named Meadow. She is 3 years old and I like getting to see her overcome tasks like standing and playing with stacking blocks. She is really cute!
I keep her in mind whenever I am out running and sometimes having a tough time with my training. Here is a girl who has a lot of challenges herself and since she keeps going, I keep going. She helps me push through tough challenges.
Meadow is such a great buddy, I take her with me to school every day 🙂
The organization is called IR4 and you can find yourself a “buddy” here.
See ya 🙂
Woo hoo! This past weekend, I ran in the Junior Carlsbad Mile and the Carlsbad 5000. These are two of my favorite races because they are in my hometown, my teammates always run in it, too, and they have the best expo booths!
On Saturday, I ran in the 11 year old Mile race. This year was my 5th year in a row participating. I didn’t have a particular time goal in mind because I had experienced a bit of foot pain earlier in the week and wasn’t sure how it would go. I just wanted to have a good time and enjoy it. I felt pretty good and ended up with a new PR as well as my 4th win!
Afterwards, we watched the rest of our teammates race and some of us went to eat a huge pancake breakfast. Yum! Then we spent several hours at the expo getting new freebies and giveaways.
My buddy Connor, came over to my house afterwards and we had a blast playing dodge ball all afternoon. Ha ha! We always have a great time together, even at practices, too.
The next morning, I headed back to Carlsbad Village to run in the Carlsbad 5000 race. They had the music on super loud which I love. It always pumps me up.
This time I did set a goal. I wanted to get a new PR and break the 18:00 mark. My previous best 5K was 18:11 in Oceanside back in November. Everything went as it should have. I was well-warmed up and found a good spot at the starting line. We had about 8 minutes to go before the start time and I was just moving my feet, staying loose, when I looked down at my feet where my timing chip was. I took a closer look and saw that it wasn’t the timing chip. My mom, who had placed it on my shoe that morning, had mistakenly put the other side on and left the actual timing chip side at home!
I immediately ran to the side where my parents were standing and let them know the situation. With only 8 minutes to go, I didn’t know how this could be resolved but I tried to stay calm. My mom looked everywhere for a race official to see if they might have a spare chip. Of course, no one had one. But she found a very nice lady who got on her radio and called back to the registration booth to see if someone could run a new timing chip and bib over. She hung up and said they were on their way. By now we had only 3 minutes.
We had no idea if the new chip would make it on time so we talked about the options in case it didn’t. Did I want to wait for the chip and then run in a later corral after the gun, or did I want to start with the first corral without a chip and not get an official time? I told my mom that I wanted to run without the chip. Either way, I was going to time my race on my watch and it would be very close to the gun time. I was good with that decision. (Deep breath.)
At this point a lady began to sing the national anthem. I knew that as soon as she finished, the gun was likely to go off. All of a sudden, we spotted a race volunteer running toward us waving a bib. My mom immediately grabbed the chip and within seconds had it on my shoe. I was thrilled! But then we were told we had to also switch bibs. So we fumbled trying to get all four pins off and repin the new bib on. I could hear her singing and she seemed to be singing faster than any other person I’d ever heard. You know how sometimes they really draw out the song? This woman was NOT. As my mom was pinning the last pin, I heard, “..and the hommmmmmeeee of the braaaaaaaaave….”
Wow. We made it. I immediately cleared my head, got back to the line and took off. Yeah!!
It was a really tough race for me. I took too fast of a start and ran a 5:25 first mile. That’s only 5 seconds slower than my mile race the day before. So I slowed up a bit in the second mile to a 5:55 pace. Yikes, too slow. In the final mile, I picked it up in order to hopefully reach my goal. I managed to do it and ended up running a 17:56. Whew! Tough run, but always fun. I was really happy with the result. Sometimes unforeseen things happen where there’s nothing you can do. I was prepared to still run a great race with or without my timing chip. It was helpful to remain calm and just go with the flow 🙂
Some photos after the race:
Hey Friends!
I had the BEST day today. I went up north to the San Gabriel Mountains where my Sponsor, Puracyn is headquartered. There, I spent the day filming for a video they are putting together. I met several members of the Puracyn family, who were all super nice and funny. We started in the mountain where Mic, the cameraman took footage of me running in the hilly trails.
Here he is giving me instructions on what to do:
Right before my first run, I spotted a giant black rattlesnake slithering across the trail into the bushes. It freaked me out and I had to do my best to block it out. It was so long, all you can see here is its mid-section:
I ended up having to do several takes running up a long, steep hill and I have to say, it was pretty tough. I ended up getting quite a workout!
I also had to memorize and say some lines. I’ve never done this before so it was a little scary since I didn’t have much time to learn the lines! I didn’t want to hold Mic up too much by messing up a lot so I immediately started cramming the script into my head. The good news is, I am generally good at memorizing things 🙂
We did a few more short runs and then taped me talking to the camera. I had to do this a lot of times, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
Once we finished the speaking portion, we drove to the company founder’s ranch to do the rest of our filming. It was a really amazing place. There were dogs running free everywhere. They had a really beautiful pond with koi fish in it. I loved that I spotted a dragonfly whizzing around.
Mic picked a location for me to bike and then I got on the Puracyn bike for several takes! This was so fun because I had so much space to ride and the ranch was really pretty and peaceful.
Once Mic was happy with the biking footage, we moved on to the pool. It was a hot and sunny day so I thought, hey, that’s going to be so refreshing! However, the pool was not heated. In fact, the water was FREEZING!!! I’ve swam in really cold ocean temperatures without a wetsuit and always seem to be able to adjust to really cold temps but this pool seemed like the coldest I’d ever experienced. I had to wait a while for Mic to get his camera gear ready. Even though I wanted to get warm, I couldn’t resist the diving board. Every time I looked at it, I felt like I had to jump off it. So I did. And every time I came out of the water I would scream from the cold. Then I did it all over again.
After the swim portion, we were all done. I had such a great day and couldn’t imagine that it could get any better. But it did. On the ranch, they also had horse stables and a ring. When they heard that I had never been near a horse before, they asked if I’d like to take a tour of the stables. I said “Yeah!” When we got there, it was amazing. There were maybe a dozen stables with horses names on each door. The horses were really big and beautiful. It turned out that their very special and talented horse trainer was there and she asked if I would like to ride one. WHAAAA??? Um.. YEAH!! I couldn’t believe I was going to get to ride a horse right there.
The trainer’s name was Obbie and she was incredible. I thought she was going to hold onto the horse and walk him around with me. NO. She just gave me instructions of what to do and it was crazy. This was the most incredible thing. Me riding a horse for the first time.
Every time I got something down, she would stop and tell me something new to try. It was a jam-packed lesson. Hold the reins this way; kick with the opposite foot; give him a pat; lean that way; straighten your legs; make a clicking sound with your mouth at the same time… Oh my gosh, it was harder than learning the controls of a new DS game! But so fun!!! I eventually got “Dunny-Boy” to trot. That was awesome.
Wow, so after all that, it was almost 4pm and almost time for us to leave. We went to get cleaned up and load up the car with my gear and tons of Puracyn products (yeah!). Just before we left, Danielle, one of the team members, told us she wanted to show us something. So we followed her to another room and I couldn’t believe my ears and eyes. Everyone was singing happy birthday to me as they carried a cake full of candles. My birthday was a week ago and I have no idea how they even knew it had passed but I was really blown away. They made me feel so special all day long, it just kept getting better and better.
I had the most incredible day and experience- one that I will never forget, thanks to the Puracyn team. Here’s how the day ended:
I’ll be sure to post the video as soon as it’s ready!
Hey everyone!
I have a favorite running store. It’s called Road Runner Sports. Not only do they have the best shoes and a really awesome VIP program, but every month, they also have an “Adventure Run” where you are given a map with various checkpoints on it for you to run to and collect raffle tickets. That’s where I was tonight 🙂
The checkpoints are random and different every time so you have to do some planning in order to try and get as many tickets as possible. There are a lot of ways that you can earn extra tickets. For example, if you wear an Adventure Run T-shirt, they’ll give you double tickets at every station. Sometimes they might have you do burpees or pushups at the checkpoints for extra tickets, too. At the end of an hour, everyone runs back to the store with their tickets and the announcer will pull them out of a box to give away very cool prizes.
Last time, my mom, my sister, and I all did it and we won a $150 gift certificate to a Spa. My mom was very excited about that.
Tonight we didn’t win any prizes. They usually give away running shoes, Garmin watches, ear buds, and other great stuff, so I was hoping to win something like that this time, but oh well, we’ll try again next month!
Keep on running, keep on playing 🙂
Hi Friends!
Last weekend, I competed at my second track meet. It’s early in the season but I’ve been working hard bringing 100% to every practice. I was really pleased that I was able to cut 8 seconds off my 1500m time from 2 weeks ago, and 7 seconds off my 800m time. It’s so true that winning is determined by what happens before the game. The meat is in your practices– and the game is dessert!
This week was a very MEATY week. The workouts got harder and harder each day and I am so glad to have a rest day tomorrow. I think rest days are just as important as workout days. I will give it my 100%! ;P
Hi Friends!
After taking some time off, I’m back in full swing with track season. I had my first meet this past weekend where I ran the 1500m and 800m events. I felt pretty strong and am happy to be training with my teammates again. You can see my results here. Now that I’ve moved up to the 11-12 yo age division, I am hoping that my teammates will be interested in doing some 4x400m relays. I’ve always wanted to do that 🙂
Here’s a short video from last night’s practice. We did MANY of these in addition to stadiums and 200m repeats. It was fun!
In between sets… My thoughts? Every attempt is an opportunity. GO!
See ya!
This past weekend I participated in a really unique 5K race. I recently learned about this event through some friends of mine who were putting together a team. Chelsea King was a high school cross country runner and straight-A student from Poway, CA.
In 2010 she was murdered while doing a practice run after school. I don’t like hearing stories like this. Her story felt particularly bad to me because she was a runner and was hurt while doing what she loved.
I heard that her favorite colors were orange and blue, so the night before as I was getting ready, I pulled out some orange shorts and a blue tech shirt to wear. When I got to the race, I saw people carrying sunflowers. This was her favorite flower. As I looked around, there were sunflowers everywhere. Pictures of them. People carrying them. It was really cool. I thought about Chelsea and even though I didn’t know here, I could feel how much she is loved and missed.
I didn’t have a lot of time to warm up for this race because we arrived a bit late. It was really hard for my mom to find parking so I just made it to the starting line with about 15 minutes to go. I found a place at the start and jogged in place a bit and did a few standing stretches.
Once the horn sounded I was off. The course was not flat. It had several gradual and long inclines that made it tougher than usual. Throughout my run, I just kept seeing sunflowers everywhere. There were a lot of runners wearing blue and orange, too. There was a band playing live music. I felt like Chelsea King was there. It was really neat.
As I made the final turn, I was relieved to see the finish line. This run was for Chelsea. I finished her run.
