1 Week to the Marathon, 3 Awesome Runs, and 3:20 of PR's

There has been a lot spoken on here about the lack of racing for me lately.  So this weekend I decided to get some racing in since I am off from cross country.  With a trip down to Murrieta, California for Thanksgiving, we found a few races.  I wanted to take advantage of my fitness and time off to race.  Here is my week by breakdown and pictures.

Monday-Rest...
Tuesday-45 min easy. some before practice and some with the girls.
Wednesday-Rest/travel day
Thursday-Oceanside Turkey Trot 5K.  Thats right, Oceanside, California.  It was a gorgeous day at the beach in November.    A few months ago i put out a "feeler" facebook message to the people in the family to see if anyone else wanted to run.  Surprisingly enough there was a large group who decided to run.  There was a bunch of first time 5K ers.  I wrote them a plan and everybody was ready to race.  I ran 15 min easy plus drills and strides.  A total of 2 miles of warm-up.  There was 10 min of wait time with the crowd and all.  The gun goes off and I am pumped.  My race plan was to progressively get faster and with a flat course it should be possible.  With the goal still the marathon I didnt want to kill it but still have a good effort.  I held back and still had a good race.  The plan was for 7:50, 7:30, and under 7:30.  What I actually got was 7:42, 7:28, 7:17, and 42 sec 0.1 mile.  For a total of 23:13 and a pace of 7:28.  I am pumped that I have a new 5K PR with me holding back, a PR by 1:57.  Almost 2 min.  What can I do if I was all out?  My VDOT shifted after this too.  (take it easy Karl, I know) IF I was training this whole time at this fitness it said I can run a 3:41 Marathon and 1:46 half.  WOW.  What a huge change in my fitness in this last 6 months.  Everyone else finished happy and ready to do another one.  It was an awesome experience and the newbies really enjoyed themselves.  Here are some pictures:

this last picture is my wifes cousin tina.  She ran cross country and is excited about her new found fitness.  She was so pumped to be running today, I was pumped to see such an excited young runner.  She has some potential so I hope she continues to run. The other pictures are the group that ran the turkey trot.
Friday-5 miles easy.  I wanted to find a trail to run.  This last 6 months I have really embraced trail running and its a really fun alternative.  Today I fell even more in love with it.  I found the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve and off I went.  I get there and discover there is a huge network of awesome trails.  None of the trails stick out to me so I just decided to see what was what.  Here is the brochure:

 I cant get it to rotate.  If I lived there I would run this place ALL THE TIME.  You can run there a 100 times and not run the same route twice.  Here are some of the pics I took during the run:

Monument hill led to the view you see on the last picture.  It was breathtaking.  I didnt want to leave.  I ran a total of 5 miles and on the way I saw birds, squirrels, flowers, and a mountain lion.  Yes a mountain lion.  It ran across the path and continued down a ravine.  Then it stopped to watch me.  I have video but the mountain lion is not visible.  It was an awesome run and I am so proud to be able to experience such an awesome place.
Saturday-Since the wife and I had a 6 mile run scheduled anyway, why not a 10K?  Besides I could use a 10K PR anyway.  The Temecula Turkey trot was ran on saturday not thursday so I thought why not?  There were no takers except for Tina.  She really wanted to run and had never ran a 10K.  It was so cool to have her with us.  The course was not clear to me until I drove there.  There were gorgeous wineries and the start was no different.  What became very clear was the terrain.  Dirt roads and hills.  Sweet!  But will a PR be possible if I dont want to go too hard and these obstacles were in front of me.  My race strategy changed.  The race was 3 miles out and back and then WAY up for the last 0.2 miles.  SO progression run was going to be difficult.  Can I keep it steady then?  I wanted to finish at about 50 min or so.  That meant 8 min miles.  I ran a one mile warm up and I didnt feel like drills or strides.  While in mile 2 I knew that was going to be difficult so I thought just work on staying tucked onto people, do not get sucked up into what the course is doing and just run, and then do not walk no matter how hilly or steep.  Work on rhythm.  I felt so strong.  I held this back too and took the hill on the end of the run really well.  I am so happy about this aspect of my running coming together.  Here are my splits: 8:07, 8:05, 8:02, 8:29, 8:25, 8:23, and 1:50 for the 0.2.  For a total of 51:19.  A PR by 2:23.  A flatter, easier terrain would yield a much faster time but with were I am at, there was no purpose for that.  It was a strong effort on a terrain that was tough.  The dirt roads were very bumpy, in the motorcross world they call them whoops.  Julie also PR'd and Christina went ahead and won her age group!  Here is a pic of her:

Pardon my thumb.  She rocked it though.  She ran the whole thing minus really training for this distance and didnt walk despite the nature of the course.  WAY TO GO GIRL!
Sunday-Off to rest and travel home.
Stats: Total of 18 miles and 2 PR's totalling 3 min and 20 sec.  3 memorable runs.  Now an easy week of running and hammer this marathon next sunday.