Running in San Diego

We’re on the plane headed back from San Diego.


It was a fun, whirlwind, exhausting trip. Athletic-related highlights include …

… A new 5k PR at “Finish Emily’s Run” at Balboa Park on Saturday morning – 24:42!

On Friday we saw a flier at a Starbucks on Coronado Island for a 5K the next morning. I knew from training runs I could blow my record out of the water and it was a fun way to spend Saturday morning.


That was a hard earned PR, even if I didn’t do much to prepare for it. The course was challenging. My strategy was to find someone traveling at a pace that was on the upper threshold of my potential effort and, for the love if god, stick with him.

There was a steep downhill at about mile 2, which had me worried. I knew there would be an uphill to match it since the start and finish were in the same place. And since it was late in the race, it would probably be steep.

It was. Right at the end. It was all I could do not to walk at that point, knowing the finish line was 100 yards away.

I ended the race with dry heaves. That’s how you know it was a good race, right?

… Followed by a 10-mile run up and down Mission Valley

I had a 15-miler on the schedule for this weekend. I learned what it felt like to be exhausted from sprinting and then just plain exhausted.

My brother John came with me and that was really special. We ran down the beach, mostly in silence, absorbing everything. I love San Diego. I’d never seen so many other runners out at once, except at maybe a race.

I was all lactate-y and exhausted when we started an I could feel myself burning out on this run. The good rest, the high of the PR, the beautiful scenery … Was not going to keep me going after about an hour and 30 minutes. I had that feeling that I was really dipping into my reserves in a way that a regular training run should not feel.

At about a mile and a half from home, my brother stops, waits for me, and says, “if you have to run that slow, we could be walking faster.”

So merciful.

Did I mention that I have a very wonderful patient husband who waited a long, long time to get breakfast that morning?


(OK, it was lunch by then.)

Sunday, we went to “yoga” class.

This was how my brother introduced it to me, but instead of the peaceful, deep stretching I thought I was signing up for, it was a hardCORE Pilates class (get it?)

The instructor took us through the warm up and that in an of itself was a floor drenching workout. I tried to make myself small on the mat so it wouldn’t be obvious that I couldn’t do half the moves she led this 45-person class through.

My abs hurt. I want to do more Pilates.



3 beautiful runs and 1 fitness class and a ton of walking over our 5-day trip. I missed some miles from the plan but my body feels like its been driven hard. I’m saving my energy today on the plane to help shovel out that foot of snow waiting for me in my driveway when we get home.

Location:Propeller Ct,Dulles,United States

Pattie Reaves

About Pattie Reaves

I'm a new mom and renegade fitness blogger at After the Couch. I live in Brewer with my husband, Tony, our daughter Felicity, and our two pugs, Georgia and Scoop.