Lunchtime run

I can usually feel it when I run two days in a row and today was no exception. “Hey,” my legs whisper to me, “Hey you up there! We’re sleepy, let us rest!” Then my lungs get into the act: “Uh, I hate to tell you this, but those legs are at it again, begging for more than their fair share of oxygen. Can we fire those losers?”

Well, so it goes. I ran 5.4 miles, light-to-moderate hills, cold weather with a little rain, 85% roads 15% trail, average pace 9:30 per mile.  I didn’t feel like I was running hard, but it certainly felt like a hard run.

The Hill, 3x. Plus bonus snow.

Last night I got out of work too late to make it to the PRC’s Wednesday-night run, and I didn’t feel like driving anywhere else, so I ran from home. I decided to a few repeats of a 1.5-mile loop near my house — a loop that included running up The Hill. I was nervous about tackling the incline three times in a row, but I actually felt a little stronger each time. I tacked on some out-and-backs to bring the total up to six miles of slow, hilly running.

The weather? Once again, 36 and raining. Although, shortly into the run, I looked up and could see, against the light of the streetlights, that there was snow coming down too! Yay snow! That lasted maybe 20 minutes, then it was back to the rain. Instead of a cap, I wore a fleece headband-style ear warmer, which I think helped a lot in the chill.

Brrrrr! Run faster!

It was 36°F (that’s 2°C for all you international readers of my fascinating blog) and raining fairly hard for last night’s run. That’s almost as bad as it gets. (A few winters in Ithaca taught me that semi-frozen slush falling from the sky is the absolute worst.) To my continuing surprise, plenty of people still showed up for PRC’s Monday-night run… although a lot of the regulars were missing. We’ve got a couple of ultra-runners in the group now. One is easing back into running (but should he be?) after making it 80+ miles in a 24-hour race the weekend before last — on a stress-fractured leg the whole time. The other ran a marathon on Saturday. Oh, and also a marathon on Sunday.

I tried to run fast to stay warm, but my fast pace wasn’t all that fast yesterday — 5.8 miles at a 8:55/mile pace.

10 miles around home

I ran a 10-mile loop on streets and off-street paved paths (the Fanno Creek Trail) this morning. It was a little rough: my legs were feeling pretty dead, probably from racing hard Thursday morning.  My calves especially ached. The loop was pretty much the same one I biked way back when; I like the way what was once a long bike ride is now a shortish run. Not that it felt all that short today. I took it slow, averaging about 10:15 a mile.

Race Report: Turkey Trot

In kind of a last-minute decision, I decided to run the four mile Thanksgiving Morning “Turkey Trot” over by the Oregon Zoo this morning. The run starts in front of the Forestry Center, follows Kingston through Washington Park over to the rose garden (fairly sharply downhill), comes back the same way (fairly sharply uphill), then finishes with what would be a really very exceptionally fun downhill run through the zoo itself if you weren’t running as hard as you could already after all the hills. It’s a self-timed, “fun run” sort of thing, and way the heck too expensive, but the money is supposed to be for a Zoo fund-raiser mostly, I guess.

Having run 5.8 miles the night before, I wasn’t sure how well I could do, but I ended up pleasing myself. Four miles in 32:56, for an average pace of 8:14 per mile! Laps were 7:45 (a short uphill then mostly down), 8:05 (all down until the turnaround, then sharply back up a short while), 9:31 (serious uphill work the whole way — I’m pleased to be under 10:00 for this mile), and 7:35 (the last of the uphill and then the downhill sprint to the line). Good job, me!

PS

A public service announcement: running or walking four miles burns about 400 Calories, or maybe 600 on hills like those. Compare this to the 2000 Calories you burn just sitting around and breathing all day, and you can see that doing a run Thanksgiving morning doesn’t actually give you free license to eat as much as you can that afternoon.

Still speeding up; stinky shoes

It was a pretty snappy run (for me) last night — over 5.8 miles, I averaged 8:45. Over the last 0.8, gently downhill, we were on a 7:50 pace. My calves had felt stiff all day, but once I started running, all systems were go: my legs felt light and strong and my breathing felt good.

This was the coldest night for running so far this season, but it wasn’t a problem. Once again, we got lucky and the rain held off for us. Earlier in the day it had rained a lot, but by 6:00 it was just the puddles to watch out for.  I think it was in the low 40s. I wore a middle-weight long-sleeve shirt, my running pants, lightweight gloves, and a light cap. It was about right.

Another thing I noticed was that my shoes, the ones with which I had run 17.5 miles on the muddy trail on Saturday, stunk something awful. I had rinsed them off well, but I guess whatever smells bad in mud hadn’t come out. Last night after the run I took out the insoles and threw the shoes into the washing machine. Hopefully the detergent will help. Ech.

Yay Mud!

So far this fall, the Portland area has seen what I think is uncharacteristically mild weather. The rain, in particular, has really held off. Even on rainy days, it’s been clearing up by the time of my evening runs. All well and good, but I have been wanting to get some training on muddy trails, to better prepare for Hagg Lake in February. Saturday morning, the weather obliged. The Wildwood was pretty damp and getting damper, though I didn’t hit any serious rain until the last mile — just a lot of dense smaller drops… you know, the usual Oregon stuff?

I parked on Saltzman Road, off Skyline. I’d never been up on that part of Skyline before — past the Skyline Restaurant and the cemetery, and it was kind of interesting. There’s always more to discover in Portland. It looked like Skyline itself had a decent sidewalk for running, and some nice views. And the restaurant looked like it had car service! Anyway. Saltzman Road, gravel to begin with, quickly comes to a some closed gates and a tiny parking area. It’s a mile downhill along Salzman until the Wildwood crosses it, very close to milepost 16 on the trail. Then I ran to milepost 23 3/4 and back. One more mile back to the car, and that adds up to 17.5 miles. I was only planning on running 16. What I hadn’t noticed was that my usually-trusty Garmin Forerunner 305 was losing satellite reception fairly regularly. This made the handy little odometer on my wrist a lot less accurate than usual — it was showing a considerably shorter distance than I had actually run. By the time I noticed, I was already a little past milepost 23, and by then my higher brain functions had shut down enough that doing the math based on the mileposts seemed like a lot of work. Eventually I did the work, observed that I was already three-quarters of a mile too far, and turned around. Three quarters of a mile doesn’t sound like much, but you double it on a day like that, when you drank too much the night before and haven’t eaten much that morning, and you really feel it. The last two or three miles of the run were the toughest. I found myself groaning and grunting to myself a bit. Eventually I made it back to the MINI, dried off, changed clothes inside the car, and stiffly drove home. Fun!

How far will I run this year? Will it reach a Big Round Number? Does it need to be in base 10?

Five point eight miles last night (averaging nice easy 9:45s) and two more really slow ones this morning bring my yearly running total up to 761 miles. (As an aside, I estimate that my lifetime total is about 771.) There are three days short of seven weeks left in the year; I would have to average about 36 miles a week to reach 1000 miles by the New Year. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Wow! I only came up with this imaginary goal a few minutes ago, and I’ve already failed.

Wait! What if I count my walk/run mileage too? (Back in January and February, I took a lot more walk “breaks”.)  That’s another 30 miles, for a  grand total of 791. Hmm. about 31 miles a week. Maaaaaaaaybe ;-)

It’s official

I’ve paid my money for the Hagg Lake Trail Run 50K on February 23. Fifty kilometers is about 31 miles, which makes it an “ultramarathon” by the strict definition; that is, an ultramarathon is any race longer than 26.2 miles. (A more practical definition limits the application of such a manly and virile prefix as “ultra” to races at least 50 miles long.)

It’s impossible to read anything about Hagg Lake without also reading about the mud there. In a normal wet February, it’s supposed to be terrible. Foot-sucking, shoe-stealing mud in some cases. I guess there’s at least one slope on the course that gets slick enough to require the use of all your limbs to get up it. That reminds me, I need to get some gloves. Or maybe I’ll just keep using gardening gloves. At least they’re built for mud.

Monday run

I ran 5.8 miles yesterday with the PRC group. I had planned on a slow run but the best laid plans oft gang awry, and so I found myself running with a couple of people who kept picking up the pace a little more each step, until by the end we were pushing eight-minute-miles.  But by then, my tight calves had loosened up, so I was able to keep up the pace without too much of a struggle. Our average speed was an 8:58 mile. I’m doing 16 miles on trails on Saturday, so yesterday should probably be my last speed-workout this week.

Run along home

Saturday afternoon I went downtown for a short waterfront run with MiPL people. Actually, it was the same event host and the same run (almost) as the very first Meetin Portland event I attended, back in February. I was a little less nervous this time. I was also in better condition to run: last time, I had hiked and run 13 miles the previous day, and had some developing shin splints, which — surprise! — didn’t get better after running three fast-for-me miles on concrete. I don’t know why I did it. Well, I sort of do. I felt like if I bailed out of the first event I signed up for, it would be a bad omen or something, that Meetin wouldn’t work for me, or something like that. I felt committed. I should have been committed. I couldn’t run for two more weeks after that… I couldn’t even walk without a limp. On the plus side, that’s when I started this blog.

Anyway, this last Saturday: sweetie was nice enough to drop me off downtown, so after the three miler on the river, I was able to run the extra eight miles home. I’ve run 11 miles plenty of times before, and eight is nothing, kind of, but psychologically it felt like a major accomplishment, running from downtown Portland to my house on the Tigard border for the first time. I ran home via Terwilliger to Capitol Highway to Taylor’s Ferry. Neither Capitol Highway nor Taylors Ferry are great roads to run on, so that made it feel a little longer than it really was, too. Mostly it was fun, though.

Self-destructive urges

I didn’t make it to any Halloween stuff this year, but I did go to a costume party the weekend previous. It was a “Fractured Fairy Tales” theme. I stretched a point, called Wizard of Oz a fairy tale, and went as a pyromaniac Scarecrow.

I also had a blowtorch. People seemed real nervous when I’d light it.

“Fast” runs

Both Wednesday and Thursday I tried to kick up the speed of my workouts. I’m definitely in a post-marathon winter’s-coming I’m-a-turtle sort of phase, because running faster than nine-minute miles feels like an all-out sprint. Still, over the course of nine combined miles, I managed a few 8:30s and averaged around 9:05. My legs don’t feel too beat up from it, at least.

Training thoughts

I did run 5.8 miles Monday night, but it was too uneventful a run to even blog about. I’m looking forward to tonight’s run. I’m planning on pushing it a little harder, trying to get back some speed after my marathon recovery. Training wise, I’m winging it. Maybe I should still be base-building, but February’s Hagg Lake 50K isn’t really that far away and I feel like I need to start working on my cruising speed sooner rather than later.

If I had a running coach, he’d confidently advise me of what I should be doing now. But I’m pretty sure three different running coaches would be confident in three different sets of advice. Authorities agree on little when it comes to optimal training for running, and especially for the less-popular trail- and ultra-running disciplines. So likely I’ll stick with what works for me: train with a variety of different kinds of runs, all the time. Take lots of rest days and ease up if the legs are feeling bad. Fit some speed work in there if possible, once a week, and hill work all the time. Have fun!

Too cute.

http://producten.hema.nl/

Wait for it.

(via Boingboing)

Wildwood 13

I woke up around 6:15 Saturday Morning and hopped out of bed to get started on my 13-miler. I reached the trailhead about a mile off Cornell Road on NW 53rd while it was still pitch black. That’s what flashlights are for, right? I was wearing running pants, a long-sleeve tech shirt, and garden gloves. I only needed the gloves for three or four miles.

I’d planned this 13-miler as an out-and-back, from about mile 9.5 of the Wildwood, to about mile 16. The run on the way out was interesting. One, because it was pitch dark on an unfamiliar trail. No problems there, though. Two, because I was the first person on the trail the morning so I got to clear all the spider webs. I couldn’t see them, only feel them. Luckily, I’m not arachnophobic. The third reason it was interesting was that this was the longest I’ve ever run without seeing a single other person. It wasn’t until I reached my turn-around point (where Wildwood hits Saltzman Road) that I ran into other people, a couple out running.
On the way back, traffic was a little heavier, and by the time I neared my start point, Wildwood was almost crowded. (OK, no. But there were people every couple of hundred yards.)

All in all, 13 miles on the trail was about as difficult as I thought it would be. My calves were definitely feeling it; I think I got much more of a leg-strength workout than I would on roads. I averaged a little under 11 minutes per mile, which seems about right for the conditions.

It’s all about the milestones

Tomorrow I’m going to run 13 miles on the Wildwood Trail (probably between mileposts 9.2 and 15.7 and back, in case you need to know in order to mug me, or if I don’t return and you want to know where to send the bloodhounds to look). This run, if successful, will be notable in two ways:

• It will be my longest trail run to date.
• It will be longest solo run to date. (OK, maybe not a big deal.)

Time to celebrate a little

I’ve long since consolidated all the various debts I was saddled with after the death of my wife (OK, technically, as the only wage-earner in the family, I was also saddled with them before that, too, but nevermindokthanks) onto one home equity line of credit and one 401(K) loan. Using either of these loan instruments for consolidation of unsecured debt is very foolish for several reasons, but I was backed into a corner and at least went into the foolishness with my eyes open.

As of this morning, they are all paid off.