Monday’s Run / Signed up for a 5K

Last night I ran four miles at a nine minute pace followed by a mile and a half at an eight minute pace. An uneventful run. I signed up for another race in a few weeks — a 5K this time. If you look over to the right (you’ll have to visit the actual blog

Goal-paced 10

I don’t know when my next marathon will be because I refuse to sign up for one until I can go two solid weeks without noticing that my foot hurts. Whenever it is, I’m pretty sure I’ll try for an 8:30/mile race pace. That’s 18 seconds a mile off my PR at Eugene, which is

So my bank failed

I’ve been saying Washington Mutual (WAMU) is going to fail for a while now. All my banking is with them: savings, checking, credit card, mortgage, and a (zero balance) home equity line of credit. I figured I’d leave my money with them even though I was expecting a failure because: A vague sense of good

Looking for a new night route

Only three people showed up to run Wednesday night at the Beaverton branch of the Portland Running Company, and I was barely one of them. My nose was really stuffed up and I considered not going. I’m glad I did, though — as sometimes happens, a brisk (or was it grueling?) run totally cleared me

Ten slow miles, monitored

For a change of pace for my usual solo Saturday “long” run (which is just ten miles lately) I decided to use the heart-rate monitoring chest band that came with my Forerunner 305. I usually leave it at home, and by “usually”, I mean 99.5% of the time. Knowing that my heart is pounding away

So-so workout

I wasn’t feeling it at all last night. After my first slow warm-up mile, I was sweating and uncomfortable in the humid air and my right calf was hurting a little. I only ran three more miles, all slow. I felt generally run-down and achy. On the up side, my right foot is feeling pretty

Hard Six

There’s a guy who’s been running with the Monday night group since springtime (I think), who’s been getting faster and faster (and also running longer and longer). He’s often the only one in the group who naturally runs around the same pace that I do. Last night he asked me how far I was running.

A rare trail run interlude

I’ve been running on flat asphalt and concrete so long now that I’ve forgotten what trail running feels like. My foot has felt reasonably ok, so Saturday morning I decided to try 10 miles on one of the less hilly sections of Wildwood — an out an back northwest from the 53rd Avenue trailhead. I

Six

September might be the best month in Portland. The weather is consistently nice and the bad hot spells are mostly over. It’s a nice time to be running. Yesterday I ran six miles with the group down on the Fanno Creek trails. After my 7:30/mile 10K, I’m feeling a little faster. I’m starting to cast

Race Report: 2008 Pints to Pasta 10K

The first two miles of this 10K brought back some difficult memories. It started on the long downhill past the Adidas campus on Greeley. That’s the downhill where I burnt my legs out during the Portland Marathon. After the downhill I got to run through the section of near-in North Portland where, back in the

Confidence Boost

After all the missed training this week (and the general feeling of slackishness that accompanies my months-long reduced mileage plantar fasciitis regimen) I haven’t been feeling confident about meeting my goal in the Pints to Pasta 10K this Sunday, 49 minutes or a 7:52/mile pace. So when I noticed that I was running pretty well last

Weekend

We went down to Southern Oregon this weekend, part of a MiPL group outing for wine touring, seeing two plays in Ashland, and swinging by Crater Lake. We hit five wineries in five hours or so on Saturday, some better than others. Fortunately for me, Southern Oregon’s vineyards aren’t as stuck on Pinot Noir as