The bright side of a Moon
If you’re downtown on Sunday and in Goose Hollow or NW, and want to watch for me, I’ll be #3793.
The Run Hit Wonder shirts are bright orange this year. I picked mine up today.
It’s official: my running clothes are officially more colorful than my street clothes.
Sweet cracker sandwich! I haven’t posted in over a day!
Ran last night, up and down the Waterfront Park and Eastbank Esplanade. Didn’t time myself, just going for slow-but-steady. Did some speed work on Saturday, blech. Speed work is always the suck. If it feels easy, then it’s not speed work, you know? I ran down to the Milwaukie High School track and did 10 sets of 15 seconds flat-out, followed by 45 seconds of jogging recovery.
I plan on running some hill intervals tomorrow morning, then resting Thursday, having a light day on Friday, then running in the Beat the Burnside on Sunday. 8 kilometers, all downhill. Yay. I hope to do well but don’t want to hurt myself too much, since the Nike Run Hit Wonder is the following weekend and I want to do well, even though it’s gonna be crowded.
Run, run, run.
I’ve used Google Earth to produce images for all of my regular running routes. The images are here, for now. I’ll add links and thumbnails for them on my running page sometime soon, and when I’m really bored, I’ll make even prettier pictures, all tilted and marked up and stuff.
Last night I ran my 3.5 mile loop (opens in new window), and just concentrated on going the whole distance running. I didn’t quite make it due to way too much traffic, but I did do pretty well up to the 2.5 mile mark, right there as I entered Westmoreland park. Then, afterward, I had to walk a couple more miles, to and from an Anti-Wal-Mart meeting, ironically near the half-way point of my 3.5 mile loop, with a stop at the grocery store for some supplies ‘n’ such, so my legs were tight and sore last night. Ow.
Tonight I ran the Waterfront/Esplanade loop, (also opens in new window), 2.8 miles. That particular map doesn’t mark the starting and ending points, but for reference it’s that pointy tip down in the lower left-hand corner of the map. Again, worked on just keeping going, and I was more successful at that tonight.
I’m a teeny-tiny bit worried, because the next three big races I want to enter are all 5+ miles long, and I’m not sure I’ve got the stamina so much. First is the Beat the Burnside 8K on July 17th; then the Nike Run Hit Wonder, a 10K, on July 24; finally the Pints to Pasta 10K… although that’s not until September 11th. Hmmm. Looks like I’ll need to find a race or two for August. Should I go for the gusto and pick another 10K? Or take it easy and find a 5K? I know I blew the Mt. Tabor 5K this year by getting lost (shouldn’t have followed those cute girls, I guess) so I’d like to redeem my 5K pride. But I did promise myself I’d do more 10Ks this year. Well, plenty of time to decide…
[Update 07/07/2005 6:40 AM]: I have replaced the old Esplanade map with a new one, with the cool tilt that all the kids are using these days and a marker for the “Start/Finish” of my loop.
I wanted to put in a lot of miles (a lot for me being 5 or 6) today, but wasn’t too thrilled with one long slog after running 4 miles last night and doing them slowly, slowly, oh so slowly.
So I decided I’d do some hill repeats. Thinking back on it, I’m not sure why, exactly, that sounded better than just pounding out 5 miles in one go. The hill I was thinking of is pretty steep, at least a 3% grade, I guesstimate.
Decided before I left that I would run about a mile to warmup, not keeping track of the time but trying to just keep running, then stretch out and do 6 repeats of about a quarter-mile each, jogging or walking quickly down before going back up. Further decided to time my first run, then aim to just keep shaving 5-10 seconds off each interval until I was done.
This I did, until the final go.
First run up was 3:09, second was 3:00 even, third was 2:57, fourth was 2:50, fifth was 2:39. Wow. Hard. I was breathing very hard on that fifth try. I was bargaining with myself: “If I can do this one in 2:40 or less, I won’t do my 6th one.” It was starting to sprinkle a bit, and I ran through a cloud of gnats and breathed a couple of them down, and basically wasn’t having a good time by then.
But, once at the top again, I realized that I had set a goal, and I was going to finish. I did the sixth and final interval in 3:04, and it was as hard as any of the others, but I did it. Then I turned around, headed down the hill at a light jog, and jogged the mile-plus home.
At home, I drank a couple of glasses of water, ate an energy bar, and collapsed on the couch. I had no energy left for anything. Smacky came over and started licking the sweat off of me, which was irritating and kinda gross but I couldn’t move for 15 minutes. I texted a friend about my accomplishment but otherwise zoned out until I could get enough oomph to get up and shower off.
Feels good, now, after the fact. I’ll try it again next week and see if I can improve.
With the warm weather (well, we did officially pass into summer today, at 11:46 AM Pacific time, if I recall my friend’s comment correctly) coming, my allergies have kicked into high gear. And the Zyrtec I’ve been taking just isn’t cutting it. I’m up to two a day, twice the recommended dose, and I still have the sniffles and itchy eyes and throat.
Makes it difficult to run when I can’t breathe or see. Dammit.
I could have gone running in the gym today but once I got there, after work, even inside I could feel the effects of my allergies. So I went home to take another Zyrtec. After it kicked in, I went for a run. But seeing that, between the heat and my pulmonary distress, I knew it wouldn’t be a stellar run. So I decided I’d go really easy on myself.
I didn’t even bring my watch.
I’ll wait while the two or three readers out there register their shock and awe.
OK, done?
At any rate, it was nice to just be outside and enjoying the sun and the scenery without having to push myself to a countdown. Er, countup? Whatever. You know what I mean. I did, though, take my iPod shuffle, so, technically, by counting the songs, I could, if I wanted to, figure out approximately how long I took… but, um… I won’t.
I did a little more than 3 miles. I think I’ll do that “off the clock” thing on a regular basis.
In other news, I registered for the Nike Run Hit Wonder this weekend. I mean that I registered this weekend, not that the race was this weekend. I signed up for the 10K, again. The route is different this year; it starts and ends from PGE Park, and the post-race concert is in the park, too. Good thing, since last year’s attendance overwhelmed downtown and Pioneer Courthouse Square.
Also, they’re only allowing the first 4000 people who sign up in for the post-race concert. And that concert will be Joan Jett and some others. Not quite the lineup they had last year, but I’m sure it will still be a good time…
I’m still looking for another 5K between now and then (July 24), mainly to redeem myself for the mistake last Saturday. Lots of half- and full marathons on the Fourth of July weekend, but there’s no way I’m ready for that yet.
I ran at the gym last night. 2.5 miles, 23:59 total time, for about a 9:36 average pace.
And after I finished, I felt as though I could have gone faster. I still had something left.
I’m thinking that if I push myself, I could do a 5K at, oh, say, a 9:20 pace. Maybe. It’s a goal, at least. And, looky here, I have a 5K race coming up.
Unfortunately, it’s a tough race. I ran it last year, and the course is downhill for the first two miles, then uphill for the last mile. My normal strategy is to hold back for the first mile or so, then pick up the pace. However, that is difficult for this course due to the downhills… So I might have to go all out in order to make up enough time to allow for dying on the last mile.
Running schedule for the week:
Total of 16.1 miles.
A light week, because of the race on Saturday. I’m planning on two days of speed drills but haven’t decided which days. Or which drills, for that matter. I’ll make it up as I go along.
Didn’t run Saturday as planned. I did do a little bit of walking, but not really 3 miles worth. So I had to run today.
I decided I’d do a 4 mile run. As you’ll see below, I was very fast for the first 3 miles. I averaged a 9:25 mile pace! Unfortunately, the last mile, even though I tried to keep moving, took almost exactly 11 minutes, giving me an average pace for the whole course of 9:48, which is still good.
Here’s the half-mile splits:
Next week will be slightly different. I’ve got a tough race on Saturday, and am going to the beach on Friday. I’d like to run a little bit at the beach, weather permitting, but seeing how my times are improved on fresh legs (my times today and on Friday, for longer distances, demonstrate that), maybe I’ll do most of my running early in the week, focusing on speed work, and then take Thursday and Friday off.
I’ll post a schedule for myself later today.
Quick running update:
Ran in my neighborhood, down to the river and up through Sellwood Park, then back again. 3 miles. Here’s the splits:
Yes, my total time was 28:31, for an average mile pace of 9:30.35! I rock!
And now I’m hitting the showers.