Lunar Obverse

Team Saponified was represented by one member today. I ran the Pints to Pasta 10K this morning. I ran it strong; only stopped twice for the water stations. My unofficial time, thanks to my trusty Timex Expedition, was 59:59.49, or a 9:39.481 pace (give or take a few). Which is almost exactly what my pace was in the Run Hit Wonder 10K a month and a half ago, at least my “chip time” — it’s 2:40 faster than my gun time in that race. Damn. For some reason I thought I did better.

Still, it felt good. Lots of downhills, which probably helped quite a bit. Started in north Portland, along the bluff on Willamette Avenue, ran down the hill to N. Interstate, then across the Steel Bridge, along Waterfront Park, and then finished at the Old Spaghetti Factory off of Macadam. There were a lot of people. I noticed a bunch of people with black Adidas dri-fit overshirts, emblazoned with the Pints-to-Pasta logo and asked about them; those were the race shirts from last year. This year they just gave out regular cotton t-shirts. Oh, well, at least I got soup, two beers, and a coupon for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Oh, and a coupon for a free Cinnabon which will be my reward later today. Mmmmm…

Not bad for my second-ever 10K.

It was kinda fun to look around at all these people and think, “I’ve got something in common with all of them.” Struck up a few conversations, although for some reason it’s difficult for me to come out of my shell lately.

I’m running in the Pints to Pasta 10K tomorrow morning. I have to be down at the Old Spaghetti Factory off of Macadam Blvd. around 7:00 AM, pick up my packet, then catch a shuttle bus to the start of the race in North Portland. It’s going to be fun. It’s my second-ever 10K (the Run Hit Wonder on August 1st being my first), and I’ve been taking it easy on the running since that last race. I was going to run in Tillamook a couple of weeks ago but ended up in a car accident instead. Oh, no one was hurt, but it still put the kibosh on the drive to the coast.

I’m not sure what to expect for this race but I’m going to do my best. I should be going to bed soon, but I have to go pick up a FlexCar to use tomorrow. Bummer, huh?

I’ll get a t-shirt, two free beers, some soup, and a dinner coupon for the Old Spaghetti Factory, plus live music and the accomplishment of running a freakin’ six-plus miles. Yay, me. I’m going to be using my new Nike Air Structure Triax 8’s in the race. Oh… maybe not. Maybe I should stick with my trusty Brooks Addiction GTS 5s… yeah, running a race in brand-new shoes is probably a Bad Idea.

I’ll post any pictures and my impressions of the run tomorrow afternoon.

Ran to work this morning. 5.05 miles, 47:56.47 total time, therefore a 9:29 pace. Arrgh, can’t seem to achieve a 9:00 or better pace for the longer distances. I was doing close to a 9:00 pace for the first couple of miles but had to pull back a bit.

My hamstrings are tight; especially my right one. I used to be able to touch my toes pretty easily but lately not so much. I need to focus on stretching more, maybe during like Deb does. Stop at the halfway point and stretch out. At any rate, that might be part of the problem.

I think I’ll call Jessica and schedule another massage for the week after the Tillamook run. That might help, too.

Ran up Terwilliger Blvd. yesterday morning. Do I need to post the details? I’ve written about it before. About 5 miles round trip, Dunniway Park up to the Charthouse restaurant and back down again. Ran with a friend, kept a pretty easy pace, legs felt tired and a little sore but overall it was a good tired. Oh, my hamstrings (especially my right one, the leg that’s a little longer than the other) were tight and hard to stretch out. I’ll focus on stretching them better before and after my next run, which will be tomorrow morning to work, another approximately 5 mile run.

Diet-wise, as of last night I’m about 100 calories over for the week starting Monday. I went over yesterday by 150 or so, but that’s OK because my energy output was higher yesterday due to the run. I have noticed a slight downward trend, already, in the running average of my weight, so it’s having an effect. Yay, me.

My weight has snuck up over my pre-determined upper limit (limit was 175; my average weight over the past week has been 178.5) so I’ve put myself back on maintainence. That means I’m limiting myself to around 2500 calories for a month. Only exception will be race days. Any day I race I don’t keep track of calories.

Last night, my first full day on the new restricted diet, I had exactly 2500 calories. Funny how that worked out, especially considering I had been starving all day long! OK, not really. I’m sure it was psychological, simply because I was thinking about food again all day. Focus on food, get hungry. I mean, my normal eating pattern is 3000-3100 calories per day, so I’m not reducing it that much.

At any rate, I’m going to focus on eating enough protein this time around, which, for a 175 lb. male is around 75-80 grams per day. I’ll calculate it for yesterday; so far today I’ve had 4. I’m going to have to really chow down to make my goal today, huh?

Exercise-wise, I ran in the hot hot heat yesterday. I was going to get up and run in the early morning, which is the best time during the summer, all that nice cool air, and little to no traffic, but decided to sleep in instead. I packed a bag of running clothes to take to work, but it was way way too hot at lunchtime. Thought about going to the gym and running on the treadmill… but that wasn’t appealing. Only as a last resort. So I ended up waiting until after sunset and running a short 2 1/4 mile course in my neighborhood. And it was still hot hot hot outside. Bleh.

Haven’t been posting a schedule because I’m not working towards anything. Got some races coming up (and if the guys buy into my suggestions for the road trip, I’ll have some very grueling races coming up! See yesterday’s post) but I’m just running for fun and fitness right now.