WEEK FOUR

Tuesday

I took the dog with me for the first time after his hiking injury. Greenlake was pretty empty as we went right after I got back from work. Unfortunately, it was an incredibly windy day (right before a horribly rainy night) and he was distracted by all the things flying around. We went slowly with lots of stops for leave attacks, but I felt very good with the run overall, and felt comfortable at that distance.

Thursday

Thursday Apollo and I ran a 3 mile hills run. I was supposed to be doing a "pace" but I've started switching that up with slightly shorter hills, as it seems to work my legs and lungs just as much. Carkeek was pretty empty (except for the woman he jumped on and scared) and we had a good old time. Walked some uphills, but worked my ass off and was proud of the soreness on Friday.

Saturday

This was the longest run of my LIFE. Pretty crazy that we're already at that point. I kept reminding myself that eight miles is only one mile longer than seven, and seven felt pretty good last week. Luckily, eight felt even better! I ran at the Bridle Trails park in Redmond/Bellevue, where Ian, Stacy and I attempted to do a relay race last year. It was a beautiful morning, not too hot and not too cold, and the trails were very very empty. I ran with my shirt off and no music, and I felt absolutely great! Miles four through seven I felt like I was flying, and the last one was only hard due to my poor planning and having to decide really fast where I was going. My legs felt strong, nothing injury-wise was acting up, and even though my nutrition consisted of Starburst Gummies, I didn't bonk. I let myself walk the few longish uphills, and just felt free and great. Hopefully exactly what the Half will feel like!

Very happy to have done this run the morning of Jen's wedding, as it made the whole day so much better. Looking forward to my "bye" next weekend of climbing three 14ers!

*Kelly*

Testing at Nike

I was planning on doing a nice easy run in forest park this evening with Maddie, but Jeff and Ian asked me to come test something, who knows what, at the track. So I decided to do the 3 miles there instead. Bad idea.

They didn't have a set plan, so I just ran 3 miles around the track, which would have been fine but I didn't have a watch that I understood so I didn't know how fast I was going. I was trying to go slow and stayed in a range where I could have had a conversation, but turns out I went wayyy too fast. I averaged 8:40 min/mile pace over the 3 miles, which is not an "easy" run for me. I then went straight to swimming because I've promised myself I would go at least once a week and I hadn't gone yet.

So after an hour and a half of workout, the run which I wasn't planning and didn't bring food for, I was exhausted. I did the easier swim workout, but it still was 2800 in less than an hour. I did drink some chocolate milk afterwards and ate my bagel, but will probably feel some fatigue from this tomorrow...

Stacy

Last week went pretty well for most runs. Nothing super exciting to report.

I borrowed a pair of racing flats from Tyler at work so that I could do my 6 X 400 at the Nike track in actual Nike shoes, rather than my preferred Saucony A5s. The flats I borrow were great! I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what they are, because like most of employee's shoes, they were samples with no labels. Turns out they're from Japan, which just got incorporated into US Nike, so not available for purchase :(. Tyler's letting me borrow them until November since he doesn't do track workouts anyways.

We were east of Mt Hood this weekend with Ian's fam bam for Labor day, so both Saturday's and Sunday's runs were at 4500 ft. Which I felt, a lot. 10 min/mile pace felt a lot closer to 7:30s than I would have liked. Saturday morning was spent biking 7 miles with the hoseks in the rain and less clothes than needed, so by the afternoon run, I was pretty pooped. Dad ran with me for the 3 miles, which ended up being 2.7 miles, but I figured that was fine since I was going much harder (though also slower) than the easy run that it was supposed to be. It was fun to run with Maddie and Riley, since Riley decided to come along without an invitation. I'm sure Maddie would enjoy another dog to run with. I think Dad also really enjoyed having the dogs to run with.

On Sunday I was hoping to run in the morning while everyone else hiked, but plans changed/got delayed, so I ran in the late afternoon around 4ish. I ended up running the same 7 mile loop that we biked the day before and was really impressed by how much of the train I remembered. I recognized more of the trail than I ever do, even when I've run it multiple times before. This made me realize that I want to fore-ride the half marathon course in sisters to get a good idea of what's going to happen on it. Ian and Dusty rode the loop ahead of me with Nellie and Riley, so I got to do the run all on my own. It went uphill for the first 4ish miles, then descended quickly after that. Eric said something to me right as we left that I dwelled on for the entire uphill portion, which kept my mind off of my pounding heart. I ran/fast hiked the uphill, aiming 13 min/miles on the hiking. I think I managed to achieve this, but really don't know since my watched couldn't keep gps connected for the life of it. The downhill showed up right when I needed it to and I flew down it.

I'm normally not much of a downhill runner, but I was so excited not to be hiking that I let all my normal worries go and just ran. I haven't check my watch, but I think I averaged between 6:30s and 7:00 min/mile miles during the downhill section. It felt great! and was a lot of fun! I ended up finishing the loop in just under 1:10, which was pretty amazing since it took be almost 50 minutes to do just the uphill.

I ended up sitting in the stream by the camp for 5 minutes afterwards because I was so scared of feeling the downhill on Monday. Turns out it worked because I was barely sore and Tuesday's run felt great.

I'm dealing with a little plantar fascia stuff on my right foot, but it doesn't seem to be getting any worse, so I'm just ignoring it for now and avoiding any squishy shoes during work.

I'm also missing biking a lot. Running's fun, but just not the same as road biking. I'm enjoying swimming once a week and am trying to stick with that, but more would be nice as well. Plus I'm missing climbing, once a week is not enough for that, but it's a sacrifice I'm just going to make.

Week 3: Long Run
Nutrition: half of clif shot at ~4 miles, chocolate milk for recovery
this run was supposed to be six miles, but i ended up doing seven. i joined two friends out at the Redmond Watershed, and we ran around there. It's got really nice barked and gravel trails in and out of trees, so we stayed pretty dry even though it was raining.
the run felt pretty good, for most of it. once i realized we were on track to go much further than planned (the route was supposed to be 5 and turned out to be 7) i got a little angry, but otherwise felt good. it was nice to have someone to talk to, even though i ended up doing ~ 4 miles on my own.
always good to run in new places with different people, and i thought i did well with the mini hills. felt really really good on the last flat stretch after 6 miles, so hopefully that's a good sign.
*kelly*