Busy week

After the 16 mile run on Monday I thought I would take a day off and continue on the 1-day delay from Hal's plan. My Dad got me out the door on Tuesday and it's been a busy week.

Tuesday: 3 miles
Wednesday: 8.5 miles
Thursday: 4.5 miles

Resting up for the 12 miler tomorrow. Feeling good with the marathon coming up soon.

16 miles - back in Michigan

Dad kept me company for the first 6 miles, and the last 10 felt really easy. I think that everyone should go on a 34 hour drive right before a run, it is good training for the concentration that is sometimes hard to keep during a run. Today was fun. I'm a little giddy to be back home, wife and dog by my side, everything is right in the world.

My belief that Michigan is flat was somewhat shaken by my route today. I found some pretty decent hills running down roads a little further away from my house than I usually get. There are some differences between running in Portland and Metro Detroit, here is a list, but it is still a work in progress....

1. No deers are going to chase after you in Detroit
2. Instead of raspberries, blackberries, and marionbarries on the side of the road, Detroit has grass and wetlands
3. No bikepaths on the road in Detroit
4. More 1 mile square sides in Detroit (ie. 12 mile is 1 mile from 13 mile!, makes routes easy to gauge)
5. No running trails nearby in Detroit, but I admit that I've never looked hard for them

And just for clarification, Farmington Hills is to Detroit just as Beaverton is to Portland. Some people are sensitive about these things. Metro Detroit is a more accurate description of where I live.

2.5 miles - running in Idaho

Starting at 1pm I made it from Portland to Boise, ID. I ran 2.5 miles on the treadmill, but I was too tired to do much more. Tomorrow is a huge day of driving, so I need to take it easy.

4 miles - morning clouds... perfect

Portland weather has perfect for running all summer up until the last few weeks. This morning, it returned to being perfect. Running has made me appreciate a grey 65 degree morning with an occasional misty drizzle. I saw a raccoon hanging out in a little stream on my run. He looked at me like I was interrupting his bath. There were also some huge banana slugs on the sidewalk, if you've never seen these, let me just say that they look like gigantic goobers. I didn't wear a watch so I have no idea how fast I ran, but it was a great way to start the day.

7 miles - 14.6 out of 15, close enough!

I am beat. This is a new distance PR, even if it was broken into 2 runs. I ran the same 7.3 mile route at 6am and 6pm today. I was 2 seconds slower in the evening. I need to sleep now.

7 miles - 15 by day's end

Lisa and Jeff came to visit this weekend. It was very nice of them to keep me company during my last weekend in Portland. Running came in second to the Bite of Oregon, the Columbia River Gorge, highway 35 around Mt. Hood, Japanese Gardens, the Rose Gardens, and of course Rose's Deli.

I woke up at 5:30am to run 7 miles and I'm going to run the rest of the 15 tonight. I have no regrets about sleeping yesterday afternoon instead of running. Portland is showing itself to be a great place after all. I just wish Melissa was out here too. I'm still happy to be driving home Friday.

4 miles - free dinner

I did my first "trail run" this evening. Running like the caveman that I am with my mouth wide open, I managed to swallow an entire dinner's worth of forest bugs. I scouted out the trail at lunch and saw some snakes lounging in the sun. I did a little googling to make sure they were harmless. After my deer incident a few weeks ago, I'm not sure why I am venturing into the forest, but it turned out alright. This trail is not all that great for running, I had to do 2 out and backs to get 4 miles in. There aren't any loops to run because of all the condos and railroad tracks that they have built in the area. It is only a few minutes from my apartment though, so I can't complain.

I would really like to run on the woodchip trails, very easy on the joints, but I am afraid of getting lost. I need a guide. I emailed the Portland marathon training club cause they are doing a 16 mile training run through the woods this weekend. I need to do 15 for Hal's plan and it would be a perfect way to say goodbye to Portland. Beside's I read on runnersworld.com that if you run in Portland and never venture out on the Wildwood trail (30+ miles), you have really missed out. We'll see how it goes...

7.2 miles - I see hills in your future

I am happy with today's run. This distance does not bother me any more. I ran at a really easy pace and I feel good now, 20 minutes after running. Google Maps said it was 7.2 miles, but the elevation change went from 150 to over 400 and back down to 200 before turning around and doing that again. That has to add some distance. I don't feel like drawing triangles to figure out that it's only .1 miles, so I'm just going to leave that as an excersise to the reader...

New distance PR this weekend of 15 miles according to Hal's plan. I admit that it is already on my mind. I need to cut out the bad food at lunch the rest of the week.

3.65 miles - routine Tuesday

I had my final presentation today for my internship. I practiced it during my run, so I probably looked like a madman. I'm glad that I'm moving home in 9 days, the people in this area are probably ready for the guy that talks to himself to get out of town. The run was exactly what I needed, really slow, really easy, and really relaxing. I've done this route so many times that I can drift off and think about other things and my legs just keep running.

Oh yeah, of all the times I've done it, this was the first time I realized that there is an awesome view of Mt. Hood on the top of the hill on Oak St. It was really clear and I could see a lot of details on the mountain.

10 miles - hot hot hot

It was a hot, slow, run. I didn't mind going for a really long run after dropping off Mel at the airport. I would've been really stinky if I just sat around my apartment all day. I had to leave in the middle of Horatio's Ride to finish my run before Melissa landed, which was too bad, I was really enjoying it. I ran in some new shoes that I bought for the marathon. I am only going to use them on a few long training runs so that they have about 100 miles on them for the big day. My other shoes have 270 miles on them, so they are still fine for most of my weekly runs. I read somewhere that a 200 lb runner will go through shoes faster than a lighter one (makes sense). I figure my first pair will croak around 400, right in time for the marathon, so I decided to start prepping a new pair.

I drank my entire camelback with over a mile to go. The camelback is funny. I got the one that goes around your waist and every time I put it on I feel like an idiot. That feeling goes away after about 4 miles when I am happily running and drinking. If I could do it again, I might buy one that is more like a backpack. I just think that it would be a little less ackward around the belly with one of those.

3 miles - in flip flops

I wouldn't normally count this kind of thing, except that I measured the walk that Melissa and I took around Portland on Friday and it was exactly 3 miles. I also know that if I do the 10 miler on Sunday that I would need to 3 miles to meet Hal's weekly number. So, bonus for me, the 3 mile walk counts.

3.65 miles - same mistakes over and over

I keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. I ran faster than was comfortable on Tuesday and so 3.6 mile on Thursday was very painful. As a result, my 7 mile workout turned into a 3.6 mile workout. I will miss Hal's target by about 3 miles this week because of this.

Oh well, I've got a great weekend planned with Mel in town and hopefully I'll have recovered enough to do my 10 miler on Sunday afternoon.

I need to remember that I am not training for a 3.65 mile run around Beaverton, OR. I am training for a 26.2 mile run around Chicago. If I keep missing miles because I'm hurting myself doing stupid things, I won't be able to finish the marathon.

3.65 miles - finally broke 30 minutes

I ran the route that I've run at least 10 times since moving to Oregon. I felt so good starting out that I decided to go for the 30 minute barrier that I was shooting for a few weeks ago. I wasn't sure I'd get another chance to do it while I am here. I don't think that it was very smart, but I ran pretty hard and held 7:50 for the last 3 miles to do it. I kept telling myself that the 9:20 (4 hr marathon pace) will seem really easy after this and that this is the last time I have to run fast in my training for October. 4 weeks ago when I ran as fast as I could I held 8:20s, I'm having fun with the progress. As much as I think Chi Running is silly, I think about the tips regarding form on just about every run, and I must say that today wasn't really a painful run, just a good quick pace.

I looked at a race predictor and put in 3:59:59 for the marathon time to see what someone in average shape should run at different distances. Between my Run Hit Wonder 10k from 9 days ago and my 5k based on today's time, I should be right at the 4 hour mark. But who knows if I'm in average shape. I don't have the training base that a lot of marathon runners do. I guess I'm just happy to think about running a good time like that.

4 miles - lost in woods

I'm sure trail running is great, but when you don't know the trail it's probably best to stick to the roads. I confirmed this lesson last night by running 5 minutes into the woods, doing an about face , and running 5 minutes out of the woods. Once I got up to 5 or 6 forks in the trail, I knew that I was asking for trouble by running any further. It was getting late too, and I did not want to be the idiot that gets lost in a 5 acre plot of woods in the middle of the suburbs. Last week's experience with the deer should have taught me not to mess around with nature.

Getting 4 miles in on a Monday sets me up well for getting all of Hal's miles in this week. Still, the milage increase is daunting for a beginner. The marathon is only 67 days away. According to the plan, I still have 282 miles to run in these last 9+ weeks. That's 4.2 miles/day. Really though, it isn't that bad. I did 12 this last weekend and it was pretty fun. I only have 5 runs over 13 miles left to do before the race. In the last 17 weeks, I've done 95.54% of Hal's milage. All I need to do is keep that up and the race will go just fine. I've lost 10 lbs in 17 weeks too. If I lose 5-10 more before the race, I'll be feeling really good. Okay, enough thinking about the race, just need to think about tonight's 3 miler.