No time

Now that the Tour de France is over and every other commercial doesn't feature Lance and his ego, he'll have some free time to focus on spinning his "truth" and revisionist history during the doping investigation that's finally catching up to him. In the mean time I'll find some time to write about running.

So it's going pretty well. I've been consistent this month and my knees are handling it pretty well. I've only missed a few runs here and there due to blisters from being stupid or as was the case last Friday, work getting in the way. I had planned to find a nice trail to run at Cougar Mountain after work but I got wrapped up in someone else's emergency that turned into my opportunity to stay late at work and forget about running.

So to recap the last few runs briefly:

Wednesday: 10.5mi in 1:20:30 (7:40/mi) After the recovery day I went hard on a somewhat hilly route around Redmond after work. I ran out to the Bridle Trails, around them, then South to catch the rest of my regular work loop. Despite the hills I still came home with a good average pace.

Thursday: 5.4mi in 47min (8:42/mi) Another easy recovery run after the tempo run on Wed. I ran mostly on the sidewalk around Redmond. It was a new route that I mapped just before heading out so it wasn't boring.

Friday: 0, nada, nothing. Worked late.

Saturday: planned day off, went to the Zoo with the family.

Sunday: 14.65mi in 1:57:00 (7:59/mi) I wanted to get a 2 hour run in and planned a boring out-and-back route through Gig Harbor. About a half mile into the run I chucked the plan and decided to make up the route as I went. It'll be a while before I can whip up a great route in my head like Chris would when we rode together in CA but I felt good about putting together a route on the fly that came within 3 minutes of my time goal.

I pushed the pace a little at the start and went for a strong effort up 40th st which is a steady one mile long hill on a ~7% grade. I kept the pace down the other side and sped up a bit as I turned toward the water and over another hill toward Cromwell.  It's a nice route to get down to Cromwell but running back involves a half mile section at a 12% - 14% grade. It's a very labored slog uphill at what feels like a 15 min/mi pace. The grade softens up a bit but continues to climb for almost another half mile until you get a break before hitting a short descent and then two more climbs.

At the 10 mile mark I was close to home and hit the Arletta Store to stop and refill my UD hand bottles with cold water and dump the rest over my head and shoulders. It felt great and I was able to catch up on my hydration a bit. I headed out on a reverse "one store loop" route from the store. I ran up to Kopachuck State Park, turned around to head back down the Tunnel Trail and back home. My legs were still feeling pretty good but my feet and the rest of my body was starting to tire. I managed to record a solid set of splits, keeping them between 7:11 and 8:52 (the steep hill in Cromwell) but I didn't slow down at the end. I think I could have done better and run this route a little faster, especially in cooler weather but I can't complain about getting out for a 2 hour run on a beautiful day.

Summer is finally here and the weather was warmer than it's been in a long time. I got out for the run around 10:30am and it was already in the mid 70s with clear skies. I brought two UD hand bottles with me, one with HEED, and one with HEED and CarboPro. It was my first time using CarboPro which is just a sugar based carbohydrate source with a very mild flavor. I see it as just calories to add to whatever else you're drinking. 1 Scoop = 100 calories. I had plain HEED in one bottle (100 cal) and HEED plus 3 scoops of CarboPro in the other (400 cal). I alternated bottles every time I drank. It worked out for the first 5 or 6 miles but as the liquid warmed up, the flavor wasn't enough to keep me drinking as much as I should. I also had a little bit of stomach distress from the concentration of calories in the CarboPro bottle. Next time I'll lighten up the calories to 300/bottle at most and use something else to flavor the bottle. Gatorade or Nuun, something with more flavor than HEED which is itself very mild. I forgot to bring any S-caps or Enduralytes with me, so I'm sure I was a little more dehydrated than usual which added to the distress.

Today 4.85 in 47:00 (9:41/mi) I went to the gym to run on the treadmill. I didn't feel up to running around the streets and dealing with traffic, so I set the treadmill to a semi-hilly 10K program. I kept the pace mostly at 9:22/mi (6.4mph) and went with the varying elevations the Treadmill would choose. It got up to 8% at the steepest. My legs felt pretty good and I hope they'll be rested enough for a tempo run tomorrow.

Sunday's run set my weekly mileage at 50.8, the second best I've recorded with first being 65.5 miles back in 2002 the week that I ran the Helen Klein 50 mile race. I'm almost to 160mi for the month which feels like a pretty good start. I'd like to get a couple of 160+ mile months in a row and then fit in another 50km run this year. A 50 mile run would be even better if I can get the training in.