Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Monday 6/27 (5.9mi, 48min, 8:15/mi) I took an easy run toward the Bridle Trails and then I headed down to Grass Lawn park to run about a mile and a half barefoot on the artificial turf of the baseball field. I wish I had time for more but I don't have that kind of schedule. I'd welcome a corporate change to a two hour lunch break.

Tuesday 6/28 (3.2mi, 25min, 8:00/mi) I was planning to ride my bike to work a couple of days this week so I needed to "run" an errand at lunch and head down to a local bike shop.

** Bike shop rant **
Unfortunately it was a Performance Bikes store with very poor selection. It seems like every time I go into Performance I see less brand diversity and more of their house brand "Forte" junk. Forte gear isn't much less expensive but I perceive it to be of far lower quality than the companies that specialize in what ever piece of gear that Forte is copying. In my case I needed a couple of road tubes and I prefer tubes with the superior threadless valve stems which Performance didn't carry because A) Forte doesn't make them, and B) the store only carried Forte and one other brand of road tube. Thanks guys, I don't feel so bad about buying gear online if I'm putting your store out of business. Sadly buying online will probably affect the smaller one-off stores like the superstars at Branford Bicycles (who rebuilt my Campagnolo shifter two years ago) more than a big chain like Performance. It's probably no surprise that I'm a total gear head when it comes to cycling with strong opinions on what I ride.

So back to Tuesday... I ran out to the Performance bike shop in Redmond, bought a lock and some tubes then came back to work to lift weights for a few minutes to eat up the rest of my lunch break.

Wednesday 6/29 (2.0mi, 17.5min, 8:45/mi) I rode my bike to the train station, took the train for a bit, and then rode the rest of the way to work. It's been a little over 2 years since I've ridden my bike and it came back to me quickly but I've predictably lost quite a bit of bike fitness, especially when it comes to hill climbing. Other than that I ran 2 miles at the gym before lifting weights and taking the bus and a much shorter bike ride home.

Thursday 6/30 (6.65mi, 51min, 7:44/mi) I was a little sore from the ride in to work yesterday (especially the muscles that were contact points with the saddle) so I started out a little slow on my run out to the Bridle Trails. I picked up the pace as the run went on and felt pretty good overall.

Friday 7/1 (3.0mi, 24min, 7:56/mi) I rode in to work from North Seattle. I took a route that went north over and around Lake Washington and ended up being 22.5 miles each way. I kept a pretty high pace (for me) on the way in and was a little bit slowed down by the wind and the hills on the way home. At lunch I ran 3 miles on the treadmill and lifted weights. I started the treadmill at just over a 9:00/mi pace and increased it a few seconds/mi every quarter mile. I ran the last quarter at a 5:40/mi pace, just barely hanging on.

Not much running for the week but adding 85mi on the bike was a nice change. I started feeling sick on Saturday afternoon and didn't run from Sat through the following Tuesday.

I finished up June with 138 miles on 25 runs in 19h 2min for an 8:15/mi average pace. It was my best month so far this year but pretty low for a summer month. I hope to pick it up in July. I'm sitting at 734mi at the end of the first half of 2011. I'd like to hit 1500 for the year so I'm hoping to pick it up the rest of the summer and have a couple of big months.

1 comment:

mthead said...

good job, you have me by 200 miles at the end of june (but can I bonus in 20 swim miles?)