track fan

1:59:02.  Ran about 3 miles on the road (25:15) and then hit the big hilly loop twice (5.5 miles, 48:50/44:57).  Good workout, beautiful day (only 85F when I finished!!).

So, we watched 3.5 hours of track last night --- YES!  I lost big yesterday, though it was worth it to see Lisa Koll win the 5K/10K double, Andrew Wheating win the 800/1500 double and Queen Harrison win the 100 and 400 hurdles!!

I will be blogging less regularly this week, since I will be out of town and working really hard ...

Have a wonderful family day today and a great week.  Congratulations to all of the superstar racers from the Utah Valley Marathon and all the weekend races! 

AM: (9 miles, 1:16:59).  easy miles with 15 x 100m fartlek in the middle of the run.  Very humid (soupy day here in DC - after a night of sporatic rain).  Felt good, though it was much more sweaty than I am used to, I felt much cooler than most of my runs last week.

PM: (4 miles).  had to sneak this one in, went and ran on the treadmill before my evening meetings started ...

Hope all is going well with you bloggers!

preblogging my PM run -- very early start this morning.  We are supposed to be finished at 2PM,  I worked it out with the hotel that I can go for my run after the meetings are over and shower in the gym here (even though I am already checked out).   What we do to get our runs in??  

Very busy again today ... the reviews are intense this time.

Have a wonderful day bloggers.

Only one run today -- I will be traveling for 10 hours today.  30:45 wu/ 29:56 cd and 5 miles at SS (38:03).  It was likely not exactly 5 miles, and even more likely that it was longer than 5 miles, I calculated a conservative 7:30 pace for 5 miles would be 37:30, but it is too hard to run 18:45 out and 18:45 back ... so after my wu I ran hard for 19 mins and turned around and ran back to where I had started running hard.  I actually ran faster on the coming back portion, so I ran a little longer.  It was hilly, which was good, and it felt really nice to run hard after being cooped up in a windowless, with a bunch of uptight scientists (not you Scott), for 2 days.

 In general, when I travel is the only time when I tend to value quality over quantity (meaning I will give up mileage for quality workouts if I have to).  I was glad to get two "work-outs" in, and only miss a couple of miles.

1:04:46.  Because of my snake encounter last week I am trying to find safer trail runs until late October (when summer *may* end here).  Today I ran some trails near the Pima College track - they were pretty nice, before I saw the signs at the actual "trail-head" I just ran a bunch of inter-connecting trails, some of which did not go very far and some were "lost" eventually.  I was, during this time, thinking that these were great trails to take beginner trail runners on.  There are some technical sections, and for sure if you trip or fall you will get a little bloody, but there were no true "dangerous" sections (dangerous sections defined as: those trails that if you fall you are certain to either: 1. break something; 2. fall on cacti or a bunch of rocks that will cause immeasurable pain and take a visit to the ER to remove; 3. not survive).  Then, I found out why some of the trails 'petered' out ... it is an orienteering park!  pretty cool, I will need to look into this more.

It is wonderful to be home ... well, except that as Dean and were getting to bed last night there was this weird sound ... Dean says "oh, that is the mouse that got trapped in the wall, I went out and looked and it looks like it fell from a hole that connects the evaporative cooler  to the house; I guess *we* need to unhook the cooler (it is not functional) and patch-up the hole".  Hmmm.  I guess *we* had better do that honey ;-).  Anyway, it was sad, I kept giving him suggestions (including dropping a tiny little ladder we can make from rope) to help the mouse, and apparently none of them were feasible.  It makes me sad, and it drives Titus (the cat) absolutely crazy.  Apparently, he has been sitting under my end table near the bed for hours and hours just staring at the wall.

Also, TMI, I did actually enjoy running in DC again, it was super humid (and hot) but as sticky and sweaty as I got I felt MUCH cooler running there than when I run here.  I think that the dry heat (and the 20 more degrees) actually hurts a lot (despite everyones, "but it is a dry heat") -- because the sweat evaporates and you don't get the benefit of cooling properties of sweat here.  That said, one thing I had forgotten was how gross it is to always put on wet running shoes (wet from sweat, not rain, there is a big difference).  My shoes are toast, and will never be allowed in the house again.  When I mentioned this to Dean he said, "I never have forgotten about that, it was horrible".  Personally, I think it was one of the things that he disliked about living in the South. 

 Anyway -- lots of fires to put out after being gone most of the week.  I hate the administrative parts of my job ... I wish I could just do science and leave it at that!

 Have a wonderful weekend bloggers!
 

Funny video   for those of you who already know all the results, the race recap goes for approximately 3 minutes, then you get to see the funny skit: "Shalane versus Kara".  Good stuff for a Friday.

AM: (8 hilly miles, 1:11:09).  Boy howdy it is hot.  But, it was a nice day, no venomous creatures in sight!

PM: (4 miles easy).

Have a great weekend bloggers ... off to Phoenix to see our best friend John of the ART ...