Same Time, Same Channel

Recovery run. Average pace: 10:48.

I just could not get going very fast this morning. It's probably because of my long run last Saturday, the fact that I ate too much junk over the weekend, and the fact that I stayed up too late last night. I've got to do better on the eating and the sleeping. Thanksgiving week is a hard time to crack down on over eating, but I've got to do it. I think I'll restart my food journal. I've got to try to get to bed earlier too. Last night was hard because my inlaws got here from Utah last evening and we were up late finishing a game of Monopoly. My 6-year-old daughter won thanks to a lot of luck, and advice from her dad.

I had a short talk yesterday with a woman at church who has her own triathlon training business. She recommended that I run a trail near hill called Waterton Canyon. I might have a go of it next Saturday if I have the time to drive out there.This morning on my run I passed this same woman who was running the opposite direction. That was fun.

I had a little tricky section on my run just behind the high school. Some people drop their kids off for school there instead of driving around to the front of the school. So there were cars stopped on both sides of the street with kids opening passenger-side doors to get out. The open doors made running on the sidewalk tricky, so I decided to run on the other side of the pulled-over cars, but that didn't work out so well either because those cars would suddenly pull out after dropping off the kid. I had to dance around a car that was doing that. I also stuck to one side of the street because there were some kids smoking on the other side of the street.

Tomorrow I'm going to run to work and run back home at the end of the day so that my inlaws can use my car. It's about 4.5 miles each way, but it's mostly downhill going there and mostly uphill coming home. I've never done two-a-days before and I've never run in the evening, so it should be interesting. Also, I've got to take a change of clothes and stuff to work today for tomorrow because I don't want to carry it on my back while I'm running to work. I can take a shower when I get to work.

AM: Easy run - 4.73 miles. Average pace: 10:02.

Outside temp: 44°F according to my window thermometer, but it felt colder than that to me.

I did the first half of my two-a-day. Unfortunately, that was the easy half since it was morning and was mostly downhill. I took it pretty easy and I hope I have enough in my tank for the mostly uphill return trip this evening. I'm going to take a different route on the way home so the mileage will probably be a little bit different. I'm not sure which way is shorter, but I suspect that the way I'm going to go home is a little shorter.

It's a logistical challenge to run to work since I don't want to run with a big pack of stuff on my back. I brought a duffle bag to work yesterday with a change of clothes, a towel, and toiletries. I'll change back into running clothes (I also brought some clean running clothes) this evening for the run home and leave today's work clothes and all that other stuff here in the duffle bag, and then take the duffle bag back home tomorrow. With this method, I can only run to work on alternating days, never on consecutive days unless I bright two days worth of stuff in the duffle bag. Running to work isn't really practical for me right now anyway because of my need to get kids off to school and then get them places in the late afternoon/early evening. It just works today because my inlaws are here. Maybe I'll do it someday when my kids are older if I still live a reasonable distance from my office like I do now.

I'll post details about my return trip this evening.

PM: Easy run - 4.75 miles. Average pace: 10:27.

So I was a little slower coming home than going, but that was too be expected. It wasn't too bad. The route I took home was definitely a more gradual uphill than I would have had if I had gone the same way I went to work. I should have taken my headlamp in the morning, but I didn't because it was light when I ran to work. It was dark running home. I did have my reflective vest, though. I'll see how I feel on tomorrow morning's run. I hope I didn't wear myself out too much because I'm doing a Turkey Day 5K. It's not a big deal if I blow it, but it would be nice to get a good time.

Easy run. Average pace: 10:19.

I slept in until 6:00 this morning since my kids don't have school. However, that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do since I do have to go to work and I'm going to be late. In any case, I got up and did Week 1 Day 2 of the push ups program, then did level 3 of the shred, and then ran. I felt okay on the run, not great, but not horrible. I actually was tempted to push the pace a little at one point, but then didn't because I'm running a 5K tomorrow and I thought I'd save my energy a little bit.

I felt pretty good about yesterday's two-a-day. I might try to do it again some time if the opportunity presents itself.

My Garmin was out of batteries, so I don't have good stats. I left it plugged in to the computer over night, and the computer got turned off. The Garmin must have been on and run down the battery.

I did some easy running before the race, but not a whole lot and not as much as I had planned, because the friend I was running with didn't want to run that much for a warm up.

I think that running it without the Garmin was a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I didn't really know my pace, so I just ran as fast as I felt like I could. A curse because I love data and I don't have good data.

They had chip timing for this race, but I never saw a chip reader at the start. For that matter, I never saw the start line. I was a ways back in the pack and I was expecting to go over a start line, but I never did. However, there was a chip reader at the end. Maybe they're only reading end times and basing the start on the gun. It was really crowded at the start and so we started out pretty slow. I stayed with my friend for about half of the race, but she was struggling a bit and I was feeling pretty good, so with her permission I left her and took off. Official results aren't posted yet, but the clock said 26:46 as I crossed the finish line. I think that's about 2 minutes faster than my previous PR.

PM: Easy run of 2.11 miles. Average pace: 9:45.

My 16-year-old son wanted to go for a run (which he has never done before) so I went out with him. He is inclined to go faster than I am, which accounts for my pace, but I have more endurance. He turned around and headed home after a mile and I continued on, but I stayed at the pace that I was already going with him.

Time for pie.

**Update**

I got the official race results. I was right in that they didn't track the start with the chip. So my gun time is 26:46. I don't have a separate chip time. This gives me an average pace of 8:38.

Overall place: 295 out of 975

Gender place: 78 out of 460

Division place: 24 out of 128

Easy run on the slow side. Average pace 10:48.

Outside temp: 36° according to my window thermometer, 27° according to the local news. Motionbased, which is getting data from a weather station closer to my house than the tv station is, says 26°. In any case, it was cold.

I think my window thermometer isn't very accurate when the temperature inside the house is much different from the temperature outside the house, that is, when it's very cold or very hot.

I got up and did week 1, day 3, level 2 of the pushup program and did level 3 of the shred before my run. I have had the luxury of doing all three of these things in the morning last Wednesday and today because the kids don't have school and I haven't been in a rush to get in to work (although I have had to come to work). However, next week when the kids are back at school I won't be able to fit in all three. I'm thinking I could do the pushup program on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and the shred on Tuesdays and Thursdays (and maybe Saturdays). But then I'm not getting a full two-days of rest between pushup days because the shred has pushups in it. But it only has two sets of 8 or 9 pushups. Maybe I'll give it a try next week.

For those of you who are also doing the push up program, I'm able to do level 2 because I've been doing the shred for 6 months and so I had a head start.

Long run. Average pace: 10:07.

Outside temp: 34°F

Yesterday I said that we didn't have any snow in Denver. That was true then. It's not true now. It snowed over night, but not too much, maybe an inch or two.

I ran on the Highline Canal Trail, which is a dirt trail. This time I went south from the rec center instead of north. I had never gone on this part of the trail before. I think I like the northern part of the trial better because it has tunnels that go under the busy streets that the trail crosses. On the southern section, I had to cross the same busy street (Broadway) three times each direction, so six times total. And two of the crossings (so four times), I had to go out of my way to go up to a crosswalk to cross instead of crossing where the trail left off and picked up again.

There are several different sets of mile markers on the trail. I used a different set today than I used last week. The one I used today has mile marker 8 at the rec center. I ran from there to mile marker 0 and back. That should have been 16 miles, but between going out of my way to cross the street four times and missing the 0 mile marker and overshooting it, I went more than 16. I could have stopped and walked when my Garmin said 16 miles, but I decided to keep going until I got back to the mile marker that I started at.

The trail was clear in some parts and had varying amounts of snow in other parts. There were some sections where it was packed with about an inch of snow. Also, there are big trees that line the trail in some places and their branches overhang the trail. Snow was falling a little bit at a time off of the trees and it was almost like it was snowing. A couple of times a big bunch of snow fell on me. It was like the trees were throwing snowballs at me.

It was actually quite picturesque, but I was too cold and tired to enjoy it much.

This was a difficult run for me today. If I keep doing this distance and farther, will this distance ever get easy for me? Maybe it would be easier if I went slower. But it was cold and I wanted to get home. I sped up just slightly the last three miles. But thank heavens for smartwool socks. At least my feet weren't freezing.