M'kay

6.5 miles in 49:00, 7:32/mi, HR 149.  1.0 miles in 8:56, HR 127 with the dogs.

Easy afternoon jaunt after stressful day filled with doing taxes and getting calls from our bank and QVC discovering someone had stolen our credit card numbers and were trying to ring up purchases.  Luckily, the bank and QVC both sniffed out the fradulent charges and so everything was pretty much prevented, but it requires paperwork and new card #s.  Second time in two years this has happened to us.  So the run was a good stress reliever.  Now back to the taxes!

Brooks Trance - 415.51 miles.

13.5 miles in 1:43:29, 7:40/mi, HR 155.

Moved up medium-long run to take advantage of the holiday and use my new forest pass to run some new trails nearby. Nice new scenery shared with a few logging and occasional pickup trucks. Hills were a bit more than I'd anticipated with the monster starting at mile 3 gaining about 850' over 1.5 miles. Time doesn't reflect my "lung stops" where I had to pause for a few seconds to allow my lung to catch up on the steeper sections. Some nice views and I snapped a couple of shots with my phone for posterity (and for the search and rescue team if my navigation skills had failed). A fine run on a fine day (although my body is in desperate need of my chiropractic appt tomorrow).

Starting up the hill...

This looks like the top....NOT!!!

I was there...the road right of center...

A better perspective....the road on the left side of the picture....and this wasn't the top!

Brooks Adrenaline (Yellow) - 286.75 miles.

8 miles in 59:42, 7:27/mi, HR 153. 1 mile in 9:14, HR 129 with the dogs.

Easy day to recover from pounding legs took off-road yesterday. No soreness yet but I can can hear my quads whining already. Still trying to figure out when this speed became easy....

Felt like a bit of a head cold the last couple of days....suspect it's this false spring we're having releasing pollens into the area.  

Decided to recheck my resting heart rate the other morning and discovered a new low....40 (used to be 43).  A good sign. 

Brooks Trance - 424.51 miles.

13.51 miles in 1:40:00, 7:24/mi, HR 160. 30 minute warmup, 40 minute Fartleks (5 x 5 minutes on/3 minutes off), 30 minute cooldown.

Fartlek	Distance (miles)	Pace (min/mi)	HR (avg/max)	Terrain
1	.82	6:06	177/182	1/4 up - 3/4 flat
2	.81	6:10	175/180	rolling
3	.79	6:18	173/179	1/4 up - 3/4 flat
4	.81	6:12	172/180	rolling
5	.80	6:14	173/179	rolling

Decided to stay one day ahead on my schedule and to do my Fartlek workout for the week today while the weather was still nice (no guarantees tomorrow.) A bit tired and a touch of sore throat the last couple of days had me rethinking that decision all the way to the first iteration, but decided to just go for it. Over-exuberance in the beginning of the first one left me hurting halfway thru the first one....uh oh. Managed to recover and knock out all 5, although the last 15 seconds or so of the last one I was in serious O2 debt, gasping to get enough air in, and about to completely shutdown, which I guess was good timing. Considering the terrain differences, iterations 2-5 were all pretty evenly paced, sitting between my 5k and 10k race paces. My right quad was noticeably tired during the cooldown, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

Asics GT 2120 - 70.02 miles.

1.0 miles in 8:38/mi, HR 133 with the dogs.  6.5 miles in 49:27, 7:36/mi, HR 152.

Dogs were feeling frisky today, reflected in their pace.  After yesterday's Fartlek workout, I was most decidedly not....kept the pace easy and made a mental note to repeat this tomorrow.  Sleep was not wonderful; result of hard workout yesterday I'm sure.  At least the weather held...beautiful sunny day in the high 40s again.  Rain scheduled for tomorrow.

Brooks Trance - 432.01 miles.

8.0 miles in 59:02, 7:22/mi, HR 156.  1.5 miles in 13:22, 8:54/mi, HR 137 with the dogs.

Felt oh so tired this morning, but managed to wake up and come run time felt pretty good, especially since the promised rain had not manifested yet and I was treated to another sunny day in the 50s.  Right calf muscle had a knot in it on waking this morning, but it worked itself out a couple of miles in and I felt pretty good throughout the run.  I've been winding up on the fast side of my Easy run pace, so it's probably time for another race to baseline fitness.

The dogs were in rare form today, so I decided to keep going as long as they were in the mood to pull me along.  Shy of the 3/4 mile mark they finally slowed, so we rounded it off to a nice 1.5 mile jaunt out and back.

Brooks Adrenaline (Yellow) - 296.25 miles.

22 miles in 2:52:11, 7:49/mi, HR 153.

Over the hills and through the woods and back over the hills and through more woods and....

Another fantastic day in the Pacific NW, Sunny, starting temp ~ 40F, ending temp ~ 49F. Decided to make this another trail/hilly long run today. All went according to plan until about 1/3 of the way in my path turned from dirt to icy and frozen snow. Since this was the start of the middle hill I'd intended and there was no way I was going to be able to keep footing, I went with Plan B....take the next stretch as a nice long downhill at a faster pace and leave a punishing hill for later in the run.

Got some true cross-country miles in, complete with muddy shoes, stream crossings, thorn bushes, and a 9:38 mile which was blazing fast given the terrain. Tackled a long 3+ mile hill that I'd not run for many months that previously reduced me to intermittent walking in order to get to the top, managing to keep around an 8:00/mi avg. Decided late in the run to extend the run from 20 to 22 miles, giving myself a nice 2.5 mile downhill to the finish as a reward, so the last miles were 7:17, 7:08, and 7:08. A solid enjoyable long run.

Some happy snaps from my run:

Asics GT 2120 - 92.02 miles.