| Location: Eatonville,WA,USA Member Since: Nov 01, 2007 Gender: Male Goal Type: Age Division Winner Running Accomplishments: Short-Term Running Goals: Regain consistency. Build up slowly and come out strong. Regain "speed" (relative) Finish WR50 again. Improve at Cascade Crest. 2013 Races: - Capital Peak Mega Fat Ass 17M (1/19) - 2:48:48
- Yakima Skyline Rim 50K (4/21) - 7:16:20
- Grey Rock 50K (5/13)
- White River 50M (7/27)
- Cascade Crest 100M (8/24-25)
Long-Term Running Goals: Find my true running potential, then exceed it.
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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 50.80 | 6.00 | 4.86 | 3.51 | 65.17 |
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| NB 905 Miles: 22.46 | Adrenaline 10 Miles: 14.00 | Asics 2150 Miles: 14.57 | Adrenaline ASR Miles: 14.14 |
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| Night Sleep Time: 60.00 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 60.00 | |
| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Planned to run after deinstalling the old dishwasher and installing the new one, just in case that task took longer than I expected. It did.....7.5 hours including about 2 hours of ferret proofing. Then, another 45 minutes of ferret-proofing after the ferrets defeated my initial work in about 5 minutes. Since this didn't account for cleanup time, a run was out of the question. Probably just as well since yesterday was an extremely hard run and my legs were really feeling it. |
| Night Sleep Time: 10.00 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 10.00 |
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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 7.59 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.51 | 11.10 |
| LM warmup (10 reps), 11.1 miles in 1:27:47, 7:54/mi, HR 158, w/ 3 mile warmup, 2 x Strides/Drills, 8 x 2 min on, 2 min off Fartleks, 3+ mile cooldown, PU/SU/Leg ladder (7/7/4), & stretching. Calves are the only things still hurting from Saturday.....right lower calf/achilles was a bit stiff, so I wasn't so sure about running this workout. It seemed to loosen up during the warmup so I went for it, but it did tighten up during the last reps and during the cooldown so I hope I don't regret the decision. Warm & sunny today (69F). Much warmed in the sun and I was baking. Legs were still a bit tired from Saturday (and probably from yesterday's dishwasher install). Ran these repeats pretty hard, quite close to the puke level. First 7 were uphill, last 3 downhill, overall average 5:42/mi. Even though they hurt pretty badly, I'm encouraged because I think I ran them stronger than the 20 x 1 min on/off repeats from 2 weeks ago. But maybe that's just wishful thinking. Iced the right calf afterwards in an attempt to makeup for abusing it. | |
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| Night Sleep Time: 8.00 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 8.00 |
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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 6.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 14.00 |
| LM warmup (10 reps), 14 miles in 1:42:22, 7:18/mi, HR 157, w/ last 6 miles moderate effort (~ MP terrain adjusted) in 6:26 (down), 6:30 (down), 6:30 (down), 6:32 (down), 6:30 (down), 6:55 (up), 1 mile walk w/ dogs & stretching. Warm & humid, then rainy and pleasant, then back to warm and humid. Lower right calf still a bit tight and sore...both calves a bit tight, but fine otherwise. A good run, one where everything felt doable and not overly hard. Love these runs....just hard enough to feel like you're working at it without completely zapping you. On another note, it's time for me to get over my hangup with sub-6 minute paces. Why is it that speeding up from 6:05 to 6:00 doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but speeding up from 6:00 to 5:59 seems like it's the hardest thing in the world? Answer? It's mental, you (meaning me) idiot. I fall apart trying to run a sub-6 pace, not because I can't but because my mind keeps telling me it's too hard and I can't do it, or at least not for long. Okay, so maybe the not for long part has a ring of truth to it, but the rest is pure bunk. Reflecting on my 5K PR, it's embarrassing. Oh, it's not too terribly slow for my other races and I don't focus on that distance and I don't train specifically for it blah blah blah blah. But I really should be a low 18s and probably an upper 17s 5K runner right now given my fitness, which means the reason I'm not is.....the dreaded 5:xx mental block. So here it is. I'm done with it. Not going to let something stupid like my own mind push me around like that. From now on, I *love* running sub-6 paces and it feels easy, sustainable. If it hurts, its because hurting feels good and I can keep hurting because I can run sub-6 paces just fine, thank you. So time to pencil in a 5K and bring my 5K PR down to a more respectable time and get past this hangup so I can keep improving. |
| Adrenaline 10 Miles: 14.00 |
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| Night Sleep Time: 8.00 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 8.00 |
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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 8.07 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 8.07 |
| LM warmup (10 reps), 8.07 miles in 1:02:11, 7:42/mi, HR 155, w/ 15 x 12 sec Hill Sprints, calf raises & stretching. Started out sunny and warm (74F) and finished in cloudy, rainy, and pleasant (56F). Missed beating the rain by 1 minute. Tired today....need to get some additional sleep tonight. Legs were dead from the start and the first 3 uphill miles were slow....mid 8s. Next 4 downhill miles were better, legs felt looser and pace dropped quite a bit. 1st hill sprints was ugly but the rest were good. Legs started really tiring with 5 remaining but I got through them all. #s 3-10 really felt good as I focused on running as fast as possible while staying relaxed, which is probably faster than when I add that extra percent or two but feel like I'm straining. Last uphill mile home was a slog but at least the pace was decent. My reign at position #4 in the 35-39 AG slot on the Northwest Runner Best Times List for the marathon for 2010 has come to an end. Basically, I ran the first marathon that counted when the list was reset for the year and now that other marathons have been run by speedier folks in my AG, I have been usurped. Ah well....it was nice while it lasted. | |
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| Night Sleep Time: 8.00 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 8.00 |
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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 6.50 | 0.00 | 4.86 | 0.00 | 11.36 |
| LM warmup (10 reps), 11.36 miles in 1:22:55, 7:18/mi, HR 155, w/ 3 mile warmup, 2 x Strides/Drills, 3 x 10 minute Tempo Intervals @ HM, HM, 10K pace in 6:19/mi, 6:14/mi, and 5:57/mi avg, 3 mile cooldown. PU/SU/Leg ladder & stretching. Another crazy weather day. Bouts of sun intermixed with torrential downpours and hail. I tried timing my run for the non-downpour and hail portion of the day and managed to avoid most....except for the downpour and hail during my last (and toughest repeat). Fortunately I wasn't thinking too much about the weather during it. But I get ahead of myself. Still a bit tired despite getting more sleep last night. The warmup felt decent but the legs were completely unenthusiastic about the drills. After laboring through those, I discovered another gear during the strides.....suddenly at top speed my leg turnover was noticeably increased over previous strides. Wow. Perhaps trying to focus on the relaxed portion of the strides (and hill sprints) has helped? Or maybe I was just imaging things. In any event, the turnover increase was noticeable so I'll take it. Tempo repeat goals were 6:18/mi for the first 2 and 5:57/mi for the last one. I also wanted to avoid running the first one too hard like I normally do. So the first one in 6:20 was a bit slow but a success since it was the slowest of the group. Plus, the wind was starting to gust by now, so conditions were less than ideal. Each of the repeats feature a 180 turn where I probably lose a couple of seconds, so I probably ought temper the paces accordingly, but oh well. Repeat 2 felt hard but decent and I brought that one in under target. Repeat 3. Time to put $$$ where my mouth is. The other day, I vowed to stop letting those 5:xx paces intimidate me. It was difficult with the weather worsening, my legs tiring, and the normal "no way you can run 10 minutes at a 5:57/mi pace" thoughts surfacing, but I took a deep breath, pushed the thoughts out of my mind, stood tall, and went for it. I kept my head up looking down the road, much more than I normally do, and tried to just go hard and not look at the watch so much. Here's where the hail started greeting me. Fun. Looking up and down the road, I realized I probably run with my head down too much, which probably means I lean forward from the waist too much. Anyway, at about 1/2 mile in I was on a 5:32/mi pace. Wow. Now the outbound leg is downhill slightly so it was expected to be a bit fast since I normally lose some on the uphill return. I just tried to stay loose, push, keep the "you can't" thoughts out, and finish. So when I hit the 10 minute mark and the watch showed 5:57/mi pace I was thrilled. Then I wiped all the snot from my face and beard that had accumulated during the past 10 minutes. Real fun. The cooldown was uneventful, aside from crashing hard with about 1 mile left and stumbling in the final mile. Interestingly enough, about an hour later I got what I believe is an Ocular Migraine. My vision gets all funky, with wavy lights moving through making it difficult to read. I've gotten these before and they seem to be triggered by particularly hard exercise efforts. Fortunately, I don't seem to get the headache that some people do who suffer from these. I probably ought confirm my self diagnosis with my doctor sometime, but I've gotten these for years now after certain hard exercise bouts and I haven't keeled over yet, so I don't think it's too dangerous. Score: Dale - 1, 5:xx/mi Mental Demon - 0 | |
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| Night Sleep Time: 9.00 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 9.00 |
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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 6.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 6.50 |
| LM warmup (10 reps), 6.5 miles in 49:03, 7:32/mi, HR 148, & stretching. Cool and rainy (50F). Legs felt heavy and uncoordinated. | |
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| Night Sleep Time: 7.50 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 7.50 |
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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 14.14 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 14.14 |
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LM warmup (10 reps), 14.14 miles in 2:33:23, 10:51/mi, HR 138, w/ 2300+' elevation gain.
Today was an adventure run. No other way to describe it. My initial plan was to run 24 miles in the UW Pack Forest, exploring some of the hiking and horse trails I hadn't explored before. I also intended to scout the perimeter road in search of a back-way into town. So after plotting a tentative route and getting decked out in my finest trail running digs, I was off.
First 2 miles were normal....on the road heading for what the map showed was the eastern perimeter road. Hit that and headed down...it was gravel but had a lot of running water and mud, not too terribly bad. Until I hit a dead-end that wasn't on the map. I could make out the faintest signs of what I'll call a single-track minus trail heading off to the left from the dead end, away from some guy's trailer-home to the front right. Since there were telephone poles with what looked like active wires on them, I figured it was probably a trail and just a tad overgrown. In retrospect, it might've been a deer trail at best. With all the rains to date, it was nothing more than a muddy mess at best and a stream at worst (those might be backwards). This was the start of Mr. Dale's Wild Ride.
I followed the path, choosing the more well-worn path when confronted with a choice, trying to move in the direction that I thought I'd be going originally. At times the path widened to an old 2-lane rut but it'd quickly narrow and at times disappear. I finally came out on the top of a ridge in an old clear-cut and the trail finally vanished. Not wanting to retrace my muddy steps, I picked up another faint track and aimed uphill. Soon I was completely cross-country, crawling over and under logs, on all fours climbing up the steep hillside, and generally just trying to find my way back to a path. By this point, my legs were cut to shreds by the blackberry creepers, my shoes and socks were soaked with mud and water, and I'd gone less than 5 miles. I finally crawled up onto the paved road and jumped onto the railroad track to cross the bridge over into the main pack forest area. A bit of level decent trails and fire roads here for a while, I jumped onto the path that takes you down by the Mashell falls. Here's where I learned to ski in my "trail shoes". Rather, I tried not to kill myself by slipping in the mud headed down the not-so-gentle trail. My ASRs are fine for gravel roads and dry single-track, but mud is another matter entirely. I took a couple of side trips to view the falls but those paths obviously aren't used much this time of year and I was back to crawling on all fours in spots. I did manage some cool pics though... 
After lots more wading through the muck, I finally popped out on the northern perimeter road. Out of morbid curiosity, I headed east to see how far I'd get in search of the northern connector, and I came upon the mighty Little Mashell river, and what looked like the remenants of an old log bridge across.....obviously the map needs some updating. I turned around and headed up the nice gentle gravel road for a while, enjoying the whole run-ability of it, but before too long passed another singletrack trailhead....not marked nor on the map. Ah, what the heck. In short order, I was climbing over trees and pushing aside brush again, found yet another dead-end, backtracked for a while, traversed some more mud bogs, and finally popped out onto the 1000 road, the main gravel road system in the forest. From here it was a short hop onto the Reservoir trail, which was muddy but not nearly as bad as the others. This eventually took me into some old growth forest, which I probably would've enjoyed much more had it not coincided with heading straight uphill.  A mix of running and hiking thru this section finally dumped me out in Kirkland Pass, where I picked up the Trail of the Giants. Somewhere in here I finally passed the 8 mile mark in well over 90 minutes, not exactly screaming fast. This trail was more runnable in spots, but I was already tiring quickly from the previous efforts. Next I hit the Windy Ridge trail, which was uphill (of course) and I'd run before, but here I was reduced to quite a bit of hiking. At the top I took the left road loop back to Kirkland Pass, where I decided I'd had enough fun for the day, bombed back down the 1000 road to the east side of the forest, hopped across on the rail bridge, hit the road, and made it back home in just over 14 miles, feeling like I had run 24. My legs didn't fare too well today. 
But it was definitely an adventure. |
| Adrenaline ASR Miles: 14.14 |
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| Night Sleep Time: 9.50 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 9.50 |
| | Comments(3) |
| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 50.80 | 6.00 | 4.86 | 3.51 | 65.17 |
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| NB 905 Miles: 22.46 | Adrenaline 10 Miles: 14.00 | Asics 2150 Miles: 14.57 | Adrenaline ASR Miles: 14.14 |
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| Night Sleep Time: 60.00 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 60.00 | |
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