Where's the Donuts?

Manette Hills loop, clear morning that wasn't as cold as I feared. Nice Pacific Northwest winter day coming at us. Easy pace, focused on the hills, felt fine. 45:06

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Just a shorty before heading to work early. Easy running around the neighborhood, watched a wonderful dawn on what's going to be a clear, sunny day. Glad I don't live in the Midwest. 22:05

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Morning run on Beach Drive with Mike. Light sprinkle when we started, but the temperature was nice, in the mid-40s. Weather turned out fine for a January morning. We ran a little faster pace than a week ago, hit most miles at 7/min, and a few in the 6:55 range. But I had much more energy than a week ago, and felt really smooth even at the quicker pace. 1:12:10

Sighting of the morning: After we finished the run and had some breakfast, I drove by one of the waterfront homes heading out of Port Orchard. A guy had walked down a long driveway toward Bay Street and was getting his newspaper — and remember, it's 45 and drizzly outside — in only a kilt. Just spendin' a lazy morning hanging around the house in a kilt. Keep Washington weird, my friends. 

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Another gray, cloudy day, but perfect weather for a winter trail run. Up to Green Mountain, more cars in the lot than I expected, but once I got going it was peaceful and quiet on the hills. Saw a few runners I know early on, but then plenty of alone time on the Beaver Pond loop. 

Same route as a few weeks ago, I really enjoy that trail. Good mix of steady elevation gain and then bombing back downhill. Footing is iffy at times, and it gets muddy in there, but in an enjoyable way. I cut two minutes from the time two weeks ago, mostly by powering the hills and trying to get my turnover going downhill. Great run, though I was pretty hungry by the 90-minute mark. Took one Clif block, getting used to eating and running again. 1:37:14.

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Chili time.

Morning loop through Lions Park, with 6x100 on Shore Drive to finish. 48:40

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Late night plus early morning means a mid-day run. But the sun was out and it was a good time to sneak out of work. Quick four around Manette, got some hills in. 30:09

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Predawn bridge loop run, plus Shore Drive. Fog hid the sunrise, which was too bad. Ran a medium pace, nothing fancy, and felt good. Still base building, but I should mix in a workout soon. Though our basketball game Thursday night did get me some sprint training work. 40:28

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 Wonderful early season trail run on the OPG land in North Kitsap. Saturday's rain ended and we saw some sunshine, mild weather and trails that were muddy but not too muddy. The fun type.

Started off with Mike, we let three or four guys race out and settled into a nice pace leading a group of four or five. That dwindled to a group of three (me, Mike and this guy Miles) who stuck together until the home stretch. We weren't much for conversation, but it was fun to catch up with Miles a bit and have the pack for motivation. Kept a really good, even pace, competative but conservative enough that we had energy for the whole way (and Miles, who's training for Hardrock, did a second loop for 50k). The singletrack there is really windy and hard to get any pace on, but we ran the downhills pretty briskly. We also ran really well on the hills, I was proud of the momentum and consistent pace on all the uphill stretches. Good sign for Chuckanut.

We caught two younger guys and one stuck with us, then did this really strange surge at the one-hour mark, sprinting ahead. We reeled him back in within eight minutes, and taught him a lesson about surging during trail races (this was his first). We dropped him and beat him by 13 minutes.

Within 10 minutes of the finish our pack spotted second place. Didn't totally chase, but we had a solid pace and slowly reeled him in. He didn't see us until a water crossing and then knew we had him. Turned a corner with 1/4 or so on a road and I snuck by him by taking a sharp corner and burned it in. Mike tried to hang with me but I outkicked him by 20 seconds or so. Really strong finish, and that snuck me under 2 hours for the race, which was my goal. Two years ago, on a slightly different course in very different weather, I ran 2:04.

Overall a really fun morning of running. Maybe the best course markers I've ever seen (probably because they were all scrambled last year.) Good crowd as usual, we hung out for 45 minutes cheering others and talking to folks. I felt beat, but not destroyed in the legs, and got a nice boost of confidence from this one.

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Brisk morning run around the City Walk in Orlando (which I learned at the end of the run is prohibited by rule; no wonder all the dawn laborers were yelling at me). On a work trip this week, running has not been what was planned and turned out to be a down week. 22:00

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Another morning run in Orlando before meetings got started, had a little more time and took the long loop around the block surrounding Universal Studios. Warm and humid morning, even with cloud cover, which felt nice. Not as fast as Thursday. 31:53

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Sunny Sunday afternoon in the Pacific Northwest, and I made up for Saturday's slack-off travel day with a good run. Out to Tracyton boat launch, trying to keep the pace easy, though it was chillier than I planned. But the sunshine makes me forget that. 

Got to the boat launch and had some knee trouble with the left one locking up some, but that may have just been the cold. I did a few hills around Tracyton to add some extra distance and my left knee seemed to loosen up. Back at a decent pace, then along Shore Drive and home. 1;20:49

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Good start to the week with these back-to-back, especially seeing the sun both days. Breezy, and downright windy at times so it wasn't exactly warm; but the Vitamin D makes me forget that. I ran over to Evergreen Park, where Mike was waiting, we did a loop up the Warren Ave bridge and around Lion's Park, then back to the Manette Bridge. We stopped halfway across and talked to the construction workers about the new bridge project. It's a fun route to run because you get to see the new bridge being build just feet away, you can almost reach out and touch the new girders. 

Legs felt good, we didn't rush at all but managed a decent pace after warming up. I was spent after running home though. Took Warren Ave. back and added a few hills up above Harrison Medical Center. I usually run that route backwards and before dawn, I didn't realize how steep some parts were. Exhausted after finishing for some reason (may have been the cold air and jet lag as much as the exertion), I napped for almost 90 minutes. 1:16:55.

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Workout day. No snow on the ground or in the air when I woke up, which was a great sign. Not even as cold out as forecast. 

Three-mile warmup around Manette, then I hit the Jacobson Hill for 1-minute sprints. It's about a 250m incline that I run, and then back down taking two minutes slowly. The first was at 1:00, then they got slower before finishing a little better: 1:03, 1:07, 1:09, 1:06, 1:04. Legs felt strong up the hills, it's the fitness that isn't there. One mile cooldown. 45:58

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Morning run on the Warren-Manette bridges loop. Pretty cold, but absolutely beautiful sunrise. Rainier was a silouette and the Olympics lit up pink. 37:03

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Icy at the start for this one, and I even waited until later in the day. But 32 feels like, oh, zero here after a mild winter otherwise. I went to Green Mountain, and after the first half mile or so I had passed the other hikers who had parked and had the mountain to myself. Wonderful peace. 

The trail was iced over in places where there's usually run-off, and a few little frozen puddles, but otherwise it was in really nice shape. Twenty minutes in I had warmed up, and didn't have a problem with frozen digits after that. Kept a better pace once I warmed up and got past the icy uphills also, and I really enjoyed the Beaver Pond loop today. Got a good clip going.

I ran to the Gold Mountain parking lot, but skipped the little jaunt up to the vista (it was gray anyway, and that last stretch is all rocks. No reason to slip on an icy rock today.) Then zipped back down to the parking lot, feeling great. Really happy for a run that I thought might be a slog, and capped a pretty productive week. First one over 40 miles, and it'll just go up from here. 1:33:10

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Miserable weather outside and last night after the trail run my left arch/ball of the foot started to hurt, so I tried to take care of both with a treadmill run. Six at 7:41 pace at the Y, I could feel my arch to start but once I warmed up nothing to worry about. Tried to be light on my feet to not pound it too much. Spent longer than usual stretching afterward as well, I think my calves, etc. are tight and that may play into some foot/ankle soreness. Good recovery run to start what should be another week to increase the mileage. 46:05

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I got zonked with something yesterday afternoon, either a cold coming or just the week landed on me in one shot and stuck me on the couch. Went to bed feeling really fatigued and sore. Sleeping in this morning helped (I'm on a late shift this month), but I wasn't going to pile miles on feeling this way. Shorty around Manette to shake my legs loose and sweat a bit. I -- as usual -- feel better after finishing. Tossed in a serious hill up Cascade Trail for good measure, just to tack something helpful on at the end. I'm still planning a high mileage week and I want to be above 50 by Saturday, so back to drinking Vitamin C. 35:04

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