Where's the Donuts?

I had a bit of a break there, went out of town and a few others parts of "life" came up and interrupted my running. I'll get back to it now, though I felt a little rusty today. Easy day to get me back in the groove, I definitely lose focus when I take a few days off. 

Between 4 and 5 miles today, I wasn't keeping good track and I altered my loop. My mileage is way down this week. I tell myself it's because I'm busy, and that's partly true, but I could find the time. I always have in the past, and we're never as busy as we convince ourselves we are. I'm not able to run the race I was planning on in two weeks because of a family obligation, so I've lost some sense of urgency in training. I think I need a goal to keep me dedicated; otherwise I'm just going to run like I am now, 10-15 miles a week, to stay in shape for awhile. Honestly, that's all I'm interested in doing right now. So I'm going through a light period, and I'm sure I'll get focused again at some point. Other things are priority now. 

Easy Sunday morning on a mild day. All we have now is mild days, it seems like it's always 55-65 with a few clouds, maybe a short rain storm or an hour of sun. It's very calming, and I don't miss the snowstorm that hit Logan the other day. I did buy a house, so I'm starting to scout new routes from there now.

 Sasha -- I think Paul mentioned this to you, but I'm not on the WBR team. That was kind of the point of my other post. If I had the WBR to train for I'd be interested right now, but without something like that I've noticed my energy going elsewhere. That's why I'm scaling back training for the short-term. Thanks for the encouragement though.
 

Beautiful morning, and I saw a submarine come through the Sinclair Inlet, which is kind of cool. 

Another nice morning to run. 

Nice stretch of good weather here, and another great morning to run. Six miles in Bremerton at a consistent pace, a few hills to get the heart rate up also. Aaron and I missed touching base with each other so we couldn't head up north for a run out along the Puget Sound, we'll get that one of these weeks.

I played softball Sunday night and I guess it was more of a workout than I thought. Sprints around the bases and in the outfield didn't exhaust me or anything, but yesterday my hamstrings were like rocks. I didn't have a chance to run Monday, but today I spent 3 miles and a lot of stretching just trying to work out the tightness and soreness. Just a different kind of running in softball, I guess. Probably not ready to race anyone in a 200 right now, but I'll loosen up after a few more miles this week. Now the question is whether I can start writing down my Sunday softball on the blog as mileage.   

My hamstrings loosened up today, but I have a really sore hip. No IT band threat, just some strange muscle soreness right on the hip. Did one of my usual routes backwards; Warren Ave. bridge to Manette.  

Took it easy then hit a serious hill and worked up a good heartrate before burning home at a good clip. My hip is still inexplicably sore, but not so much as before. Hamstring is a-ok.
On beautiful evenings like this everything feels pretty smooth anyway.

Apparently the Seattle summer ended this weekend, and we got soaked. That and me being in Seattle without running gear meant a few days off, but back to normal today. I'm noticing that normal is getting a bit boring, so maybe I'll coax a few different runs into the rotation this week. I move next weekend, so then I'll have to come up with different routes. 

Pain in my hip is almost gone, softball rain out yesterday so I didn't have to worry about that. Easy three miles.

Nice runs by you guys at Ogden.
 

I tried a little uptempo today about a mile.five into the run. I need to try more, because it's clear I've lost a bit of speed and it was work just to get to a tinman pace. I haven't done varied pace at all in the past three weeks though, so what do I expect. I'll keep it in mind now, remember to do my striders and try to recapture a little life in my legs. 

A nice morning, an easy run. I would have kept going but I had an early breakfast meeting at work. If the weather holds like this I'll probably be able to do a nice run over the weekend, it'll break up the monotony of moving.