All about that pace.

11:00am 13 sunny miles around Spokane ending with a soak in the hottub.

7:44

4:30am

10 hilly miles before work.

7:38

6:30pm

Hills and trails at dusk.

7:22 avg.

9:30am

Easy run after sleeping in. It's amazing what a couple extra hours of sleep will do.

7:36 avg.

6:00pm

Easy run down to Topside in Steilacoom for Tacoma Runners Thursday Beer Run. They brought the event out to my neck of the woods this week, so I got to pick the route and lead the run.

6:40pm

3.3 miles through Steilacoom with about 75 runners. It was a great night hanging out with friends! Excellent food and service. John, the owner took good care of us!

I feel like racing tomorrow and can't decide... 5k or 50k?

8:00am

This was my first Ultra and my first actual "trail" race; it could also be my last on both counts. I had no particular goals going into this other than to stay on my feet and finish uninjured. So, mission accomplished on that front. I knew it would be much different than a road race, but I had no idea how different.

The course was 3 laps around a 10 mile "loop" all within Point Defiance park on the trails starting at Owens Beach and climbing to some of the highest points in the park. All of the ascents were runable for the most part, as were most of the descents the first time around. After the first loop, the descents were a lot trickier on tired legs and even got a little scary on the last loop. I would say about 30% of the course was very technical (for a road racer) and one section was so steep that there was actually a rope strung down the hillside for us to rapell the descent! Overall, the race was like a 30 mile muddy rollercoaster ride with over 3900 feet of elevation gain.

It was frustrating to go so slow at first, I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere running 8-9 minute miles. After the first loop I knew I needed to keep it slow and easy to finish strong, but it was so hard to pace myself with all the hills and roots, rocks, etc. not to mention my Garmin readout was all over the place due to the tree cover on the trails. Not far into the 2nd loop I caught up with another runner that I knew was a very strong ultra marathoner and figured it was time to back off before I blew up. I decided to hang back and pace behind him even though it felt slow at times. I knew I would need all the energy I could conserve for that last loop. We chatted off and on for a while and the time passed pretty quickly for a few miles. I finished the second loop right behind him, stopped a little too long for a drink of water and that was the last I saw of him.

I was on my own for the entire 3rd loop except for when 2 runners passed me at the 25 mile aid station and booted me back to 12th place. I was cramping and had tons of dirt and little rocks piled up in both shoes so I stopped there for several minutes to relax and empty my shoes. From there I managed to shake off the cramps, but the steep descents hurt my feet and I just wanted it to be over! This is about the point where a regular marathon would be over and I could not figure out what the heck would posess me to pay money for this experience. I was losing the battle. Normally I would recognize this feeling as the mental place where a race actually starts and push harder(in training, the only miles that even count are the ones you run AFTER you want to quit), today I just wanted to quit. Unfortunately, finishing the race was the fastest way back to my car and I was dangerously close to being late for a class I was leading at my church in the afternoon. Quitting, walking, crawling, none of these were options. I had places to be and people to see. It took all I had, but I managed to keep moving and finished my first Ultra and my 10th marathon.

After the race and my class, I went straight to PLU and met Kym at a work event that went until nearly midnight. I have never been so tired!

6:30pm

It's about time I got off my butt and went for a run. 3 miles around Magoos Annex with Tacoma Runners. The first mile went pretty slow, then the leaders picked it up a bit and did the last 2 around 6:20. The 4 star Thai food I had for lunch made the last mile pretty rough.

Avg 6:51

5:00am Up for coffee and banana after a good night's sleep. Trying to prepare a little better than I did for last week's spur of the moment race. I've been thinking about this one for at least 3 days now :) The race sold out Friday, but I emailed the RD and she agreed to squeeze me in if I showed up early. Other than a little fog, the weather looks perfect this morning, 48°, 2 mph wind, and 1% chance of rain.

The goal today: finish strong and beat last week's time. Steilacoom offers a lot of hills and singletrack, but the hills are not as steep and I am more familiar with this park. I'm sure there will be some surprises, but I spend a lot of time at Steilacoom Park so this should be fun!

This race was fun, as long as you didn't care about everybody actually running the same course. The organizers and volunteers were super nice, but the course marking was really sketchy compared to the Defiance 50k last week. Most of it was marked well enough, but there were several key corners that were not marked well at all. There were so many decision points at intersections it didn't seem like anybody was sure about where they were going on the course. The only volunteers on the course were at the aid stations, nobody was helping at all with directions. There was a group of about 10 runners that missed part of the course on the back side of the park and we all came up a mile short at the end of the first loop. I knew this race was a mistake when the general consenus seemed to be "oh well, everybody missed it so it's all good". I didn't think that sounded so good so I teamed up with another runner that wanted to run the full 50k. We left the rest of that group behind and continued on, keeping a careful lookout for all the tricky corners this time around and our second tour of the park was a little over 10 miles, putting us at 19 and change. The turn we missed before was a 90° left onto a deer trail in tall grass only about 10" wide. There was only one little pinflag marking it. By the last time around, somebody had added another orange tape flag next to it, but it was still easy to miss if you didn't know it was coming.  
About 30 minutes into the 3rd lap we caught up to and passed the group we left behind during the second lap... interesting, I know, right? I think they got ahead of us by skipping that mile on the second loop again. During this last trip around the park my new running buddy faded and I was on my own other than a few marathoners still on the course. Two of these kind souls picked me up when I crashed on one of the singletrack sections and helped me back to my feet. As soon as I went airborn after tripping I tensed up and my right calf cramped up bad before I even hit the ground. Getting up wasn't easy! These runners were so generous and offered me everything short of a piggy back ride to the end :) , water, salt tabs, electrolytes, you name it, they were eager to help another runner. These folks made up for the poor sportsmanship I saw earlier in the race and made me feel a lot better about being out there. Luckily I shook off the cramp in a couple minutes and got back to running. Only a few miles left to go..., sort of. When I finally got near the finish area I was still a mile short from that first loop so I hung a sharp right before I got to the finish chute and headed back toward the lake until the return trip to the finish would give me at least 31.07 on my Garmin. Overall it was a good run. I did the distance and met my goals. I'm a little disappointed since my place and time don't really count for anything. I'm pretty sure a lot of runners went under or maybe even over the distance today and either didn't know or didn't care. That's not really my idea of a race.

FWIW, I'm also pretty sure I got this ultra thing out of my system for a while :)

The 50k was 3 long and 3 short loops:

4:30am

Ten at 7:47 avg in the fog.