Everything went pretty well today. 20.1 miles at 6:36 pace.
By the time I left the house it was 68 degrees and mostly cloudy. Much more comfortable for a long run than yesterday would have been. I ran a route I haven't run in many, many months. I left my house which is at about 900 feet above sea level and ran down the parkway to the town of Snoqualmie which sits at 428 feet. First mile which is basically flat was in an easy 7:15. The the next two miles are downhilll....St. George style. The next three miles took me through one of the more remote roads in the area filled with rollers which a pretty significant net gain in elevation. Then you quickly lose all the elevation gain over the seventh miles. The rest of the way, with the exception of Mile 18 and 19 were pancake flat through mostly lightly traveled backroads here in the Snoqualmie Valley. After 17 miles it's time to start back up the parkway to my house. 433 feet of elevation gain in about 1.75 miles. Then a mile of mild rollers back to the house with a net uphill of less than 100 ft.
I've used this route several times last summer in preparation for St. George. I've always wondered how the parkway downhill and uphill compare to some of the hills at St. George.
The Parkway has an average gain/loss of 234ft. per mile. As a comparison, the steepest mile at St. George, measured in terms of drop per mile, is Mile 21 with a drop of 263 feet. So going down the parkway is a very close approximation to Miles 21 and 16 at SGM. Coming up the Parkway is twice the slope that the uphill at SGM Mile 7 is so that was also good practice.
Anyway. I feel a nap coming on.
P.S. Just noticed I missed the 80 mile mark by .65 miles. I was very tempted to count the mile or so bike ride I took with my kids the other day. I guess I could have also counted the 20 kilometers I walked this week measuring three different race courses for two upcoming races I'm putting on. :-)
107 ST2 Racers
424 Trance 7
272 Adrenalines | 