Sean's Running Blog

12 miles through the streets and trails of my wonderful neighborhood.

I stopped by the gym after 11 miles to stretch and stengthen.

Did 30 crunches, 30 leg lifts on each leg. 15-10-5 adductor and abductor with the weight at 40, 50 and 60 respectively.

Did the same for the abbductors before finishing with the hamstring lift at 12-8-4 reps at 20, 30 and 40 pounds.

Albeit slowly, I'm getting stronger.

Today's run was boring in that it involved several laps around the neigborhood, but different in that I was measuring several different potential routes for a Monster Dash 5k run I'm thinking about putting on in the Halloween timeframe. I think I found one.

As for the run itself, everything felt very lethargic and tight this morning. 45 degrees and drizzle didn't help but I think it had more to do with playing two hours of softball last night.

Another cool and damp morning. What I save in watering the lawn I spend in heating the house. Still feel a bit lethargic. I'll probably lay off the early morning runs the rest of the week and do some lunch time runs from work.

Days like today are why I live where I live. Sunny skies and 74 degrees during my lunchtime run along Lake Sammamish. It's no coincidence that the warmer temps did wonders for the lethargy and overall tightness I've felt all week.

For 9 of the miles, the weather was fantastic. 78 degrees, nice breeze and clear blue skies. For three of the miles, it felt like that place with little red men with pitchforks.

Today was my first speed workout since the Newport Marathon, not counting the 10k on Saturday. The workout was 3x1mile at 4:50 with 4 minutes rest in between each. I kind of dinked around this morning waiting for it to warm up not realizing that waiting was not required. So I kept my warmup to 2 miles and then jumped into the workout.

Mile 1 -- 4:47 -- Felt great actually. A little quick but not ridiculous

Mile 2 -- 4:51 -- Felt great until the last lap. Really had to work on the last one

Mile 3 -- 4:59 -- I knew by the end of the second lap (2:29) that I wasn't going to hit my number so my goal was simply to keep it under 5:00. Also at the halfway point, my bowels were beginning to not cooperate, by the end of the third lap, I was seriously questioning whether I would make it around the track for another lap without making a mess of myself. Well, I did but it was too close for comfort.

Probably more detail than anyone wanted but there you have it. I drank 16 ounces of water during the workout and that still wasn't enough. Even after just the workout portion, my face was a giant salt lick.

Cool down was nice and slow...7:00 pace. Long run tomorrow.

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