Hills for breakfast, hold the gnats

60F & rainy, w/ increasing thunder.  Recovery run. 

Just a wee run to loosen up the legs.  I wore some "pretty" shoes yesterday for several hours, something I rarely do these days, and have 2 blisters, one on each foot, to show for it.  It's funny, because I did not feel any pain until the shoes came off. Both blisters are on the balls of the feet, deep under the skin.  Lesson learned. 

So between the feet complaining and the thunder, and the wanting just a short run anyway, I barely got warmed up before coming in.  Lightening is one of my big run stoppers, especially since a bolt came down so close to me last summer.  It's probably the only weather that will really stop me from running.  We don't get a lot of it, thank goodness. 

57F, rainy & very windy (~20 mph in open spaces).  Easy run. 

As I've mentioned before, I typically get a 2 day DOMS. This morning my legs were very sore from Saturday.  Still, I had a great run, though slow.  I'm loving this weather so much. 

I am somewhat disappointed in myself about not getting out the door earlier.  Mr. Sno has an early commute due to some contruction traffic for the next few weeks, so I need to be back home on parent duty by 6:20 now.  I could have finished up a couple more miles on the TM, but I couldn't face it.  No way to start my week, or at least that's what I'm telling myself.  I'll just have to try harder tomorrow.  When I go back to my old routine it will feel positively luxurious. 

57F Cloudy. Easy run.

I got out of the house early enough to require a headlamp, the first time in many weeks that I've used one.  It still wasn't quite early enough for my goal miles (see Monday's explanation) and I tried to run a little longer on the Dreadmill. 

I don't know what is wrong with me, that I can enjoy myself so much out on the streets - for hours at a time if need be - and then feel like I completely hate running within one minute on the TM.  I endured about half a mile of it, and pressed stop. 

It's really odd, because I had a great movie (once I was just stretching and doing abs I was completely engrossed), the basement where we keep the TM is nice and cool, and I only meant to go a couple of miles on it. "Just 20  minutes. I can do that!"  Seems like it should be pretty easy.  But I hate it.  Like, "I never want to run again - running is stupid - why would anyone do this" kind of hatred. 

Well, I'm done trying to force that on myself.  One should never say never, but for the time being I will either run early enough or run less. I declare my Independence!

On a completely different topic,  I have long wondered: who are the people in the fastrunningblog home page picture?  If anyone knows, I'd love to hear. 

55F & clear, valley below is full of fog, lucky them...  Easy run. 

The difference between running with a dog and running with a cat is that the dog will trot along by your side and the cat will feel the need to remind you of his presence by attempting to twine through your legs every now and then.   The Cat Who Must Be Obeyed popped out of the bushes in front of me about 2 blocks from home and had to be returned lest he follow me just long enough to give up and be lost.  I believe I blogged about this the last time it happened. It is hilarious to see I'm sure, because he jogs along at my side, except for the leg twining thing. 

58F Clear & humid.  20 min strength wk after.

Finally, I got some decent miles in. Whether or not I can stay awake past 5 PM today is yet to be seen. 

Busy morning...  Cheers.

~60F, with pockets of warmer and cooler air about. Clear skies, another hot day coming. Easy pace (~10:30) w/ last mile before c.d. at marathon pace (9:00-9:15). 

I made it to about 8:20 PM last night, and left the dishes, the family, every chore I meant to finish... left it all behind and went to bed. We still have the sun up quite late these days, so I put on the eye mask - love that thing. Fortunately the weekend is coming, and next week's schedule won't have me up quite as early.

I am now officially coming to the end of the 3 week recovery period from the marathon, though I haven't been taking that too seriously.  Just avoiding any intense speedwork and avoiding running too long.  I'm looking forward to running a little more and a little harder now. But I'm going to have to figure out how to get some more sleep.  Others seem to be able to get by OK on so little, but I just do the stupidest things and get so irritable.   I'll have to think this through. There is always a way, when one is determined...

Started at ~58F, rising to mid 60s, mostly sunny.  A bit too warm in the sun, but a nice breeze near home for the last few miles.  Objective: endurance + club run + Spirit Crusher Hill + strong finish. I would love to say it was a "fast finish," but by that point the effort-to-results ratio was all messed up. 

Fabulous run. Fun, friends, great beauty, and lots of sweat.   I left the house about 5:45AM and just had a leisurely warm up around the neighborhood before heading down the hill to meet with the club. 

If I haven't mentioned it before, I live in some hills above a fairly flat valley. The "old Snoqualmie" is down in the valley and that is where the club meets and runs.  The road down into town is a 2 mile long hill, the steepest part of which occurs near the top, the "Spirit Crusher." That part of the hill is .8 mile of crazy-steep asphalt.

As I headed down the hill, there were a few wispy high clouds, but then I saw what looked like fog in the valley below! Oh joy --but alas, it was not fog. In fact, it turned out to be a bit of low cloud that soon dissipated. 

After descending into town, I met up with the club and ran about 6 miles with a new person who said she wanted to run a pace in the 9:00's but then changed her mind to run with me in the 10:00's.  She is healing from an injury and thought maybe a slower pace would be good. 

I enjoyed chatting with her very much, but I did have to remind her to slow down many times, because I was not interested in running at MP today!   "Are you SURE you want to run with me?"  Oh yes, she was sure...  But it turned out to be a win-win situation because she hasn't been running that far lately and me holding her back became a real blessing as she got very tired in the last mile or two. And I got to spend time with a very nice person.

I am starting to think that one of the best things about being in a running club is just having more people in your life who will not roll their eyes or yawn when you go on and on about running.  And then they go on and on, and you can compare notes, and it's all quite satisfying.

I decided to come back up the hill immediately after the club run, before it got too hot, and finish my miles on my usual turf. That was a good decision I think.  The Spirit Crusher was brutal, as always. I will stop calling it that when it stops being scary-hard. But other than a pit stop at the Fischer Park bathroom, I ran the whole hill! After that, my legs were quite weak and I dropped into the 11:00s for pace.

After doing some loops through the business park, the pea patch (wow it looked good!), and some other neighborhoods,  I decided to try and push myself a little the last 1.5 miles.  I increased my cadence and tried to turn up the power, but I only managed to come back to about a 10:00 pace.  I guess it's good practice though, and I tried to imagine the last part of a marathon and finishing strong.

Observations on what makes long runs more successful:
1) 8+ hours of sleep
2) sticking to a plan
3) noticing how beautiful the world is
4) not having somewhere you have to be afterwards, feeling rushed
5) controlling your thoughts and thinking positively, ie "this is not hard / lots of people run much farther, much faster/ this is actually quite easy."  Keep saying it, even when you don't believe it! Why? Because it will keep out the opposite thinking, which may be equally untrue! I.e. "I can't do it/ I'll never make it."