Hills for breakfast, hold the gnats

Low 40s F, sunny, wind 5-10 mph.  Recovery run. 

Legs are a little sore, in a nice way. 

It's great to be back on "real" time instead of that odious, absurd, irritating, illogical (for my latitude), loathsome, despicable daylight savings time. Not that I am bitter.  

49F, breezy (5-15 mph) w/ pretty stratocumulus clouds.  Easy run. 20 min. strength.

Did you know there is a website for Cloud Appreciation Society?  What an incredible world. I stumbled across it while trying to find the name for these clouds that were out today. 

How to hate the time change, even though I prefer fall back to spring forward. It shouldn't be that difficult. Set each clock back one hour. However...  You see, we have this grandfather clock that stops chiming at night. (Very handy.)  When I set it back yesterday, the little bolt that holds the hands on must have fallen off, because it was still at 9:30 AM when it was mid-afternoon.  I found the bolt, found the problem, and moved the hands forward to the correct time.  (Insert smack on forehead here.)  Just because the hands weren't tracking due to a missing bolt doesn't mean the clock wasn't keeping time.  So as I moved the hands to their "proper" place I was actually setting the clock several hours forward.  At about 3 AM, the clock thought it was morning and... started chiming! 

Out of bed I go to turn off the chime, not really knowing why it is chiming in the middle of the night. Then I lay there trying to get back to sleep and wondering why why why...  Round 2.  Background: I gave Mr. Sno a very snazzy alarm clock for xmas a couple of years ago, thinking he would enjoy this cool high tech thing.  But he doesn't.  In fact, it is a completely non-intuitive piece of garbage and has given the poor man endless trouble, but I think he's too polite to throw it out the window.  You need PhD's in engineering and psychology to operate his clock.  Just as I was (finally) drifting back, Mr. Sno's clock starts up with its chime.  "No way." Time: 4:05 AM. Sure enough, the clock had sensed a lack of PhD in its operator and had reverted to Revenge Mode, going off at whatever time would be least convenient.  

By 4:45 I was still half awake and horribly tired.  I want a do-over.  But I'll have to wait until tonight.  I think I may go to bed on the old time and try again tomorrow.  

42F, a few high clouds, patchy fog, lots of moonlight.  General aerobic run, turned into unplanned speed work...   

I met up with some friends after about 5 miles of easy running. They were running up the Parkway and I went with them. (That's the Leg Builder Hill, only heading farther up, away from the direction I usually go on it. One could run over 3 miles total on that hill bottom to top.)

These women are all faster than I am, but I figured it would be a Good For You experience. By the time we were halfway up the hill, I was in total oxygen debt. They weren't even working hard, chatting away like they had all the oxygen they could possibly want.   >:(

We ran a mile like that (my VO2 mile) and then I saw the time, panicked a little, and had to hurry back towards home.  Calculating distances in my head, I became more and more concerned about the time.  That became a mile and a half at about tempo pace.  

Well, I was thinking of doing some speed work this week anyway. The Turkey Trot is a week from Saturday. I figured I had better remind my lungs what "fast" is supposed to feel like.  So I guess I can check that off. The rest of my week can just be nice easy miles.

Abs & pushups later. 

With 40-50 mph winds hitting the house all night, I made an executive decision at about 4 AM to switch this week's day off from Friday to today.  I'm still pretty sleepy, but I figure 9 hours of broken sleep is better than 7.  Did 20 minutes of strength work, mostly for morale. :)

Published on Friday by mistake at first... so thanks to those who left their comment on my Friday page.  What a mess... 

Low 50sF, mostly cloudy, wind increasing (0-15 mph) during run.  Easy run, w/ 1 mile at MP.  (2 other miles MP+20-30 seconds)  Last 2 miles on the TM.  10 min. abs & pushups. 

More unscheduled speed work as I met up with the running ladies again at mile 5. We didn't run the Parkway thank goodness, so with a bit less challenging terrain it was "only" marathon pace without the searing oxygen debt.  Some of these runners are from my club, including the leader of the group, and some are just other friends of hers.  Now that I'm on their email list I can find out where/when they are running and join them when I can.  But when I get back on my official training schedule I may not run with them very often; I can only take so much fast running per week. ;)

Audiobook recommendation: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, read by the author.  This is a fascinating study of how/why people success or fail to succeed apart from innate talent.  I absolutely loved this book and will probably listen to it again soon. It's a "can't put it down" kind of book, which is less common in nonfiction.  The chapter about plane crashes was downright shocking.  The book will change the way I view many things in life. The author's narration is very pleasant and clear; I'm glad they didn't bring in an actor to read it.  I have enjoyed all of Gladwell's books, but I think this one is my favorite.  

Let's see if I can do this....   I am about to move this entry into Thursday, where it belonged -- so I hope I don't mess up the system here. (Lights throughout Snoqualmie go dark ala Pink Panther movie...) 

Okie dokie! Now it really is Friday. I'm here, and I went running.  It was chilly and windy with a few sprinkles.  About 4 miles solo, then a little farther with SnoFlake.  Did some strength work afterwards.  Today's motto: no "slow" is too slow.  

Low 40s, with all kinds of weather during my run:  light rain, heavy rain, hail, wind, calm, and even a bit of blue sky at one point.

Objective: endurance run, club run, and 1.75 miles on the Leg Builder Hill.

Had a great run today. I was dressed well for the changing weather conditions, which didn't bother me until a really big increase in rain & wind just as I was climbing the L.B.  Total car wash. At first I was feeling pretty macho and singing along with my tunes at full blast. But then my feet got wet and the inevitable self-pity over came me for a while.  I hate wet feet. 

The BEST part of the run was doing a few miles with Jefferey and his friend.  Jeff, it was lots of fun to run with you guys and thanks so much for sticking with my slow pace!!  Jeff has relatives in North Bend so we even got an extra water stop.