Every Run is a Great Run!

AM: Ran 6 with Kim around the river bottoms on a cool but pleasant morning. Did 5 strides along the way.

9:19/147

Late AM: Didn't feel like doing XT in the boring gym, it looked much more appealing to run in the sun so I did! A bit warm but still nice. Just tried to run what felt natural and ended up in the 8-8:30 range.

I'm at the point in the PF rupture injury rehabilitation where I think I can move to the next step in the feet strengthening process which is to do just a bit of barefoot running on grass. Ran just over a minute today and felt great. Assuming it doesn't make things worse I'll gradually work up to 2 miles barefoot on grass, once or twice a week until it gets too cold.

8:12/169

Not sure what is up with my high HR today. Guess the heat played a role on the 2nd run but the 147 ave HR this morning is odd. I'll have to keep my eye on that and make sure I'm not overtraining,  but outside of the high HR I feel just dandy.

Ran 6 miles solo this morning as Kim ran later after taking our Japanese good friend Aoi to the airport. Aoi has been staying with us just over a week during school break (she is going to BYU-Hawaii) and it was great to have her with us.  A great kid with a bright future in store.

Later went to the gym for 40 min of various XT fun.

8:26/158

Time for our weekly streets-of-SF hills run. In the spirit of easing into taper mode we only went 9 instead of 10. Next week we'll maybe do 7 or 8.  Not a bad morning for a Sept run, a little chilly to start and of course the SF wind but no complaints. Kim was really charging up the hills today, Veyo will be nothing but a little blip for her this year I'm thinkin. 

9:30/145

HR still seems a little on the high side. Go figure.

Ran 3 this morning solo as it's a rest day for Kim. A bit cooler and very windy! Wanted to get the wind over with so I ran straight into it 1.5 miles then enjoyed the tail wind back. Sped up enough the last mile to count as MP. Nice to see my HR being a little more normal today.

8:08/156

Later went to the gym for 30 min various XT, then 1 mile easy run ending with 2 minutes of barefoot grass running. Felt great, had happy feet/legs when I was done. Hopefully I'll be smart and not overdo it.

Today my oldest daughter turns 13. We've survived 3 teenage boys but this is our first go with a girl. Should be fun (or should I be saying "heaven help us" about now?).

Really looking forward to this weekend where Kim and I will celebrate (heaven help me say the correct number)  24 years together. Heading to Fish Lake for the first time since my family sold our cabin a few years ago. Until then we used to go every year but it's been a while.

We'll see how running 14-18 miles at 9000 ft feels!

Was rudely awoken by the alarm clock. I almost always wake up before the alarm and it made me mad so in protest we went back to bed and waited until the kids were off to school then did a very nice 6 mile run in the morning sunshine. Conditions were almost perfect, if the SF wind wouldn't have been doing its thing it would have been entirely perfect.

Our daughter Tia had forgotten some books for school so we first ran .75 to the school carrying her books. I'm sure we looked pretty snazzy. Along the way I made the observation to Kim that "Reading is Run-damental!". I'm sure she was impressed with my cleverness and wit.

Now off to Fish Lake for some R & R. Not sure if the 14-18 mile planned run at 9000 ft. qualifies for R & R or not. Guess it depends on what the R's stand for.

9:04/142

Kim and I had a great time spending the weekend at Fish Lake. The weather was absolutely fabulous for this time of year and there was hardly anyone else there so it felt like we had the place all to ourselves. I'll see if I can post some pics later.

The run was also great, ran about 10 miles on trails and the rest on the road. As expected, for a given effort at 9000 feet the pace was about a minute slower than usual so we just slowed down and enjoyed the scenery. You could really feel the altitude going uphill, major sucking wind, so we avoided the nasty steep hills.

The bad part about trails is that if you lose your concentration even for a moment you can end up doing a face plant. Unfortunately Kim did a pretty good face plant just before mile 2. But fortunately she was OK and aside from scraped up hands and sore shoulder she seems to have come out fine.  I did my own dork-face-plant later on but the thing is I wasn't even running at the time, just walking. I didn't hurt anything but my pride.

9:58/148