Long Saturday run

After getting some hours in for a client I headed out towards Mount Tabor. I needed to get a quality run in of some sort, be it a tempo, long run or hills. I ended up combining all three. My plan was to head to the volcano first, originally I set out to just do the eight mile loop to the top which includes 4.5 miles of low grade elevation change and 3 miles of hills and half mile loop at the summit. I brought a Clif Shot gel along and a bag of Sharkies but I made the mistake of not bringing enough water with me, something I paid for later.

Mount Tabor was a bit muddy but not too bad. There were a couple of spots that really need to dry out.I hit the climbs pretty hard and made it to the top without stopping. HR was pretty high but I kept it under 170 for the most part as I was going pretty slow.

On the first steep part to the caldera I decided I'd like to try out the first long run I did when I was marathon training. My Ipod Sport then told me it was 13.1+ total but I always thought it exaggerated. So this has been a run I wanted to measure with the Garmin and see what I came up with. I tried to stay with the same route, but I did have to go checkout the off leash area and see if it was fully fenced in (it isn't). At the top I gobbled and mocha gel and chewed a few sharkies. Even at this point I knew I was not going to have enough water. For some reason I passed up a water fountain, I think I had a good pace going and just cruised by.

There are some good downhills on this run too, but they wood chip several of the trails and I find those better to run down on than hard packed dirt (or mud for that matter). Once I was off the volcano I headed west and north for 25 blocks each direction and did a loop around Laurelhurst Park, one of my favorite parks in Portland (Mount Tabor is my fav). Time to head back. I had a couple more sharkies at the park as well as the last of my water, again I foolishly passed fountains. When I realized I still had four more miles to go to go along with my lack of water I should have gone back through the park but I was sick of hills and it would add another.

Reed college is directly south of Laurelhurst. I headed off through the Belmont business area as well as Hawthorne's where. Across Division and I was in the Clinton neighborhood where a buddy of mine used to live (great parties). I veered west again for a bit so I could cross Powell by Lincoln track. I almost did a few laps there so I could fill up my water bottle. Anymore running though was out of the question. So I popped some more sharkies and continued to plod on.

Past the Wimbledon is fun apartments I came up on Reed. There was a lacrosse practice going on. I passed them and headed for the east bridge. I powered across it pretty fast though in reality I was going pretty slow. I kept my HR at 160 which was high, but I didn't really want to go over than. It had been pretty high all run. Campus was sort of quiet and as I passed a few walkers I came upon two water fountains, but they were turned off. So I hit the final uphill climb, at least I didn't have any extra water weight to deal with. I really slowed down as I was truly feeling done at this point. I made it up the first hill only going over 160 at the very last steep part but I had to go really slowly. After the last hill the light didn't give any reprieve either. I had to pick up the pace to make it before it changed. The last mile was a killer, I was really feeling the lack of water as well as the hills in my legs. I passes the same old houses I always run by but I the lack of water was making my head sort of swim, and a lot of the houses looked like I had never run past them. Spring slowly popping out all over didn't help my dementia either!

I turned into Woodstock park and decided to check the fountains there. The bathroom were all still "Closed for Season" so I was skeptical. It had been really warm this winter, so I had some hope. I spied a brand new fountain over near the play area and thought I'll check it out. As I twisted the knob on the dry bowl I was all ready to be disapointed, but water came out! Even though I was only about a half mile from home I felt like I was saved. I decided not to turn the timer back on and guzzled some water, I was done.

I did a little stretching when I got home but mostly I wanted to eat. We had pizza and I had my eye on it. But first a shower.

13+miles, hers and mine

Today was a long run day both for me and my running partner. The only difference is we were in different states, she running the San Francisco Half Marathon, me running the Cemetery 13 run as I like to call it.

First off the main event, my running partner finished the half in 2:03:49. Amazing! I am so proud of her. She worked really hard to make it happen and she did it. An average pace under 9:30, way to go! I don't know too many details of her race, I am sure I will though as we are planning a celebration dinner this week. Man, I am so psyched for her!

So the half of today's running that I can account for was my run up Mt Scott along and through the Lincoln Cemetery. The run starts out with my typical path through East Moreland neighborhood to the Springwater Corridor. I took a little detour to check out this weird little spot where two creeks come together. It is a circular area with old stone walls that is tucked into a dead-end area at the end of the street. One of the creeks drops about 10 feet to meet the other in a little waterfall. Recently the city restored the creek bed before the waterfall and widened it. It isn't as dramatic anymore, but still neat. The last time I was there the area was completely overgrown making it a really secret spot, but it looks like someone has done some work on the area. Not so secret anymore I guess.

On the Springwater Corridor usually take this path toward downtown for some of my standard longer runs, but for this one I head east. The trail is pretty flat and offers a nice path with few street crossings. I stay on it for roughly three miles before I turn off taking a road that crosses under the freeway and up, up, up the hill. The next three miles are all uphill and a great hill workout. I was trying to do an aerobic threshold (AeT) workout and keep my heart rate in lower zone two, or somewhere around 147-151 bpm. Going up the hill was really slow going in order to keep my HR down, but I did a pretty decent job of it with one steep exception where it climbed over 160. The hill runs through a neighborhood and eventually through the Lincoln Memorial Cemetery. If there is no fog you get a really nice view of the city, however all I got was a nice view of a thick gray blanket, I could barely see a few blocks behind me. The downside of this run is that the road up doesn't have any sidewalks for most of the way and the road shoulder is very slight. I kept finding myself moving to the wet grass to avoid traffic, it wasn't that bad but not a traffic situation I would normally want to run in. Near the top of the hill there is a huge newer development and legally they have to put in sidewalks, so I had them for a quarter mile or so. The hill starts to make the turn down into Happy Valley when I turned around.

For my downhill journey I decided to run through the cemetery. I wasn't going to as I don't know how visitors would feel about that. But the prospect of the crappy sidewalk-less road made me reconsider. Fortunately nobody was around, I guess it was too early and church time as well. I circled the outer rim of the cemetery. It struck me as somewhat odd that I was paying so much attention to my beating heart among all these hearts that were no longer beating. I passed by their Oregon Korean War Veterans memorial and thought of my dad's contributions to that war. He wasn't happy about it but drove his trucks as he was asked to do. He told me many stories about timing his supply runs ahead of mortar fire, scary.

At mile ten or so I was off the hill and no longer pounding my knees. Both of them felt a little tender when I stopped at a traffic light awaiting my walk signal. I had a run in with a litterbug that got my HR up (funny, I could see the exact moment on the report when it happened) where I got to use my favorite litterbug line "Excuse me, I think you dropped something (thank you Cindy for the life lesson! I have never forgotten it.) Unfortunately (for the world) I don't think I made much of an impact on this clown.

I made my way back again targeting my lower zone 2 until the last 3/4 miles where I decided to pick it up and but out nine minute miles. I was able to keep it going pretty steadily for that last bit despite my bodies exhaustion. I think I was more happy about that part than any. Maybe it was because it was the first time on the run I wasn't holding back. Hopefully I didn't undo the good I had been struggling through for the last couple hours+ for.

My final numbers: 13.47 mi 2:22:43.

Long SLOW run in the rain

Sunday my running partner and I set out to do our weekly long run. In order to keep our heart rate down at our recovery pace we had to do it really slowly. The goal was to keep our bodies in the fat burning zone as much as possible in order to concerve our glycogen stores. This is supposed to make our hard runs later in teh week easier. It was really tough to go so slowly, especially seeing as the first 5.5 miles was pretty much all up hill until we turned around and did 5.5 back down.

Originally we were to leave at 9, but it was pouring and my partner wanted and eztra hour to finish her book. So at 10 when we did leave the rain had luckily tapered a bit. So our first hour was rainy, but not as bad as it ended up getting. The road we took was a hard packed dirt and gravel road up into Forest Park. The surface is rally rocky and somewhat hard on the feet (but not that bad once you can get used to it). It had rained so much earlier that night that there were tons of puddles. The runners coming down were covered in mud, looking like road warriors. We were soon to join them, however we were going so slowly we didn't get too muddy.Some of the dogs on the road were a total mess, just caked with mud. It was pretty funny.

We managed really well with keeping the HR down. Our pace was really slow and even though we were going up for 5.5 and then down, it got consitently around 15 seconds slower each mile the entire run. The consitency of eth slowdown was really interesting to me.

Here is the online report the Garmin provided. When we got back to our starting spot, the run was showing up a quarter mile short. Looking at the report, you can see how off thebacktrack was. I have no idea why that would be. Makes you wonder how reliable GPS is.

Today, we are both really sore and mutually posponed our recovery run until this evening. I think we should still do it as our bodies will be craving some loosening by then.

Two good runs

I meant to write yesterday , but I never got around to it for some reason. Yesterday I ran my volcano run. It was a beautifully cloudy cool day and I headed out for my big hill run. Its sort of funny, anywhere I go is really a hill run. We live on top of a high point which is great when it comes to flooding (for some reason we still have to waste money on flood insurance.) Its also good for getting in some solid hill stretches. Every run I do has a stretch where I am hitting the hills. This really helped out two years ago when I did the Portland Marathon. There is a murderous stretch around mile 17 where you run up a long slope to cross the St. Johns Bridge, once up the slope you have to continue the climb to get over the bridge. When I ran tons of people had to walk this stretch, whereas I, with my neighborhood hill training, was able to blow by around 200 (yep I counted!) runners (or walkers). It was a huge boost to me and I found myself flying across the bridge. I got into a small group where we went back and forth for the rest of the race. One guy blew away from us early, but I took the rest of them, even causing one guy to let out a huge gasp and say "oof, ok you win!" My last mile to the marathon was probably my fastest I ran the whole race.

Today, I ran my usual log route (9.5 miles). As I have said before, I run through the canyon at Reed near the end of my runs. Early in the morning I find that I am the first one up and through the canyon. I base this on the fact that I clear out the spider webs all the way through. Sort of my civic duty I guess. Must not make the spiders so happy though.

Both of these runs were pretty slow (8.45+ minute miles) which I attribute mostly to some foot pain I have been having on teh top of my left foot. It is a lot better, but it is still there. I wonder how much of it is due to the new shoes and the fact that I ran on both pairs without going for a short break-in run. That's what I get!