Frustration

Ran 14 yesterday. It was supposed to be 16. I had a pace goal. Was supposed to run them with two friends. Had runners with me the first half - then was alone the second half. Except for when I reached the turnaround and a biker turned around about fifty yards in front of me (he had been following me). He kept that space between us but never increased his speed. The path had many curves in it at that point and he disappeared in one of the bends. It gave me a weird feeling. Weird enough so I wished I had pepper spray, or a big dog, or even my cell phone. I ended up cutting my run short by two miles. Ran too slow too. I am disappointed in both my pace and my distance. I need a better plan. I'm feeling frustrated.

Pigtails - the short version...

I decided that since I need an 18-20 mile run this weekend, I'd just run two loops of the Pigtails 50K to give me a total of 19.2 miles. After talking to Abi last weekend, we decided to do it together. We drove together part of the way and arrived just in time to grab a few things, get our numbers and toe the line. Well, I had time. Seems that Abi needed a little extra time and when the call came to start I got swept with the crowd and Abi was nowhere in sight. The race is a short spur from the parking lot to the perimeter path around Lake Youngs. If you go right at the trail juncture, you go down a steep incline. That was the direction the arrows pointed and although Van didn't really care which direction you went, to 'win' the bacon, you had to go right. I turned right with the vast majority of the crowd. After reaching the bottom, the trail smoothes out and I kept turning to look for Abi. Finally, I walked a bit and after a few minutes I saw her approaching. Good - now our adventure would begin. We ran, we talked, we got tired, we decided to walk the hills (well, the big ones). We decided that we'd reverse directions after we finished the first loop. We dawdled at the parking-lot-check-in-stock-up-on-calories station. We decided the clockwise direction was more to our liking and continued to expound on how much more we enjoyed it the farther we went. We felt like we ran much, much more of the route in this direction. Going in the opposite direction meant that we'd have to tackle the last, extremely steep hill head on. We planned on walking it but Abi joked that she'd cheer me on as I ran it if I so chose. Not! We crossed the finish line together. That felt good. Ate a little and talked a little and then realized that I had lost my hat somewhere on the trail. We asked one of the 50K runners who had a short out-and-back to do, to look for it if possible. Abi and I ended up walking down the steep hill to look - and of course walking back up said incline. Ended up the 50K guy found it - someone had put it on a post. Nice!! Watched most of the runners come in but got a sudden chill and we both decided to go. Too bad - we missed congratulating Jessica on her first 50K and Michelle on another job well-done.

Capital Peak Half Ass

Met at the Y at 5:50 to carpool to this race in the Olympia area. We ended up taking two vehicles for the seven of us; Steve, Eric, Michelle, Linda, Jenny, Abi, and me. We arrived with plenty of time to make clothing decisions and sign in and even rest up a bit. The race started at 8am and it was just getting light at that time. The temperature was in the low 30's but it was not supposed to rain. Hmmm. How many layers?! Deciding on what to wear is sometimes the most difficult part of a run.

I had promised Michelle I'd run with her this race and I was glad for that. It'd be fun and energizing and we'd just take it easy. As we started it seemed that Abi was going to run with us - at least for awhile. She kept open the possibility of taking off later on (she never did). The course this year was different from last year's due to snow and the flooding we'd had in the last month. It ended up being the perfect combination of mud, snow, streams, mud, logs, clear trail, mud, puddles, mud, and fir bough-strewn trail. Did I mention the mud?

It seemed that the finish line appeared too soon. We were still having fun and I almost hated to see it end. The food spread was good, the fires felt great. We changed and warmed up and ate while waiting for the 50K runners to come in. I loved watching the 50K runners come in with their dogs. I talked to Allison for quite awhile about running and dogs. The sun came out. What a wonderful day. Nice!

Me and Dred Together Again...

School was cancelled today because of the flooding in the area so I slept late this morning (after rolling over and going back to sleep on severallll occasions....)! That felt great. I do feel like someone beat me up though. Sore all over. I ran/walked (yes, you read that right - /walked) 5 miles on the "Dred" yesterday after work and it felt like the last five miles of a really bad marathon! I should have bucked up and hit the road instead of Dred but I just couldn't bear going out into the dark monsoon. I had run through it the day before - straight from school - with one of my teacher friends, and we re-entered the school dripping wet after just four miles. It had still been light out though - and it was with a friend. That always makes running fun for me. That run felt like childhood - running and trying to miss the puddles - but getting totally soaked anyway. It was fun! The run with Dred - despite watching a fun show on the TV - was dreadful! I'm just glad it's done!

New Year's Day!

First Call to Run 50K – January 1, 2009

I woke up several times during the night to the sound of pouring rain. By the time my alarm went off at 6am I was questioning my sanity in signing up for this race. (I had just wanted to run another 50K and I had wanted to do it soon.) I went through my regular pre-race routine – ate, dressed, drank some coffee. At 6:05am I drove to the local Y where I would meet Rick and Steve and we would drive Sully (my vehicle) to pick up Rob in his hometown and then on to Bothell. The rain stopped somewhere en-route but as we neared the start of the race, we saw lots of snow. The snow had nearly all melted in Puyallup so this was a bit of a surprise. Hmmmm. Trail shoes or regular? I was really hoping I could wear my regular shoes. After talking to one of the local runners (who insisted the snow ended after a hundred yards or so on the trail) I decided to wear my regular shoes.

This is a very small race and most of the faces were familiar. The race director explained the route to us (a double out-and-back) and started us on time. The snow was very slushy and it was slow going at first. Within a few hundred yards I was running with Linda from our run club, and she and I were both a bit concerned when the snow went on past the distance where we were told it would disappear. It ended up lasting for nearly a mile (which meant we’d be running in about 4 miles of snow in all with the double out-and-back scenario). Whatever. We’d just have to be careful of our footing in that section.

Nearly the entire race was run on the Sammamish River Trail which runs (amazingly) right next to the Sammamish River. It was beautiful and I loved seeing the waterfowl floating in the water. Linda and I ended up running the entire race together and I very much enjoyed spending that time with her. For me it was the perfect combination of companionship, talking, and just silently running side by side. We were each very clear on telling the other that if she wanted to run off ahead there would be no hurt feelings – it was a race after all. I never felt that need, and evidently neither did Linda. We crossed the line together. We came in at 5:48 and I was pleased with that. Fun!