Running into June: Run week 6/1-6/7/2009

[Susan Otcenas]

Hello all!

Hope everyone had a marvelous weekend! We had absolutely fantabulous weather here all weekend. Warm and sunny.

June is my "9-mile month". All my long run days will be 9 miles. Last night I got online and used gmaps-pedometer to create a 9-mile route based off May's 8-mile route.

It was still 60 degrees when I woke up at 4:50am (!) to go for my long run. I was out the door at 5:10. Even though I know better, I picked a long sleeve shirt instead of a short sleeve shirt. Needless to say, I was saturated by the time I returned home. Not only was it unseasonably warm this morning, it was also muggy, something we rarely get here. But the run went well. I started to feel fatigued around mile 7, and was fairly hungy by the time I finished. Fortunately Jeff had breakfast on the stove for me when I got home.

I did the 9 miles on 200 calories (100 before the run, 100 @ mile 5), as I did with my 7 & 8 mile runs. As I've mentioned before, I simply can not run with anything solid in my stomach. Next week, I may try to have 100 cal at 3 miles and another 100 @ 6 miles to see how that affects my energy levels. At my pace, that's calories every 30-33 minutes, which I hope will do the trick!

Susan

[Jolt]

The usual half-hour neighborhood run, but I went down some random side streets today that I normally don't. Maybe on non-trail-running days I will explore new territory in town.

[OakLeaf]

10 miles, longest loop I've done so far in the hills. SportTracks says 1015 feet of climbing, and there was a pretty good wind too. I managed a 10:52 pace but was pretty tired by the end of it.

My Forerunner 301 is getting really balky about talking to my computer. When are those 310XTs supposed to come out, anyway?

[yellow]

I had a great, fun run this evening.

I only ran once over the weekend on the camping trip...13 miles on singletrack along a lake. It was a really nice, soft trail and we beat the thunder, lightning, and downpour, which made the post-run nap even BETTER!! I took it easy most of the weekend and continued to catch up on calories.

Anyhoo, today I flaked on Crossfit, walked about halfway to work and then took the bus the rest of the way, and decided to run something new after work. I ran a portion of a trail that I run often (up, up, up) but took a spur that I knew was there but hadn't ever been on. It was great...took me to the top of a little mountain overlooking the city, then down a steep singletrack and then back up another little mountain. I didn't stop at all on the way up, which was a little over 1000' climb in about 3.75 miles. As I gazed across the valley from the top I saw a wall of water approaching. The wall was accompanied by some lightning quite far away. Needless to say, I hightailed it back the way I came, most of which was downhill. I love running downhill fast, so it was a kick in the running shorts. I beat the rain! And I felt absolutely fabulous after I finished.

Days like this make me want to just run, run, run and not do anything else. Too bad Utah doesn't have a lottery!

[skhill]

I noticed something today on my run-- back in March and April there were growing flocks for-sale signs going up in the neighborhood every week. But over the past few weeks, the numbers seem to have been decreasing... More "sold"s and fewer new signs.

Grounds for hope for our local economy, maybe!

[roadie gal]

I was planning on a 1 hour trail run, but it started to rain and thunder. OK, Plan B... I got on the treadmill for 42 minutes. Good enough for today. The trails should be great on Thursday.

[yellow]

roadie, we are having a crazy series of thunder & lightning type storms now too. Seems like it's been going on for more days in a row than I have ever experienced here (granted, I was up in the mountains in thunder & lightning land over the weekend so I've had a lot of exposure...but...stilll it sure rains a lot for being the FREAKING DESERT!) It seems like the thunderstorms usually happen a little later in the summer...not the spring.

I managed an easy 4-miler after work before the sky opened up and the lightning show started. I also ran three 1-mile sprints in Crossfit this am. I can't remember the last time I've done something like that...maybe never. I surprised myself by maintaining a pretty fast pace (for me) for the entire sprint each time (although my last one was 20 seconds slower...we did do other exercises inbetween the sprints as well, so I guess that's to be expected). It was painful but good...different for me, for sure.

[Urlea]

After a 10miler on Saturday in 85 degree heat w/ a lot of humidity I was thankful for the cooler 60's to run in today.

It was just a 3miler, but everything felt pretty good. Still trying to figure out how much to taper in the next 10days until the HIM. So far so good though, I think.

I was able to carry my wallet & a tote in my hydration belt. Picked up groceries on the way home. I tend to buy healthier when I run to the store & thankfully other than the redneck who complimented me on my "arm socks" ppl are generally accepting of my being there even though I am in all my tech gear.

[Susan Otcenas]

5 mile easy run this morning. I was sheduled to do a 7 mile tempo run, but I had an early appt (6:50am) downtown and didn't think I could fit it in and still make my appt. So, I re-jiggered my schedule.

Tomorrow night I'm doing a scavenger hunt run sponsored by a local run store. They do this the first thursday of every month. Apparently they give you a map, and you run from place to place, collecting raffle tickets from businesses involved along the way. You have to make it back to the start by a certain time to deposit your raffle tickets for the drawing. You can run in any direction, and go to whatever map locations you want, so the faster (and more strategically) you run, the more tickets you can collect. The farther the location, the more tickets you can collect from that spot. Seems like it will be a fun way to "shake up" my run routine. Oh, and there's beer when you're done, so I guess that's good motivation too.

[SJCzar]

Susan - I really love that scavenger hunt idea. That would make any run much more enjoyable. I have never heard of anything like that around here. Maybe I'll have to look into getting something going with my running friends.

I haven't been running too much this week. 3 miles Tues. night after biking, then a 1 mile run after biking last night. I have been swimming every morning though. I figured that I need much more practice at that then running for this weekend's tri.

Saturday I have a century ride and then Sunday is a sprint tri. The weather on Sunday sounds like cool (50s) and rainy. Not exactly looking forward to plunging into that 60-something water. I am quite a cold-water wimp. Wait - I must stop complaining since I'm supposed to be doing this to have fun, right?

[Crankin]

I ran this morning; 3 miles, but I only ran about 2.5 of it. It's really humid out and I have come to the conclusion that I have lost my ability to exercise early in the AM. This, from someone who used to teach aerobics at 5 AM!
Still dealing with the neck/head/back pain. The PT cannot figure it out. It gets better then reappears out of nowhere. I think something I am doing in yoga might be aggravating it?
I ran without my IPod and tried to practice my mindfulness meditation and listen to the birds. I didn't check my pace, but my time was about 1.5 minutes slower than my last run.
I probably will be running more next week, as the weather isn't going to be good for riding and we are going away to Block Island Thursday-Saturday.

[Urlea]

Well something is definitely wrong with the derailer on my road-bike. I have had 2 total derailments and 2 partial that locked up my pedals. Fortunately & unfortunately for me it only meant for one fall. Wed. I was doing hill 20mi of hill training & went down scuffing up my knee enough to make it bleed down into my sock.

The good news is that it didn't effect my run at all yesterday! A scuffed up knee isn't a badly bruised one in my case so I'll take it. Just hope it heals up in the next week before the HIM.

The running group I meet with every Thursday morning has rewards at certain mile marks you reach with them. Yesterday I & the woman I ended up paced with got our 100mile Mizuno tech shirts. Just another great reason to get out & running by 5:30a.m.

It was a good run. Fast. I knew the woman I was paced with slowed her pace a little bit to have some conversation & I sped up so as to not slow her down, but was still able to talk. Sort of.

[Susan Otcenas]

I had a TON of fun on last night's scavenger hunt run. About 180 people turned up, despite rain and severe winds/thundershowers (gotta love Portland!). The organizers showed us a map with locations listed. We had to jot them down, then get to as many places as possible, collect raffle tickets, then make it back to the run store within an hour. The faster you ran, the more places you could get to and still make it back. The farther the location (or the more elevation you had to gain to get to a location ) the more raffle tickets you'd collect at that particular location.

Jeff & I ran 5 miles, and collected 13 tickets each. One of the locations was WAY up Vista, a steep, long climb. I had to walk some of that. But hey, it was worth 3 tickets!

I seem to be raffle-lucky lately. The last 3 times I've been someplace with a raffle, I've won something each time! Last night I won a $25 gift certificate to Title9. Which is a little like giving honey to a honeybee....

[Veronica]

I'll happily take that Title 9 certificate from you.

Veronica

[indigoiis]

Okay, after a while off of running (I've been training for tour de cure so much bicycling and much lazy off bike stuff...) I ran 3 miles this morning. It was fine/easy. I will try to ramp it up a bit next time, a little bit at a time.