Mountain Monkeys - Mountain and road biking, trail running, skiing, and whatever else I do, mostly in the mountains (or hills)

Running Brice Creek

Today I finally got to run at Brice Creek, a place I've wanted to run for a long time.  It is one of my favorite mtb trails, great scenery, and one of the more rocky trails I know of around here (which is still fairly tame compared to somewhere like Tahoe).  I was running by about 8:15am this morning, and in an unusual bit of August weather, it was 48 degrees!  I donned an Icebreaker GT t-shirt, and then some Pearli arm warmers, which turned out to be a perfect combo.  Temp I don't think got any warmer during the run, and I even got a bit cold towards the end.  


As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I did wind up running in the Inov8 shoes.  This was interesting, given how rocky the trail was, and how much more of the trail you feel with these shoes.  However, it was fine, and actually, turned out to be a great choice, given these shoes have excellent toe bumpers, and I needed them a half dozen times today!  Ugh, just nailed my toes into rocks several times, and in fact, on the last time, it tripped me up enough that I wound up having to put my right hand to the ground, but that bounced me back up.  The only other point of note was that these shoes are a bit roomy on me.  In the toe box that's great, but across the top of the foot they're a smidge sloppy at times.  I should probably try lacing up tighter, but so far this hasn't really seemed to be a problem, and I'm trying to work out if the sloppiness is bad, or just different.  Sometimes it seems a bit more forgiving when you get into tricky terrain, allowing you foot to move as needed.

The run was 5.5 miles one way, 11 miles round-trip according to their map.  Too bad my watch wasn't accurate, as it shows a perfect half marathon:

I did a really nice pace.  I was very safe in the rockier sections, really picking my way through, watching the foot work.  It's a bit of an isolated location, although there were A LOT of campers out in the area on this day, so if I had gotten injured, it probably wouldn't have been too big an issue to get help.  Still, I'd rather just take it a bit easier and enjoy the run, and stay injury free!  Took 2 hours to do the run, which is about what I'd been figuring.  I did not make it up to the waterfall, but hope to another time.  That adds a very solid climb and I think about 2+ miles to the total.  But overall, the mileage, conditions, etc. were just about perfect for me today.  I did have some light right knee pain, as I've been having lately, but just sort of kept ignoring it.

Finally, I really love when Matt Hart takes short bits of video during or of runs.  So, I gave it a shot using my iPhone today.  Pretty bad really - it's quite hard to keep your arm real steady while running, trying to keep the camera pointed at the trail, and also watch where you're running yourself!  Here are the two videos.  The second one is a bit less shaky, and also shows some of the rockiness of the trail (well, you can sort of make it out :) and I think I'll make them shorter next time, seems like maybe 15 seconds is better than 30...

Posted August 29, 2010
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A great week

The last week has been great, running wise.  I had been down visiting my family in southern CA, and got my sister out for her first trail run (she's been running a fairly long time, but never on trails).  We did a nice 45 min run at Crystal Cove State Park.  Bit of hills, pretty warm (80?), but fun.  We talked the entire run, and she's in great shape, so I was actually a bit out of breath towards the end.  I headed back to Eugene the next day, and crammed in some overdue work.  Then, ran each day until today.  These local runs totalled 22 miles, and I intend to do about 10+ tomorrow, so it'll be a solid week.  Thursday was a really nice 9 mile effort as well.

I've been doing pretty much all my shorter runs now in the Inov8 Roclite 295 shoes.  I'm very much liking them.  At this moment, I plan to run in them tomorrow, but it'll be a last minute decision I think.  The shoes are different, especially when you just put them on and sit there in them.  The insole reminds me of my Specialized Body Geometry cycling shoes, especially the earlier generations where there was a pronounced bump under your metatarsal area.  But, as soon as you hit the trail, you don't notice it, and in fact, the shoes just seem to fit me really really well.  They are more minimalist compared to the Brooks Cascadia, but so far, all I've been able to notice is that I feel more of the trail under my foot - I haven't noticed any particular muscle pain or other side effects that you sometimes hear about with more minimal shoes.  This is partly why I'm ready to go try them on a longer run (longest in them to date has been 6 miles).  Should be interesting.  I will also be interested to see how my legs fare having done the 9 miler on Thursday.  

Filed under  //   running  
Posted August 28, 2010
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Bachelor to Bend Ride/Tour with Cogwild

This past Sunday, for my second day in Bend, I did Cogwild's "Bachelor to Bend" tour.  I am normally a bit leery (snobby?) about doing paid tours like this, because it seems that often enough you get more rookie riders, so the pace is slow and the guides have to do a lot of work beyond just showing you the cream.  Luckily, that was not the case, and we had a killer day!  I joined 9 other guys, and two guides (Jeremy and Pia).  Seven of those guys were a group down from Washington, and they all rode great.  Two of the 9 were a father-son combo, with the son out for only his second mtb ride every!  Totally epic for a 2nd ride.  It's good he was young, cuz, damn, most people as a second ride wouldn't have survived the 36 miles and 6 hours of riding we did.  We did have a few mechanicals (I managed to tighten a cassette lockring using my Leatherman needle nose pliers, worked quite well, so keep that in mind as a field-lockring tool :)  Nearly all of us ran out of water, but with just a couple miles of dirt road to go (i.e. after the main riding).  So, 125oz of water for me for the day, 1 sandwich (provided by Cog, and they were quite good, from a local bakery), 2 gels, and a bar, and some fruit and such (again provided by Cogwild).

One of the reasons I did the tour was that I wanted to ride Flagline, which opened the same day, and I didn't know the route, etc.  Not to mention, I had heard good things about the whole Bachelor to Bend ride/tour.  We did indeed hit Flagline, and it was great.  At the bottom of Flagline, we did a little side jaunt up to a killer vista, where you could see Bachelor, Tumalo, the Sisters, and more:
Great view of Bachelor on our ride
After that we hit South Fork, which I loved.  Pia led this out, and I jumped on her wheel.  The two of us just railed it, leaving the others behind.  I was truly loving this trail.  It's fast, mildly technical, twisty, and just so much fun.  Now that I've been up to the vista, really, the super choice descent would just be from the top of Flagline all the way down to the bottom of South Fork.  I think that'd be something like 6 miles(?) of top quality descent.  Superb!  I should note, Pia probably doesn't even weight 100lbs (seriously), but the woman can rip (and I'm quite sure she wasn't going all out).  From there we headed to Tumalo Falls for lunch.
Tumalo Falls, gorgeous
I really love Tumalo Falls, the 97 foot waterfall is truly gorgeous.  We stuck our heads in the river/creek, and then it was time to charge on.  Back along Tumalo, to Skyliners.  Somewhere along Skyliners is where Mark's cassette blew up.  Oh, and luckily we noticed his tire bead had started to come off a bit and was filled with a bunch of dirt.  A bit of maintenance, and we were on our way again.  We hit Whoops; if only I could ride it as well as Voreis and friends:
But, even for a crappy jumper like myself, it is still a blast.  I just don't do the doubles :)  The berms are awesome, and the smaller jumps are quite workable.  Finally it was back along Phil's to the Phil's trailhead and then a backroad/trail to Cogwild HQ for water, beers, and bike wash, completing a killer day!  It was time for me to drive back to Eugene, so I stopped for a fish taco and an Ahi burrito at Parilla, and then hit the road.  I had a really great weekend in Bend.  

Here it is on Monday night now, and my eyes have finally recovered from the very dry weather, and all the dust.  That appears to be the only lasting body blow, as my legs amazingly recovered great.  I did a 5k trail run this morning, and all felt good.  I'm pretty stoked on that, and it renews my belief that I do better with a bit more frequent rides & runs (i.e. it proves I shouldn't have gone so easy the week before the half marathon).  Initially on Sunday's ride, maybe at the vista or end of Flagline, my legs were feeling Saturday, but the descent down South Fork and probably then lunch, rejuvenated me, and by the end, I felt even stronger (not that I wasn't pretty knackered at the end of the ride, but felt pretty strong, just thirsty :) 

Filed under  //   Bend   cycling  
Posted August 16, 2010
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MTB Ride on Phils, etc. in Bend

I'm in Bend for the weekend, where it's actually far cooler (86) than Eugene (100!!), to do some riding.  I woke up earlier this morning and got on the road at a good time, and was out riding the trails a little before 11am.  This made the temps very tolerable.  I had planned a general Phils, Storm King, COD, loop, thought it'd be about 20+ miles, and take about 2-ish hours of ride time.  Well, I was a bit off, and I wound up not even doing one section (VooDoo) that I wanted to hit.  But, 3 hours and 30 minutes, 2600' of climbing (pretty mild), and about 25 miles later, I was pretty cooked.  This was supposed to be a pretty easy ride, as I have the Bachelor-to-Bend ride tomorrow.

It was quite a good ride though.  Got to do some trails I hadn't been on before, including lower Whoops (thought I did it all, but realized I didn't get up to the upper section, so bit bummed about that), and Storm King.  The rest I'd done before, and did manage to get to do Dirty Pirate again, which is good, and some more gnarly parallel chunk of COD (that I wound up doing both directions as I was thinking it was ELV).  I rode my Reign, which is a bit of a tank for this kind of ride, but wanted to suss it out for tomorrow, as everyone has said to use it for that, and my last time riding around Bachelor I did in the end wish I'd had suspension.  Still a toss up though, and I still really just need to sell the Reign and get a nice 3-4" travel 29er (think Tallboy or Jet9).

Nice to be on the bike, and on good trails too. Could have used even more rock, and a little less of the more sandy, buff stuff, but still good.  I find I really like coming to Bend.  Very vibrant town, lots of folks out and about, and there is just a vibe of energy.  Eugene just doesn't feel that way to me at all.  Sometimes it really makes me question our choice, and think we should have gone for Bend, but it's unclear.  Family is all in Eugene, and that is really very nice.  Also, I do not particularly like the desert aspect of Bend.  For now, I will just be happy to get over to Bend a bit more, seems like a good destination for riding, running, and vacationing.

I then checked into my hotel, showered, did a half-ass ice-bath (just cold water, no ice), went into town for some new running shoes (another post on that later), and then back to chill.  Made some coffee, had some chips and salsa, relaxed.  Then it was dinner time...

The hotel I'e got has a kitchen (stove, microwave, 'fridge).  I knew this, and had prepped some food, as we had just gotten our CSA box, had lots of food at home, and well eating out solo isn't much fun.  Besides, I probably had a better dinner than I could have most places...  I had artichokes, chicken and brown rice tacos (soft corn tortillas) with salsa, and a bit of cheese and crackers for appetizer :)  Pretty sweet.  I've got some salad and pre-cooked potatoes in the fridge for later if I want, but I'm pretty full right now.

Filed under  //   Bend   cycling  
Posted August 14, 2010
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Reflecting on the Haulin Aspen Race

I've been wondering why I just wasn't that happy with my race at Haulin Aspen, even though my time was pretty solid for me.  I've realized that it really comes down to the fact that I after about 4 miles, I just wasn't enjoying it, and wasn't running strong.  I had really been looking forward to this race, felt I'd done some good training, and just couldn't wait to get to run that distance again!  

The week leading up to the race I'd taken it super easy based on various things I'd read, some slight pain in my right knee, and partly time.  I only ran twice during the week, and they were both 4 mile or less runs, that I took easy.  In hindsight I think that was a mistake.  I should have run one more day, and I should have done at least one or two 6-8 milers.  That may or may not have helped, but I think that I'd simply have liked it better, I missed running this week!  

Probably regardless of the training, I think the key was that unpleasant, sustained road climb.  I haven't done any climbs that have lasted that long where I was also able to run all of it (I did walk a few minutes, but not that much).  Where I run it's either too steep to run the entire climb like that, or the climbs simply aren't that long.  Top that off with the fact that that hill was just plain boring and ugly to run up: a big wide dirt and sometimes gravel or sandy road.  I knew it was coming, but I think it still just wound up taking a real toll.  Pretty much from that point on I never felt strong again.  And that is really where I get bummed.

I'd have been happier if I felt strong running - even if I was just going the same speed I did.  The "strong" is about how I felt mentally and physically in terms of enjoying the run, having a good time, being happy I was out there running, regardless of how fast I was going.  I didn't get that, yet I did both times on my two longest training runs.  Both of those runs ended with me feeling like I could have gone longer, and in fact, on the second one, I had really really wanted to go longer, but felt the blisters and knew I should cut things short.  But, with this race, I got to the point where I was yearning for the finish.  So, all that winds up leaving me a bit bummed out about it as a run.

It has made me wonder - what could I have done differently to have changed that?  Could I?  Without being practiced on longer sustained climbs, I'm not sure.  Although I do suspect I really should have just walked a chunk more of that climb, left more energy in my tank, and that may have then allowed me to run stronger for the rest.  My time probably would have been just as good, who knows.  But, that's tough, when you're in a race, and the climb is quite runnable, you simply don't want to walk when "everyone" else is running (I only remember seeing one guy, maybe one woman, doing any walking).

I try to tell myself, hey, you've only been running about a total of a year, with your longest run being 6 miles until June, and here you are racing a half marathon, that's solid, you can't expect to have a strong run every single time.  In the end, it's disappointing, but I guess motivates me to continue, get stronger, be stronger more often, and to get faster.

Filed under  //   race   running  
Posted August 11, 2010
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Haulin Aspen 2010 Half Marathon

Earlier today I completed my first half marathon trail race, the Haulin Aspen, in Bend, OR.  It was a well done event, and overall quite a good time.  My official finish time was 2:06:16, but my watch had 2 hours 5 minutes and some seconds.  Close enough :)  I'm pleased with my time, as I was thinking it'd take 2:15.  But oddly, I'm left not as happy as I should have been.

Prep this morning went great, and I was nice and relaxed at the start.  The first mile of the race was a bit harsh, kinda fast for me, big time dry mouth action in the dry air there, and since I rarely race, just harder to start at such speed.  This was mediated by the fact that I saw I'd done about an 8.5 minute first mile though.  For me that's pretty fast, although that first mile was mostly flat.  I kept thinking I should slow down a bit, and I did feel like I did settle in to my own pace, so I was quite stoked when at the 4 mile mark, I saw I was just under 32 minutes, so now averaging 8 minute miles!  Very good for me, and I was pretty pumped.  Also, at that four mile mark, I was finally feeling pretty solid.  I was also happy to see that my watch mileage lined up perfectly with theirs, so that'd be nice for checking my progress.  That didn't last long though...

Soon after you hit the hill.  It's a wide dirt and gravel road, and climbs, with no shade, for I think about 1.5 miles (I think they state it's about a 1300' gain).  I knew this was coming, but it just wound up draining me quite a bit.  That's a lot longer sustained climb than anything I've ever done.  I did walk a few bits, and I probably should have walked more.  But man, in a race, you're just in the spirit of it, and you don't want to be walking!

The hill finally tops out, there's an aid station (the second one I just ran through, since I was carrying water and gels), and you do a quick bit more singletrack climbing.  Then it is mostly rolling.  A bit after this, we saw one the 19 mile mark, so we'd obviously rejoined the marathon course.  What sucked though, was that this would mean I had 7 miles to go, and thus was only 6 miles yet.  Yet my watch said I was something like 7.5 miles in!  Not a small discrepancy.  I had not really been able to pick up the pace any more either, even though we were done climbing.  This was also about the point I finally decided to try to take a leak, and as I figured, not much came out, but hey, at least the sensation was gone :)

This reminds me that, while on the main hill climb, there was a younger girl (18?) just a bit in front of me.  I could see her keep looking back as she'd jump into the bushes, and then back out.  I covered my eyes in an obvious way to say, go for it, I won't look.  Finally the third time she jumped into the bushes she stayed there.  This was pretty early in the climb.  And I swear maybe a mile or so later (after she's caught and passed me, grrr), she pulls over for another one!  She still finished the race ahead of me, although just a little :)

Anyway, the course continued to roll, few bits of more downhill stuff too.  Even a couple real short, slightly technical sections which were fun!  I was getting pretty beat though.  My watch said we'd done 10.5 miles, but I knew that was way ahead.  But, I kept thinking, ok, just roughly 30 minutes more, you can do that.  I was walking more often now too.

Finally, you could star to hear cheers and could tell we were getting to the bottom.  And then, we came into Shevlin park, sort of ran almost into some honey buckets (go team!) and made a 90 degree right onto....  an uphill paved road!  This was NOT a good point in the race for me.  All I could think was, "fuck, they are finishing the race on a paved uphill?!?!"  That section of pavement felt like it took forever.  I already knew I wasn't going to break 2 hours, but if the finish was at the end of the pavement I just might (since I knew this paved section was supposedly 0.7 miles, according to the announcement at the start).  I plodded along, looking for the covered bridge, as I knew that was the reason we were doing the pavement, so we could get to that.

Upon arriving at the covered bridge, the volunteers said you've got "about half a mile to go".  What?!?!  Ya, I wasn't happy.  Luckily it was back on to trail, but I was just beat at this point.  I tell ya, that is the longest half mile I've ever run!  It easily felt like a mile, and it took me almost that long (normal pace wise) to run it!  Oy.  So much for the 2 hour time.  Alas, the finish finally arrived, and I saw my beautiful wife, and things began to get better :)  I wound up 21st in my age group, and I think 124th overall (out of 353 I believe).

Reflecting on the race, while my time was a lot faster than I expected, I think why I'm not as happy as I could be is that that ending really just kind of sucked.  The paved uphill was just a real bummer kind of thing for me to finish with.  Plus, I realized, when you physically can't see, and don't know where the finish is, that makes things hard.  I wouldn't have thought that, but I realize that was one of the tough things.  In the end, my watch read 14.6 miles, so that had messed me up a little.  However, the flip side of all this is that I really want to get under two hours now.  So, maybe that's part of the problem with getting that close to 2 hours.  Maybe if I had gone 2:15, I'd have been like, ya, that's about what I expected, fine.  But, now that the two hours was only those 5 minutes away, and that finish was so brutal (for me), I think I just could taste the 2, and wanted it that much more.  Alas, gives me a goal.  It also showed me that I can run faster, and that I need to practice that a bit too.  It's made me realize that since I can't go run 10+ miles each run, when I do the shorter runs, I do need to ramp up the speed, and hopefully that'll help with upping my speed overall.  So, overall, a pretty good outcome, and I'm pretty excited to have my first half marathon in the bag!

Filed under  //   race   running  
Posted August 8, 2010
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Mountain Hardware/Montrail Tour du Mont Blanc Writups

I enjoyed running vicariously through Topher Gaylord (President of Montrail/Mountain Hardware) and friends' trip to train for Tour du Mont Blanc.  

Max King's blog entries:
Promo like video with Gaylord and King:

Max King, soul runner video from the trip:

Lisa Jhung's account on Runner's World

I recently picked up some Mountain Hardware Refueler shorts, and the Double Wicked Lite shirt.  Both are excellent for running, I really like them, and it doesn't hurt that they also look good.  I suspect I'll stay with the regular Refueler short, vs. the Refueler Advance that King talks about, since I am just now moving fro 9" inseam shorts to 7"...  Not ready to go to 5" yet :)

Filed under  //   running  
Posted August 2, 2010
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Two Runs, Heat, and No Tape!

Got out for runs on Monday (Blanton, 3.6mi) and Tuesday (Willamette, 4mi).  Both were in the afternoon and it was about 80 degrees.  For some folks I realize that's nothing, but for me it's getting on the warmer side.  I consider 80 to be about the threshold where once over that the run takes a noticeable extra toll.  I sweat a lot more, and the run itself just feels heavier and harder.  This is not surprising in terms of "hotter than normal" conditions of course.  Both runs were decent, but the bigger news was that these were also my first runs not taping my ankle!  The ankle did fine - zero pain or anything, and nothing aftewards.  Today, Wednesday, I feel a very very minor bit of ache in my ankle, but this is often what I feel post run even with the tape.  I'm planning a longer run for tomorrow and will likely tape, but we'll see, might just skip it and see.

I'm also excited right now, as I happened to get back in touch with Jared, who is a superstar adventure racer, and also a very fast mountain biker.  Super fit.  We got to talking about running, and now he's going to give me a tour of Pisgah tomorrow, as that's where I had planned to go, but there are no good maps, and so having a tour guide will be great in terms of starting to learn to navigate their maze of trails.  Really looking forward to it.  He will no doubt absolutely kick my ass: he was planning to go try to set a speed record at the Inca Run, a 4 day race in Bolivia, but it looks like the race may not happen.  Regardless, gives you an idea of his skills.  I've never run with anyone other than my wife (unless you count races), so this will be interesting to see.  I've already told him he's free to drop me :)  On the other hand, it'll be good for me to try to keep up, do a bit of race simulation, etc.

Today I also hit REI to see if they had any really light weight and somewhat more trim//shorter shorts.  I like the ones I have, but with the bit of weight loss (also proven by fitting size Medium in both Mountain Hardware and North Face brands - I have no idea the last time I work that size) and the warmer temps, I'm wanting something a bit less bulky and such.  I got these:
Both seem super light, airy, thin, shorter (I think my existing shorts are all of the 9" variety).  I also needed more shorts as I am ramping up to running 4 or 5 times even per week at times, and sometimes the laundry doesn't keep up :)

Posted July 28, 2010
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Learning to Go Hard

Something that's been playing on my mind a lot lately, is how I'm new enough to running that I don't really know my limits and thus understand how hard I can go for how long, and how long it'll take to recover (during the same run).  On the bike, I know this very well.  I know that if I hammer some hill, I know precisely how my legs feel, how long I can do that, when I need to let up, and then when I can do it again.  But with running, I don't.  Partly this is pure lack of experience, having seldom really tried to go hard for some particular distance.

Over the last two days, I've put in two solid road bike rides.  Both were short, only about 1hr 35 minutes.  The first day I did a ride I've done many times, which included the McBeth climb, and total ride vert of about 2400'.  I did this ride maybe 5-10 minutes faster than normal, which I believe was completely due to the fact that about halfway through it, I passed a guy on a TT or tri bike, who then appeared to jump on and start chasing me shortly after.  I turned around to see he was at the base of a short hill, when I was maybe halfway up.  It was game on!  

From that point on, I put in a solid pace, about as hard as I could go, but sustain for at least 30 minutes.  So, clearly not a sprint, and I was sitting the entire time, but a few mph faster than normal.  On the descent of the same hill, I dropped a water bottle (first time ever?), and thought he'd catch me, but he didn't.  Occasionally looking back, I could still see him, but by the junction on Lorane towards home, I'd apparently dropped him.  Was definitely a hammer ride, but felt good.

Yesterday I did a similar distance, similar vert climb, but not quite so hard.  During this I spent a lot of time thinking about doing hard efforts, and how to figure out how to do that during runs, in particular during races.  Usually on the bike, there are parts of a ride that this is easy to do and break into a particular chunk: a climb, or trying to drop someone who's behind you on a flat, or going hard to the next road you'll turn on, etc.  But, while running, about the only time I've really ramped up pace is when I've run downhill a bit, recovered, and am feeling fresh, and just feeling like turning it up a notch.  This doesn't usually last very long though, I'd bet the longest I've pushed a hard pace is maybe 1/3rd of a mile.  Partly I'm just not comfortable doing it, or rather, it feels odd.  It doesn't feel bad, it's just that my legs/body aren't used to it.  So, in part, I think I simply have to start doing it more.  Racing will be a good way to force the issue, but even there, I'm not typically racing a particular person, or care about that, so haven't.

Alas, for the upcoming Haulin Aspen half marathon, I'm currently strategizing that I'll do the first half of the race at my "usual" pace.  This is also the expected hardest half of the race as it has all the vertical gain.  But descents are usually where I can open things up anyway, and I think I'll be able to sustain a faster pace for longer and not run out of gas.  So, we'll see.  My goal will be to really try to put in some speed during the last half, when I can.  I don't expect to blitz the entire last half, but will conciously try to run faster than normal whenever possible.  Hopefully I can do that without bonking.

Filed under  //   cycling   running  
Posted July 21, 2010
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Another big run today

Today was pretty exciting in that I was able to do a 12 mile run only a couple days after doing my 14.5 mile/longest run to date.  At the 8-9 mile range, I felt awesome, not tired at all, and was starting to dream of doing up to 15 miles.  But, as I did some downhill on Willamette, some toes on my right foot flared up, and I could feel that it must be a couple blisters, as it was tender.  I knew I was also maybe a bit tight on water, so I headed back.  It was a good call in the end.  6 hours later (as I type this), and I'm fairly worked - just feeling like I need a bit of sugar, and still needing to drink a lot of water, but otherwise good.  Two of my toes do indeed have blisters.  I'm now debating whether I drain/pop them or what.  This is new territory for me (first set of blisters).

Today I ran with the Nathan pack again, thing is great.  I also tried orange flavored Hammer gel: excellent!  It's super light on flavor, actually bordering on not really even having flavor.  But, the real bonus was that it seemed far more liquidy than their other gels, so it was that much easier to consume.  This is going to be good stuff.  I also had some Sport Beans, and man, with the high salt in those, they just taste great deeper into a run when you've been sweating a lot and it's warm out.  Not something I can eat a lot of, but in the right moment, they're great.

Did the run in 1 hour and 59 minutes :)  Initially felt a bit of residual heaviness from Wednesday's run and Friday's road bike ride, but by a few miles in all was going well.  Did some decent hill work today.  Started at Spencer Butte parking, up and over to Fox Hollow, one typical lap there, then did a down and back up on the lower section that goes to Martin Street.  This is a solid descent and climb back up.  From there, up and over to Willamette, which is all I planned, but again, was feeling good, and even with the toes, wanted to do a bit more.  So, I did a brief bit on Blanton, to the little mini hill embedded in there, around that, and then back to Spencer parking.  12 miles probably (12.55 on my watch).  Good stuff.

Filed under  //   running  
Posted July 17, 2010
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