Monday, November 10, 2014, 6:35 pm

4.25 mi, 235 ft gain, 40:20. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm Gate #1, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Red.

A little colder tonight, so I wore a fleece beanie, a tshirt with my 2011 Mt Si 50k tech pullover and tights over compression shorts. These particular tights are kind of thin, so the compression shorts help with wind. It took about 1.5 mi for my body to warm up and I took my hat off.

I had the least discomfort in my achilles/heel in a long time and only very briefly. I felt great for most of the run. Hopefully it won’t be long until I can really get back to the trails regularly.

Another run with the Mio Link. One brief false HR spike shown on my Suunto. It seemed to be perfect the rest of the time. Average HR was 132 bpm. It’s nice to see that an easy aerobic pace is faster than I thought it would be.

 

Tuesday, November 11, 2014, 3:23 pm

5.06 mi, 90 ft gain, 48:18. Road through town, with dogs. New Balance MR10V2.

It was about as cold when I started today as yesterday, but was supposed to be quite windy. So I added a light wind breaker on top. I warmed up more quickly today. The wind didn’t really start going until about 2 mi. There were some pretty stiff gusts on the way back around 3.5-4.5 mi. It was fun to run in.

The Mio had another false spike today. Suddenly my Suunto showed a HR of over 190 bpm, up from around 130 bpm with out any added effort. Sometime I’ll get the wrist band adjusted right. Too tight seems to be more apt to spikes, and too loose seems to read low sometimes. Average HR of 135 bpm, but the spike around 180-190+ lasted for almost 3.5 min.

 

Wednesday, November 12, 2014, 4:06 pm

8.01 mi, 276 ft gain, 59:37. Long way around town, solo. New Balance MR10v2.

Compression shorts, tights, long sleeve shirt, wind breaker, fleece beanie, gloves, headlamp, flashlight. It was windy. I wanted to keep my HR closer to max aerobic level today. I wasn’t sure how far I was going to go, at least 5 maybe more.

A little before I got to where I’d turn around for 5 mi, I was feeling pretty good, so I decided I’d keep going. I thought I might turn around once I hit 30 min. But when I got close to that, I figured I may as well run the rest of the way around on May Creek rd.

I bumped up to my max aerobic HR around 4.75 mi. It was during a big wind gust, right after I jumped off the side of the road due to a fast oncoming car coming around a corner. I bumped up to it again around the time I had to cross US2. Then nearing 7 mi, I saw that I was pretty close to finishing 8 mi under 1 hour, so I pushed the pace for just over the last 1 mi. I went up to around 160 bpm for a while, and finished the last 0.1 or so around 165 bpm. I had 23 seconds to spare, so I could have backed off a little. I like to finish strong though. Average HR was 145 bpm.

 

Thursday, November 13, 2014, 4:49 pm

6.40 mi, 280 ft gain, 1:01:15. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm Gate #1, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Red.

On Monday, I saw a camper and two trucks parked with a generator and lights on just over the bridge at Olney Creek, so I decided to not run that way tonight. I went towards the hill at first instead. Turned around at the 2 mi mark, which is just at the beginning of the hill. Then I went out the other direction on the loop, but turned around at the top of the hill on the other side of the creek.

It took 20 min or so to warm up. The wind storm of the past few days had finally moved on. My lower calves started to get sore, like they were tight around 4.5 mi or so. I think the cold had something to do with it.

Mio link worked fine. It was cold, so I tried to keep the pace and my HR up a little from the easy pace I was falling into to stay warm.   Once I warmed up and when my calves were bothering me, I didn’t keep the same pace. Average HR was 131 bpm.

 

Friday, November 14, 2014, 6:14 pm

6.21 mi, 689 ft gain, 1:08:14. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm Gate #1, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Red.

Colder for tonights run, but almost no wind. It was like 26f at home when I left, probably 2-3 degrees lower at the tree farm. It took about 20 minutes to warm up to being comfortable. I tried those hand warmer things in my gloves, they lasted about 30-40 minutes. They started to warm up a little again when I got home.

Until I warmed up, I was only going to go 3 mi or so. I was cold and just wanted to go home. But once I warmed up, I felt pretty good. I think I need to find something for better wind protection for my groin and wind resistant gloves. Even just the breeze from running when it’s cold can really cause a chill.

The Mio Link worked fine. Average HR was 136 bpm. I tried to run a little faster early on, so I’d warm up more quickly.

 

Saturday, November 15, 2014, 6:58 pm

6.88 mi, 752 ft gain, 1:17:37. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm Gate #1, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Blue.

Got started later than I wanted. I took longer than I wanted when I went to town earlier. Oh well. Just like yesterday, I was considering making it a short run until I warmed up. I took my face mask today and wore it for the first 10 min or so.

I was keeping my pace up to keep my heart rate in the in the 135-145 bpm range, but after the climb up the hill, I fell into a slower pace. My pace in that HR range is a little faster than I’m used to for my easy runs, but seems way too slow and easy on hills. Since it’s in my aerobic zone, I should be able to maintain it for a long time. I think I need to do more faster running to get more used to going a little faster more comfortably. That’s one reason I signed up for 5 shorter races over the next couple months.

Problems with the Mio today. Before I got going, it was reading high, a couple minutes in and it was reading low, then a spike high later. Average HR 129 bpm.

 

Sunday, November 16, 2014, 4:49 pm

8.38 mi, 832 ft gain, 1:19:40. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm Gate #1, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Red.

It was about 10 degrees warmer than yesterday, but a little breezy. Fortunately, the breeze was sometimes a little bit warm. I left the Nathan vest at home and went with the UD belt. I’d been taking the vest so I could carry leashes and an extra jacket. I haven’t used the leashes all week as no one else has been hardcore/crazy enough to be out in the tree farm in the cold at night, and the dogs have been behaving and not running after wildlife. The vest has also caused my back to sweat, which doesn’t help with the cold later in the run. I still wore the windbreaker, and while I did sweat some still, it wasn’t as bad as the past couple days.

Like the past couple days, I started out thinking I was only going to go for a short run, so I headed around the loop, which would give me about 4.25 mi. When I got back to the “Y”, however, I had warmed up and felt good, so I headed for the hill. At first I was going to go out far enough to hit 10k on the day. I felt even better, so I headed up the hill. I felt good enough to keep going, but decided to turn around at the bottom of one of the climbs on top. I stopped there for a few minutes with my lights off, staring up at the sky. The trees on either side of the logging road were just tall enough to block most of the wind. The stars were amazing.

After one early minor hiccup with the Mio at the beginning, it performed great. Average HR 134 bpm.

 

Weekly totals: 45.2 mi, 3267 ft gain.