Monday, January 26, 2015, 2:51 pm

6.03 mi,  ft gain, 1:09:35. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #2, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Red.

I felt surprisingly good today. The sunny 60 degree weather was great too. My right hamstring was a little sore starting out. I also started a little slow, but I warmed up after about 2 mi.

After the first mile, I got out into the open and the sunlight. It felt great, so I took off my shirt. The sun felt awesome.

I went over the hill from the west side today. There was too much logging traffic on the road at the other gate. Up on the hill, I could see exactly where they were logging. It’s not that far past where they set up signs.

Once I got to the other side of the hill, in the hills shadow, it got much cooler. It’s always cooler in that area.

I picked up the pace a little bit on the way back. I had to get back home to make it to the post office before it closed.

Average HR 126 bpm.

 

Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 5:08 pm

6.72 mi, 1096 ft gain, 1:12:26. Olney Falls DNR rd, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Blue.

I felt a little sluggish starting out today. I stuck with a pretty easy pace for most of the run. I started feeling better about 2 mi in, but still kept it easy.

It was raining the whole time, not all that heavily, but just a constant light rain. I used my Outdoor Research Helium II jacket. It kept me fairly dry for about 40-45 min, but the front of my body was pretty wet by 1 hour. My forearms were quite wet as well. I think that’s from water draining back from my hands as my arms come forward above parallel to the ground. My back was still mostly dry, though. And I was still warm enough.

Vida kept up much better today, though still lagged behind a bit when I sped up on the last descent. I might give the dogs tomorrow off, or do a double with a longer solo run and a short one with them.

Early in the run, I wasn’t really feeling it and almost cut it short to 3-4 mi, but I’m glad I kept going. I kind of wish I went longer, but I think another “easy” day was a good idea. It feels really weird to call 6.7 mi with over 1000 ft gain easy.

Average HR 124 bpm.

 

Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 4:56 pm

2.09 mi, 36 ft gain, 18:29. Warmup for solo 5k, solo. New Balance MR10v2.

I took it easy to warm up. My right hamstring was a little tight again, but loosened up. I probably went a little faster than ideal, but it was cold out and I wanted to get warm faster.

Average HR 119 bpm.

 

3.14 mi, 20 ft gain, 18:29. Solo 5k through town, solo. New Balance MR10v2.

I started too fast, but I wanted to see what I could do. I set new PRs for 1 mi, 2 mi and 5k (1/2 mi and 1k too according to Strava).

My splits were 5:33 for mi 1, 5:50 for mi 2, 6:10 for mi 3 and 6:23/mi pace for the last 0.14 mi. I went hard from the start, wanting to see what kind of pace I could hold. I faded fairly consistently after the first mi. I just hung on to what I had over most of mi 3. I tried to finish hard over the last 0.3 mi or so, but I could feel my legs just about to burn out, so I backed off just a hair.

I’m really close to two of my goals for the year, sub 5:30 1 mi and sub 18:00 5k. My best estimated 1 mi time from Strava was 5:32. My 5k time was 18:12. Based on today, I know I can beat my 1 mi goal. I’m pretty sure I could do a sub 18:00 5k if I paced better. My 2 mi time was 11:22, which I also think I could do faster with better pacing. Even so, my 2 mi time today was nearly 3 minutes faster than I ever did in the Army. My best 2 mi for the APFT was 14:44, a couple weeks before my 21st birthday in 2002 while still in training. I hated running back then.

Average HR 147 bpm. I don’t think this is correct. The data shows my HR around 105 bpm for the first 1.25 mi, then suddenly jumping to the low 170s. It hit a high of 184 bpm near the end.

After I finished, I sat down on a curb by the elementary school to rest a little before heading home.

 

2.75 mi, 43 ft gain, 24:57. Cool down for solo 5k, solo. New Balance MR10v2.

I went pretty easy on my way home. I wanted at least 2 mi for a cool down, but heading straight home was going to end up around 1.4 mi, so I kept going up US2 to the next street and then ran back along that one to get home.

Average HR 136 bpm.

 

Thursday, January 29, 2015, 4:46 pm

7.10 mi, 1235 ft gain, 1:09:46. Olney Falls DNR rd, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Blue.

I might actually have been more sore today from yesterday’s 5k than I was the day after the first 20 mi of last weekend. But it’s a different kind of muscle soreness. I could still run pretty much like normal today. Soreness from a long run takes more out of me, even if it doesn’t hurt as much.

It took about 2 mi to warm up completely, but I still had some soreness in my legs. It was a good run anyway.

The orange of the sunset lasted from before I started until after I finished. I had some great views. I spent about 5 minutes at the turnaround spot.

Average HR 129 bpm.

 

Friday, January 30, 2015, 3:56 pm

16.01 mi, 2353 ft gain, 2:49:32. Upper Wallace Falls via Woody Trail to Wallace Lake & back via Greg Ball Trail, solo. Altra Superior 1.5 Red.

I decided to move up my long run by a day. I might do another B2B and go again tomorrow, but I was pretty tired today.

My legs were still a bit sore from Wednesday’s 5k. I guess I really went hard then. I don’t feel like my pace has suffered much from it, but I definitely feel it. I suppose running on tired legs is good practice for my first 100 miler, whichever I finally decide on. I still haven’t made up my mind whether to run Badger Mountain or wait for another one, maybe Lumberjack or Pigtails.

Even though my legs were sore, and I felt like I was running pretty slowly on the roads out to the trails, I was running in the low 8 min/mi range, which is fairly usual. I tried to take it easy up the climbs on the Woody trail, but caught myself going a little harder a couple times. Overall, it wasn’t too fast of a pace.

I was well ahead of sunset when I hit the Valley Overlook, and I didn’t want to wait around that long, so I kept going. I caught glimpses of the sunset through the trees, though. I had a nice view from the DNR rd above the Upper Falls. The horizon glowed orange for over an hour.

The DNR rd out to Wallace Lake was quite a bit drier today. The flooded section closer to the lake has receded, but where there was just one channel of the creek cutting across the road, there are now two. They’re easily jumped across, though.

Once I got to the picnic table by the bridge over the outlet of Wallace Lake, I got my headlamp out. While the sky was still glowing orange, it quickly got dark in the trees.

The road from Wallace Lake to the Greg Ball trail has dried out a lot as well. Though, I almost lost a shoe in the mud where a puddle had been.

Today was my first time running down the Greg Ball trail by headlamp. It was pretty fun. I missed switch backs, going a couple steps off trail, two or three times. When going downhill, I tend to keep my headlamp pointed down right in front of my feet, which means I don’t see the trail farther ahead very well.

My legs were pretty tired for about the last 1.5 mi, but I tried to maintain about the same pace. I did speed up for about .25 mi as I approached the turn for home, because it sounded like the train that was stopped was getting ready to get going, and I didn’t want to get stuck waiting at the RR crossing.

It was a little more tough of a run than either of last weekend’s 20 milers, mostly just because my legs were sore. Other than that, it was great.

Average HR 137 bpm.

 

Saturday, January 31, 2015, 3:48 pm

16.02 mi, 2437 ft gain, 2:56:24. Greg Ball to Wallace lake to upper falls & back via woody trail, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Red.

I’m writing this a couple days later, so it’s not the freshest thing in my mind. I was rather sore and tired from the day before, so I kept a pretty easy pace again.

I warmed up after about 2 mi. Since I went up the Woody trail and down the Greg Ball on Friday, I decided to go the other direction. Even going easy, I just about set another Strava CR up the Greg Ball trail. If I hadn’t stopped to pee, I would have made it by a little bit.

The trail was kind of busy, much more so than the day before. That was another reason for switching directions. The road grade and Greg Ball trail are usually a lot less busy than the Woody trail.

I pulled out my headlamp at the picnic table at Wallace Lake again. I didn’t turn it on for a little while though. I took it easy on the way down the Woody trail too. I only passed one group of people still on the trail on my way down, three guys with cameras and flashlights. I’m glad they had lights. I’ve come across several people on the trail without lights after sunset.

Running the roads home was kind of rough. But that’s why I wanted to do back-to-back long runs. I wanted to do some training on tired legs. And that’s what I got. I was surprised at how well my legs held up to the b2b long runs the previous weekend. I guess an all out 5k and a second week in a row with b2b long runs did the trick.

I might take it easy for the most part until Lord Hill 50k on Feb 22. Or at least a few days before another long run this upcoming weekend after the 5 mi race for the final NW Trail Runs Winter Series.

Average HR 132 bpm.

 

Sunday, February 1, 2015, 2:09 pm

6.20 mi, 67 ft gain, 58:25. Green belt and RR access rd, with dogs. New Balance MR10v2.

My left achilles is stiff again. Sometime I’ll finally figure out what the deal is. Maybe I need to do more stretching. It seems like when I have this issue it tightens up more around 0.5 mi into my run, sometimes making me consider turning around and going home. Then it loosens up just a short time later.

I decided to go through the little park between US2 and the RR tracks for a while, then hopped the tracks to the access road by the river. I went out past the gate on the road that leads out to Startup.

A little ways down the road there’s sort of a marshy area to the right. As I came up to it I saw 7 great blue herons take flight. It was pretty awesome to see. I wish I could have gotten a photo.

I continued out a ways farther before turning around. As I got back to the marsh, I saw more herons. I guess the 7 I saw fly off went back. A couple flew just around some trees, a couple more flew up into a tree on the far end, and several just stayed where they were. I counted a total of 8 this time.

The rest of the run was pretty uneventful.

Average HR 124 bpm.

 

Weekly totals: 66.1 mi, 8315 ft gain