Monday, April 6, 2015, 5:59 pm

4.74 mi, 330 ft gain, 1:14:04. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #1, with dogs. Altra Lone Peak 1.5.

I took it pretty easy today. We went out to the seasonal ponds. The dogs splashed around a bit. Then we went out to Olney Creek. I looked around a bit more than usual. There’s another section of beach downstream just past a big pile of logs deposited in the flooding several months back. I found my way around, back up into the woods a little bit. It was a pretty cool little area with some pools under the logs, and soft, deep sand. The dogs loved running around over there.

Once I was done there, we continued around the loop. I stopped for pictures a couple times.

My lower legs felt a little better, and no more glute pain. My hamstring was a little better too.

Average HR 108 bpm.

 

Tuesday, April 7, 2015, 6:53 pm

4.05 mi, 747 ft gain, 1:11:00. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #2, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Red #2.

There was another car parked at gate #1, so I went out to #2. My lower legs felt better again. I still took it easy. I stopped for photos several times, and just looked around a lot.

I turned right onto a faint game trail about 0.3 mi in, well before the clear cut. I knew there were a couple roads up on the hill above, but I wasn’t sure which one I’d hit, or where I’d hit it. I also didn’t know if it was even passable the whole way up. But I could always just go back down.

I got to what turned out to be about 200 ft from the road, and it started to get kind of thick in an area they had more recently logged than most of the side of the hill that I came up. Fortunately, the blackberries haven’t taken over too much. I expect they’ll get worse before too long. I found my way through the all the smaller regrowth to one of the roads. It wasn’t the one that I thought I’d hit and a little farther out that I thought too.

The blackberries haven’t taken over the road yet this year either, though there were a couple low vines. I didn’t see one and caught it across my lower leg. Ouch. I paid more attention after that.

From there, we went back out to the hill road and went up the hill. I was more or less biding time until the sunset, trying to time when I’d get back to a good view point. It was looking to be a pretty good one when I first got to the top of the climb. The Olympic Mountains looked like they were floating in clouds.

We ran out to the little swampy area up a couple more little climbs. I tried climbing up on the big slash pile to get a view, but it wasn’t as good of a spot as back by the first climb. So we headed back.

I was just a minute or two too late to catch the sun actually going over the horizon, but the colors were pretty amazing, and the Olympics were still floating on clouds. I spent a few minutes taking it in before heading for the car.

Average HR 117 bpm.

 

Wednesday, April 8, 2015, 6:34 pm

6.8 mi, 902 ft gain, 1:46:45. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #1, solo. Altra Superior 1.5 Red #2.

I felt pretty decent again. On my way up the first little hill, I saw some animal tracks going up the steep hillside. I decided to follow them. It was really steep for about the first 50 ft up. I really didn’t want to have to go back down it. I knew there were roads up top that I’d eventually run into, but I wasn’t sure what I’d come across on the way. Fortunately, it wasn’t bad. The blackberries haven’t taken over the clear cut on top yet.

I got some different views than I usually get out in the tree farm, though still similar.  I caught the road on top at the very end at a landing for when they logged the hillside.

Once back onto logging roads, I took it pretty easy and stopped a number of times to look around. I wanted to find more off trail climbing to do, but the regrowth on the top of the hill is too thick between the small trees and blackberry bushes. I found one spot where the blackberries weren’t too bad and was able to get a little higher. There aren’t many spots on the hill much higher than the road that goes across the top between the gated roads.

I got to the other end of the hill well before the sunset. I considered waiting around for the sunset, but didn’t want to stop for that long. So I headed back to the other end. I tried to make it out near the end where I came up and first hit the road, but by the time I got there the sunset wasn’t really worth it. I briefly thought about going back down the hillside through the clear cut to hit the road even closer to the gate. I didn’t want to possibly get stuck going through slash piles and blackberry bushes in the dark if it took longer than I thought.

I took the roads instead, and I kept the pace up a bit. I’m very thankful that the muscles behind my shins felt fine today. They’ve still been sore afterwards the last few days, though. I guess I’m glad that I was sort of forced to tapering early for Capitol Peak 50 mi. I should be more fresh come race day.

Average HR 122 bpm

 

Thursday, April 9, 2015, 5:49 pm

3.16 mi, 28 ft gain, 26:57. Around town, solo. New Balance MR10v2 white.

I got new shoes in the mail today. It was kind of tough to find them in my size and not priced way up by resellers. It seems they’ve been discontinued, or soon to be so.

Anyway, I took them out for a short and easy road run today. I really would like to be going longer, but I guess I’ve resigned myself to taking it easy and recovering for race day.

I found myself speeding up a little more than I planned, but I felt pretty good.

Average HR 137 bpm.

 

Friday, April 10, 2015, 5:57 pm

3.16 mi, 28 ft gain, 23:10. Around town, solo. New Balance MR10v2 white.

I stuck with the same thing I did yesterday. I felt pretty good, and went a bit faster. I stayed pretty comfortable for the first 2 mi. I did a few short fartleks over the last 1 mi or so. Running fast felt good. I haven’t felt good running fast in a while. It was nice.

Average HR 150 bpm.

 

Saturday, April 11, 2015, 4:49 pm

3.15 mi, 28 ft gain, 26:37. Around town, solo. New Balance MR10v2 white.

Going hard yesterday was probably a mistake. My right buttocks and hamstring were really tight and sore running today. I did some more research and reading. It seems like it might be piriformis syndrome, or something similar. It’s going to likely take lots of stretching and some strength exercises. Massage and some other therapy might help speed it up. I hope to still be able to run Capitol Peak, so I’ll take it easy until then. But I’m still going to keep running.

My right leg was pretty stiff starting it. It started to loosen up a little after the first 1 mi or so. I definitely felt better by the end, but still sore and tight.

It was raining pretty good when I started, and it was kind of chilly, so I wore gloves and a hat. The rain stopped about 1 mi in as well. I warmed up and took off the hat. I didn’t necessarily like the cold, but it was nice to see more snow in the mountains. The snow level was down to about cloud level too. The summer is set to be a pretty dry one, so any more snow we get in the mountains will definitely help.

Average HR 128 bpm.

 

Sunday, April 12, 2015, 5:02 pm

4.5 mi, 1009 ft gain, 1:34:55. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #1 new road, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Red #2.

I was tired of the roads, so I took the dogs out to the tree farm. I saw machinery tracks going up the road to the left about 0.25 mi from the gate a while back. I decided to check it out today.

I’ve been up there before, but the road ended fairly quickly then. They opened it up much farther in the past couple weeks. Unfortunately, I think that probably means they’re going to do some logging out there soon. I hope it’s not for a while. There are some cool areas out there on that side of the hill. We went off trail, through the woods a couple times. The first, I thought I saw a clearing or another road through the woods. It turned out to be a creek and small beaver pond.

Not much farther up the road, I thought I saw more water, probably downstream from the little pond. It turned out to be a larger beaver “pond”, though it’s not much of a fond. I guess it’s just a wetland with some deeper areas of open water. There’s a good sized beaver lodge about 20 yds from the edge. I didn’t see or hear any animals besides my dogs running and splashing around.

After that, we went out to the end of the road. A little before the end, there was a big tree in full blossom. It almost looked like a cherry tree, but I’m not that great at tree identification. I hope it is cherry. I’d love to go pick some when they ripen. I’ll be going back to check on it to find out.

On the way back, I didn’t feel like I was ready to be done. I kept an eye on the woods to the right, uphill side for a decent looking spot to try going up and connecting to the road over the top. I found a game trail to try following. I made it up most of the way. I stopped because it was starting to get really thick. I wasn’t exactly sure where I would have come out on the road up top, but I know that the regrowth on top in that general area is really thick. The trees are close together and the blackberry vines are pretty nasty. Looking at the map afterwards, I was very close. It probably would have been tough going over the last little bit. I’ll still try again sometime.

I forgot my gps an hrm and didn’t realize until I was almost there. I didn’t want to drive back home to get them, so I used the Strava app on my phone.

 

Weekly totals: 29.5 mi, 2987 ft gain

This was my lowest mileage week since July 14-20 of last year, and my first under 30 mi since then as well. Other than the piriformis problem, I feel great and ready for race day. No more hard efforts until then, and some  so I can recover as much as possible.