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February 28, 2006
More rain dodging
Yesterday I took the day off to get some work done, today I waiting until the rain had ended. The sun came out for about 5 minutes during track practice.
Day 2 with my new track team. I'm coaching the throwers and taking on Head Coach duties. I'm a little disappointed by the numbers, but I'll work with what I got and hope to build up from there.
Good run tonight. 5 miles with Team in Training in Bellevue and another 2 miles on the Blvd (aka Central Park)...jumped out of the car to run with a friend.
Only 174 miles this month, but it was a short month. Its looking good for March though. I feel quite healthy plus more group runs with TNT and new friends to run with will help get me out the door more consistently. Since I didn't get my 220 miles in February I'll shift that goal to March, then with Spring Break in April I can shoot for something like 250 in April.
Miles this week: 7 miles, YTD: 374 miles, $ raised for LLS: $245
Tues: 7 miles
Mon: 0 miles
Posted by james at 8:05 PM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2006
Escaping the Rain
Somehow I've managed to escape the rain for the last four days now. It was pouring on Thursday and I managed to time my run just right to not get a single drop on me. Today it was suppose to be pouring again, but the rain held off until after my 10 miler with N. It was great to have a guide to show me the parks around Greenlake. Up until today I had been running 3 mile laps at Greenlake. We ended up getting in 10 miles of varying hills and almost all on soft surfaces.
Tomorrow the track season starts so I'll have to really focus to make sure I get my runs in. Just when I was getting used to running in the daylight again, I'll probably have to wait until after daylight savings runs out (April 2) before I get to do that again on a weekday.
Miles this week: 50.5 miles, YTD: 367 miles, $ raised for LLS: $245
Sun: 10 miles, Greenlake to Ravenna Park to Woodland Park
Sat: 7.5 miles, Sammamish River Trail from Redhook Brewery
Fri: 9.5 miles, North 8 Loop +
Thurs: 6.5 miles, Central Park
Wed: 6 miles, snowshoe adventure
Tues: 11 miles, Bellevue Footzone
Mon: 0 miles, flight back from Vegas
Posted by james at 7:49 PM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2006
Weekend Update coming
Early run tomorrow morning looks to be a good weather day. Should be fun.
Miles this week: 33 miles, YTD: 349.5 miles, $ raised for LLS: $245
Fri: 9.5 miles, North 8 Loop +
Thurs: 6.5 miles, Central Park
Wed: 6 miles, snowshoe adventure
Tues: 11 miles, Bellevue Footzone
Mon: 0 miles, flight back from Vegas
Posted by james at 9:47 PM | Comments (2)
February 23, 2006
Thursday Already?
It's still donning on me that it’s Thursday. Having a 5 day weekend and then coming back to school feels really weird. I have to keep reminding myself that tomorrow is Friday. Fortunately, I don’t have anything planned for this weekend other than running and catching up on grading and the real Monday is just around the corner.
Tuesday I had a good run into and around Bellevue. I was supposed to meet at Footzone to run with some Team in Training runners for a 45 minute run, but since I skipped running on Sunday and Monday I decided to get in a longer run by starting a couple miles away from the meeting place. I miss judged the additional distance a little bit and arrived late. Fortunately the group run was loops around the local park so I caught them on their second loop.
Wednesday I went to the mountains with my friend N for a snowshoe hike. The snow wasn’t as deep as I expected it to be so we started out carrying our snowshoes. We put them on after the first mile or so and the snow kept getting deeper from there on. At about 3 miles the snow got too deep to follow the trail and we lost it. I’m used to trails being marked on the trees, but for some reason no marks for this trail. The hardest part of the hike was wandering up and down the hillside hoping to reconnect with the trail. Apparently we reached the point where the previous travelers had all turned around. (Could it have had something to do with the avalanche chute?) It was a fairly nice day though and snowed on us most of the way, which is way better than rain. We still ended up pretty cold and wet at the end because of the many falls into the snow along the way.
Tonight it’ll be back to my Central Park run, but it looks like nice weather coming in this weekend.
Miles this week: 17 miles, YTD: 333.5 miles, $ raised for LLS: $220
Wed: 6 miles, snowshoe adventure
Tues: 11 miles, Bellevue Footzone
Mon: 0 miles, flight back from Vegas
Posted by james at 10:06 AM | Comments (2)
February 21, 2006
Back in Seattle
No running yesterday, looking forward to a good run tonight in Bellevue.
Miles this week: 31 miles, YTD: 316.5 miles, $ raised for LLS: $220
Sun: 0 miles
Sat: 8 miles, Vegas Strip
Fri: 9 miles, Greenlake
Thurs: 0 miles
Wed: 5 miles, 17:10 5K tempo on the track
Tues: 5 miles, Bellevue Footzone
Mon: 4 miles, Mac Laps
Posted by james at 2:58 PM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2006
sub-zero temperatures!
Ok, so when they talk about sub-zero in Seattle its celcius, but you'd think it was farenheit by the way the city freaks out. It was the lead 10 minutes on the news last night, how the wind chill was going to be in the teens and all. Pretty weak if you ask me, I mean its like 5 degrees in Spokane and I bet they are hardly mentioning it. Not that I am complaining too much, just that I still haven't broken out my winter jacket, my rain jacket yes, but not the winter jacket.
Anyway I'm leaving at 6 am tomorrow for the 60 degree temperatures in Nevada.
A couple good runs this week, although my mileage is going to end up pretty pathetic. A few speedsters showed up at the track Wednesday so I ran pretty hard. Because of the extreme cold the workout was a 5K tempo run. Too cold to jog between intervals I guess (I ran in a t-shirt, no hat, no gloves). We were supposed to try to run each 800 five seconds faster than the previous. I was running too hard to get 800 splits, but my miles were about 5:48, 5:29, 5:19, with a 34 second last 200 for 17:10 total. I was pretty pleased with the time considering the harsh conditions...those being my outofshapedness and lack of proper warm-up.
Miles this week: 14 miles, YTD: 299.5 miles, $ raised for LLS: $220
Thurs: 0 miles
Wed: 5 miles, 17:10 5K tempo on the track
Tues: 5 miles, Bellevue Footzone
Mon: 4 miles, Mac Laps
Posted by james at 8:05 AM | Comments (1)
February 14, 2006
Lightning and Thunder
Exciting lightning and thunder last night with "the perfect storm" scenario. Ok, so it was just a couple lightning strikes, but as I was watching the weather they were drawing up the same converging convection mumbo jumbos that were in the movie the perfect storm. In any case it was wicked close to me. I saw the bright flash, but the following rumble was so intense my first thought was that we were having a severe earthquake, which is a particularly depressing thought just when you're getting ready for a good night of rest. Then I thought it might be a very low flying jet, but still that would be pretty far fetched. After a few minutes a couple more strikes confirmed that it was indeed lightning and thunder.
So that was my exciting 15 seconds last night. The rest of the night was spent grading papers and watching the Olympics. Pretty good action so far this year. Canada vs. USA women's curling was a bit of a downer, but the women's half-pipe had some good action. They should give Kelly Clark a medal despite her fall, totally amazing final run.
Two recovery type runs between yesterday and tonight put me in good shape for some speed tomorrow night on the track. First speed in awhile so I'll probably just shoot for some sub-6 pace, but I never know who is going to show up at the track. If there's some quality runners there I might push harder.
Miles this week: 9 miles, YTD: 294.5 miles, $ raised for LLS: $220
Tues: 5 miles, Bellevue Footzone
Mon: 4 miles, Mac Laps
Posted by james at 8:55 PM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2006
West Coast Sunny and 50s!
I feel bad for all y'all east coasters with all the snow. Currently we're getting a much earned break from the weather. Its been pretty sunny all week and I'm thinking about getting a second run in today since its been so nice and I just want to get out and enjoy some more.
I've been fighting off a cold all week so I decided to take Friday off, otherwise I'm pretty happy getting 6 days of running in this week. Unless I get another run in tonight the mileage isn't that high, but I've been feeling fast and strong lately. This morning's hilly run at Cougar Mountain was very good. No stress the whole run. It was a pretty good pace too. We didn't even stop once on the hill coming out of the wilderness loop and that doesn't happen very often.
Miles this week: 50 miles, YTD: 285.5 miles, $ raised for LLS: $220
Sun: 10 miles, Cougar Mountain
PM - 6.5 miles, Juanita Loop
Sat: 6.5 miles, Discovery Park w/ TNT
Fri: 0 miles
Thur: 8 miles, Sammamish River Trail
Wed: 10 miles, Central Park, pretty good pace (~6:45)
Tues: 5 miles, Bellevue Loop
Mon: 4 miles, 12 min of Oregon Drills
Posted by james at 2:50 PM | Comments (0)
February 9, 2006
Fathom
So its an absolutely blue sky outside. Luckily I at least have some time to look at the sky today. Usually I'm so busy that I barely look out the window. Right now I'm taking a development class on Fathom. Its pretty cool stuff that I'll hopefully be able to use in my classes soon this year. Of course I would rather be running. I might miss the sunshine today, but I had a good dose yesterday and at least its not raining.
Good news for this week was the continuing contract that was delivered personally by my school's secretary. This is very important so I don't have to reapply for a job again this summer. Now I have two years to get my professional certification, then I'll have job security for the forseeable future.
*SAVED BY THE MOON*
It turns out that having a clear sky not only lets the sun through, but also allows for a nice moonlight run. Even though the sun had long since dipped over the Olympic Mountains I had a great run on the Sammamish River Trail in Redmond. The trail is really a bike path that operates more like a bike highway, but it was well past rush hour for bikers and only a few almost ran me over with their tiny bike lights guiding them down the path.
Miles this week: 27 miles, YTD: 262.5 miles, $ raised for LLS: $220
Thur: 8 miles, Sammamish River Trail
Wed: 10 miles, Central Park, pretty good pace (~6:45)
Tues: 5 miles, Bellevue Loop
Mon: 4 miles, 12 min of Oregon Drills
Posted by james at 4:27 PM | Comments (0)
February 7, 2006
Life without rain...
So weird running in dry clothes, not sure how to react just yet. My schedule is just too crazy right now, it seems like I have 3 meetings every night. Going to have to figure my schedule out before track season starts or I'm screwed.
Miles this week: 9 miles, YTD: 244.5 miles, $ raised for LLS: $220
Tues: 5 miles, Bellevue Loop
Mon: 4 miles, 12 min of Oregon Drills
Posted by james at 9:04 PM | Comments (0)
February 6, 2006
Superbowl Blues
Another hard weekend made for a decent mileage week. I felt really great running on Monday, but pretty bad the rest of the week. Greenlake on Wednesday was particularly disgusting with HARD rain and poor wardrobe choice. Friday morning I ran at 5 AM and it was the best running conditions all week, dark and not raining.
Miles this week: 45 miles, YTD: 235.5 miles, $ raised for LLS: $220
Sun: 13 miles, Central Park to less hilly Medina loop
Sat: 4.5 miles, Gasworks Park (Bike Path)
2.5 miles, Seward Park
Fri: 8.5 miles AM, Central Park
Thur: 0 miles
Wed: 7.5 miles, Greenlake
Tues: 0 miles
Mon: 9 miles, Central Park
Posted by james at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)