Archive for May, 2007
I know, this has been my longest stretch without any posting since I started this blog back in November. I am so sorry if any of you have come by looking for updates and found none. I’ve been so busy with work, and life, and training, that the blogging (here) sort of fell off. I’ve actually had more posts to my WordPress Development blog about bug fixes and plugins and things like that… which is really surprising to me because this is supposed to be my main blog.
Anyway, I’ve been keeping my fitness up, and things are actually all ok with my Father in law… and my wife is back home and now we’re in the thick of birthday season around my house. My wife, and I, and both my daughters are all Gemini’s (as well as my Dad and my Sister), anyway this time of year is just crazy busy.
I have a couple of half-written posts from some past fitness activity that I’ll try to get published today… so if you see some “posts from the past” all of a sudden show up. Don’t be surprised. 
By the way, special congrats to John on his Half Marathon run. He’s worked hard to get to this point, and he deserves a big round of kudos!
May 29th, 2007
Rode the 7 Hills of Kirkland course with Jeff and Dave today. Jeff’s a pretty solid cyclist, and is working toward a bunch of time trials this summer. Dave is an old friend of mine (we’ve been buddies since Jr. High School) and used to cycle competitively back in high school. Sounds like a good bunch of riding partners, right?
Well, Dave used to ride competitively, but he hasn’t ridden his road bike seriously in about 18 years… and so, you know what that means. To top it off, the 7 Hills course is insane… it’s not called the 7 “flats” of Kirkland for a reason.
Dave did really well, considering, he made it about 28 miles into the course and 5 of the 7 hills down, including the two worst ones which probably average about 15% grade. But 3 hours into it his body couldn’t take it anymore. Jeff and I left him at a park and rode back to our cars, then returned to retrieve our fallen comrade.
All in all it was a fun (good conversation) and relaxing (average heart rate of sub-120) but challenging (threw in some insane hill repeats while we waited for Dave) ride.
Logbook Activity
- Date: 05/28/2007
- Time: 09:45:00
- Total Time: 3:00:00.00
- Distance: 33 miles
- Average Speed: 11 mph
May 28th, 2007
Well today was a long run, and I couldn’t decide if I would run 12 miles or 14 miles. I ended up deciding to almost split the difference and run a half marathon.
My plan was to take it easy, and I mostly feel like I did, although my pace was around 8min/mile, which in retrospect sounds pretty fast. But if I felt like I was taking it relatively easy, and I felt pretty good afterwards, then I guess I was taking it easy.
I ran along the Burke Gilman trail, and as I turned on to the trail I noticed a woman running about the same pace as me, but maybe a little slower. I ended up passing her, then she caught up to me at the next light, then I passed her again, then she passed me at one of my walk breaks. After we passed each other a couple times, we both decided it was time to break the ice and chat a little. It appeared as if we’d be running next to each other for a while, we might as well be social.
I rarely run with other people. In fact, I can’t think of ever running on a long run with another person. And running along with someone actually makes the running a lot easier. I guess it makes sense. You’re distracted from the process of running, and so it just seems easier.
When we first started chatting I asked her what pace she was expecting to run at, she answered “around 9min/miles, maybe faster”. I said, “well, you’re running a lot faster than that right now, we’ve been averaging around 8min/miles”. She was surprised because she felt like the pace was pretty easy.
As we chatted, I suggested to her that she probably had a lot more in her if she chose to run faster. After all, she was running a “slow” training run of 17+ miles (she had an extra 2+ miles before and after where I joined the trail) and she was carrying on a casual conversation the whole time… and she felt relatively effortless at an 8:06/mile average… According to her, her 1/2 marathon PR was 1:45 and her marathon PR was 3:40. I encouraged her to go for an even faster PR considering she was essentially matching or beating those paces on a slow run.
For me, I was still recovering from my cold, I’m still stuffy and somewhat congested. But this run was absolutely effortless. I’m sure it was having company. Now I just need to find a running partner that wants to match my pace and distance.
May 26th, 2007
It was a beautiful day, and Adrien forgot to make lunch for Zola, so I started my ride by commuting by bike to take Zola lunch. This meant climbing Capital hill… then I needed to decide where to ride. Hmmm….
I finally decided to ride an out and back toward Seward park. I am still fighting a cold so I didn’t want to push TOO hard. This was a nice flat course, but I was motivated to get my average up, which was relatively low thanks to the commuting in the city for the first leg of my trip.
On my way home, seeing I had some time to add to my workout, I decided to take a turn off before reaching home. I turned up Denny which turned out to be an awesome hill climb that just kept going and going and going.
Logbook Activity
- Date: 05/25/2007
- Total Time: 1:35:00.00
- Distance: 26 miles
- Average Speed: 16.42 mph
May 25th, 2007
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