I have felt really erratic in my running lately. I looked back in my running logs and I have actually been really consistent in runs averaging about 20 miles a week, last week was the fourth in a row. Among the runs I have done in that time I got some quality runs in, just few and far between. But all in all dispersed equally throughout the entire four weeks. So not so erratic after all.

Today I went on my typical run of late; 6.5 miles through East Moreland and reed campus. It rained lightly through most of it, but it was refreshing. My HR was high at times, but not for long periods of time. I have been adding the reed track through the soccer fields. I just realized I don’t know how far it is, I’ll have to measure next time I run it. I am sure my watch reports would tell me, but I am too lazy to look.

While not overly long in the cannon of my running career, the nine miles I did on Monday seemed pretty epic. I haven’t run that far in several months. Running has been one of those things that comes slowly lately with the cold weather and lack of sunlight, but with the equinox right around the corner, perhaps that will quickly change. My mileage is way down, but I am beginning to feel a bit stronger and my runs are getting a bit faster. I am at least pushing it a bit as of late as well. I have done a couple of quality runs in the past couple weeks that felt really good. I haven’t been following the recovery run recipe though, I need to get back on that track again. Still the junk runs have felt good and I am looking forward to building up my miles again, so the break appears to have done its job.

My aches and pains have seemed to abated a bit. The tightness in my glutes is still there, but not nearly as intense as it was and certainly not as painful. My feet feel pretty good. I was a little worried about that as I had walked home from a party (about three miles) in not the best of shoes and they were hurting the next day. But a run later that day showed no further complications (granted it was less than three miles…)

I say short cause I only got three runs in. But being that it followed a rest week, er healing week. My ankle feels fine, no pain at all. Still I have been taking it easy on it.

I should have run today. but I hate the wind and it was windy today. Yesterday I did my first quality run in 3-4 weeks; a straights and curves work out at the track. I only did 6 laps, but that will give me room for improvement! So back to today, it was a good one to rest. Still I wish I had run.

I have been doing my little stair stepper machine. I got to figure out what I need to oil as the pistons got really hot. I oiled it afterward, but I am not sure if I am oiling the right areas. I think I’ll try it tonight and see how hot it gets.

So back to why I thought the week was a success. All of the runs were at a pretty easy pace. Even the S&Cs, I did both my warm up and cool down at a slow pace, the cool down at a snail-like 12 min mile, granted that it is all up-hill from the track. My previous two runs where also real slow in general and felt pretty easy.

My last four runs have all been in cold weather. Cold, but dry. My lungs dealt with the temperature pretty well, I haven’t been coughing at all. My beard has been keeping me warm!

With all the leaves and rain we have been having the roads have gotten rather hazardous. I have managed to keep upright so far, but I am acutely aware that my traction is not what it was on those dry warm summer morning. I have also managed to keep my feet dry by not stepping into any puddles hidden beneath a layer of leaves. Portlanders are up in arms about having to pay to have their leaves hauled away by the city. The cry of “Why can’t I just rake them into the road?” rings out as they use leaf blowers to remove the offending leaves from their yards by moving them to the street. It is apparently going to cost taxpayers a whopping $30 apiece to pay for the city service of removing the leaves. They bellow “We never had to pay before!” Yeah, you didn’t before you refused to vote for the taxes it took to cover city improvements. Dumb asses. And yet the practice of blowing (and sometimes manually raking) leaves into the streets continues. Makes my running troublesome, but do I cry and moan? No, I just run through them.

In addition to the wet leaves causing me grief I now have to deal with daylight savings time. Growing up in Arizona had its advantages one of which was no DST. I can'[t believe they got that right! So now my evenings get dark an hour earlier and I have more time to get up early. Gee thanks.

It felt really good to look at the third day in a row back running after my nine days off of back rest. I wanted to do a long recovery run and that is basically what I managed to do. I did have several instances where I pushed it up a hill or just picked up the pace and therefore my heart rate pushed past my recovery ceiling of 144. So I need to call it a junk run. But that is ok, it felt pretty good.

My Garmin watch stopped recording at six miles into my run. Granted it was raining steady at times, the gps failed and wouldn’t hook back up. Oddly the timer still continued so at least I knew how long I was out. But no other data. Those are the numbers I wanted to look at. Gotta feed my stats addiction! I am not that happy with how the Garmin for runner

Overall I would call it a good run and after three running days in a row, a Friday of rest is in order.

While most of my posts are about running and ms, I also like to talk about the places I run. The canyon on the reed campus is one of my favorites and the spring that runs through it has had a restoration project going on this year. I thought I would post this video about the project and the canyon.