Fifth week of increased miles

Today’s nine miles took me over my goal of 36 miles for the week by a mile. I looked back and I think it has been five weeks so far of increasing my weekly miles by 10 percent each week. Next week will be a goal of breaking 40. I am going to hold off on doing my recent regular of a Monday long slow distance run. I’d like to get it back to weekends, possibly Sunday. It feels good to have a little break from the long ones. I am thinking 14 miles will be a good distance. I am basically going to start out with what I did last time but I won’t go up to the top of Tabor. I’ll instead brush up against the volcano and head to the river where I’ll pick up the Springwater trail to home. So I ramble,,,

Oh I forgot to mention in a previous post that I sort of saw Obama coming in by helicopter on his way to Intel. I didn’t realize it was him at the time, but it dawned on me later.

Today’s run was a little longer than I needed to do. I did my part to Keep Portland Weird by stopping to talk to a lady about a Toulouse goose that was honking loudly. I lectured her on the Toulouseness and the proper naming of the “Canada” Goose. Bird nerd.

I pushed my HR today to sort of make it a junk run day. But I thought that not doing my long run tomorrow, I’ll do a recovery run then. So today didn’t seem right for recovery, but I just did the track workout on Friday so a quality run seemed too much. So even though I call it a junk run it was still good in may respects. I felt like I got to push it a couple of times. But mostly kept it a steady fast at least for the first half. I didn’t drop under 9:15 until mile 5 when I was 15 secs faster. Now miles 6-9 were different stories, I was a lot slower climbing out of reed and Moreland.

28 miles in four days

And one of them was a 3 mile tempo run, fast and short. I finished the week right at a 10% increase from last week’s miles – 33.

Today I capped it off with a rainy long slow run. Last night as I was drifting I kept imagining my route and it was keeping me awake. What roads to take? Do I go to Larelhurst park? Springwater? I made it to the park taking the main paved trail rather than my usual dirt trails. I went by an old apartment I lived in, still looked the same. I never made it down to Springwater as I figured it too far. As I was coming off the slopes of Tabor towards the direction of the river and downtown I hit nine miles. Four and a quarter miles from my old business location or 7 by Springwater. Maybe next week I won’t go to the top of the volcano, good place to cut miles.

Going by the old office was interesting, I hadn’t been by there in over a year, maybe two. Building looked the same. The run back home from Flying I Ranch is 4 and a quarter. I used to do it twice a day when I trained for the Portland Marathon. It’s pretty tough on the way back as it is mostly all up from the river. I miss doing the two a days, I think I need to figure out a way to do that again.

I feel pretty good after the 13 and a quarter run, a good bit tired, but not wiped. I ate and hydrated after, so I was good there. I think it is time to lay down and watch an Eastwood western.