First of all, Powell Butte is gorgeous. Totally, amazingly beautiful. As I was confronted with one striking view after another I really wished I'd brought a camera (pic above from flickr - one of the "domesticated" trails). It didn't hurt that all the wildflowers were blooming, and the mountains kept ducking in and out of the scattered clouds. I was reminded of why I decided to move out here in the first place.
The run itself wasn't great. The trails on Powell Butte all loop back on each other making it hard to track mileage, so I was thinking I'd just lope around for 2.5 hours. Well, I made it an hour and forty minutes. Fail. I probably should've realized I'd never make it ~15 miles on the first trail run of the year, in new shoes, while nursing a sake hangover (NEVER AGAIN!) and battling dehydration. Um, duh? How long have I been running?? Sometimes I wonder about myself. Anyway I'm just going to move on and work on improving this week. Today is 30-40 minutes on the stair master (my arch-nemesis! hiss!) and boat practice. Tuesday I try intervals – kind of dreading it. Okay, really dreading it. There is a track right around the corner from my house, so I'm going to head home after work and put off going as long as possible. Oh wait, no, I mean, "get right to it". I really hope the middle school marching band isn't practicing there Tuesday nights this year.
I'm curious to see how well I do under this training plan. Hopefully I will stay nagging-ache-free, which will be a vast improvement. But a big part of why I didn't plan a full fall marathon last year was that summertime equals overbooked for me -could be difficult to fit in the required cross-training. I think (sigh) I will have to start bike commuting again. I live far enough away from work that it could be my cross-training Mondays and Wednesdays. Here's the thing though…don't tell anyone… I don't really like bike commuting. (In Portland that's tantamount to sacrilege.) A couple of reasons: it's long enough that I work up a sweat both ways (although obviously more so on the way home since its about 40 degrees warmer) so I have to get to work with time enough to shower; there is a weird woman who is always in the showers at the same time as I am and it makes me uncomfortable (she's SO unfriendly!); and I don't like getting stressed out (by cars passing too close or running stop signs, inconsiderate cyclists, super-fast down hills, dogs, buses, dump trucks, street corners full of seasonal workers with nothing better to do than leer, etc.) before I even get to work.
The run itself wasn't great. The trails on Powell Butte all loop back on each other making it hard to track mileage, so I was thinking I'd just lope around for 2.5 hours. Well, I made it an hour and forty minutes. Fail. I probably should've realized I'd never make it ~15 miles on the first trail run of the year, in new shoes, while nursing a sake hangover (NEVER AGAIN!) and battling dehydration. Um, duh? How long have I been running?? Sometimes I wonder about myself. Anyway I'm just going to move on and work on improving this week. Today is 30-40 minutes on the stair master (my arch-nemesis! hiss!) and boat practice. Tuesday I try intervals – kind of dreading it. Okay, really dreading it. There is a track right around the corner from my house, so I'm going to head home after work and put off going as long as possible. Oh wait, no, I mean, "get right to it". I really hope the middle school marching band isn't practicing there Tuesday nights this year.
I'm curious to see how well I do under this training plan. Hopefully I will stay nagging-ache-free, which will be a vast improvement. But a big part of why I didn't plan a full fall marathon last year was that summertime equals overbooked for me -could be difficult to fit in the required cross-training. I think (sigh) I will have to start bike commuting again. I live far enough away from work that it could be my cross-training Mondays and Wednesdays. Here's the thing though…don't tell anyone… I don't really like bike commuting. (In Portland that's tantamount to sacrilege.) A couple of reasons: it's long enough that I work up a sweat both ways (although obviously more so on the way home since its about 40 degrees warmer) so I have to get to work with time enough to shower; there is a weird woman who is always in the showers at the same time as I am and it makes me uncomfortable (she's SO unfriendly!); and I don't like getting stressed out (by cars passing too close or running stop signs, inconsiderate cyclists, super-fast down hills, dogs, buses, dump trucks, street corners full of seasonal workers with nothing better to do than leer, etc.) before I even get to work.
Oh yeah, one more thing. New shoes! I mentioned it in passing, but here they be:
The Salomon XT Whisper. So far so good. I very rarely get blisters (KNOCK ON WOOD EXTREMELY HARD) so no issues there. The back half of the sole is thicker than I'm used to, but that's not a big deal on trails since they really force you to hit with your forefoot. The only possible issue for me is the tongue. The shoe has one of those pulley-deals that tightens the laces for you. You then tuck the pulley mechanism and the excess lace into a little pouch in the tongue. It ended up bulging enough to occasionally rub against the skin right above the shoe a few times when I was heading up a steep incline. It wasn't too bad on this run, but on longer outings it might drive me insane. We'll see this weekend, when I head out to Bull Mountain for 16 miles.
