It was another beautiful day. I ran in the twighlight and it felt great--I took my time. The sky was a dark orange-red on one side and dark blue on the other with a full moon shining.

Total: 2.52mi

Cross-training was on the agenda today. The weather has been really nice lately--albeit a little bit chilly in the mornings--so I thought it'd be a perfect day to commute to work. The ride there went by pretty fast and because it was only in the upper 30s, I almost didn't break a sweat. One thing I was afraid of slipping on ice patches. I encountered one while running on a sidewalk the other day. The snow from a few weeks ago is long gone; it's the runoff from sprinklers or other sources that can freeze up at night and be dangerous.

Total: 14.8mi Bike Ride

Map created by GPSVisualizer.com

Tracks: - 20070129-181203

I stuck with my guts and only did 13.1 miles instead of 16. It was a good run. I did feel a little bit weak the first 4 or 5 miles. Sometimes it takes me a while to warm up. I didn't take any water which worked out fine because I was hydrated. I was hoping to drink some along the way, but the public fountain at Seward Park wasn't working. Still, I didn't feel an urgent need to drink at anytime (if you're training just for a half-marathon, I don't think you need to carry any water with you unless of course you're not hydrated, which is difficult to gauge at times). A liquid gel, however, would have helped because the last two miles were a little bit tough. This was a good run (not in terms of time) because of continuity--I didn't need to stop to rest along the way.

Total: Half-marathon (13.1mi) Run; 1:41:15; 7:43/mi pace

I was supposed to run 16 miles today according to the schedule I posted this past Tuesday. However, technically I am still a day ahead because the Boston Marathon is on Monday instead of the usual Sunday for almost all marathons. I think that 16 miles would be too much to run so early into training and I wanted to give my tendons a little bit of rest.


So instead my girlfriend and I went for a 5+ mile walk on the Sammamish River Trail. We were looking for a new place to take our dogs and this seemed like a good spot not to far away from Seattle (it's between Redmond and Woodinville). Now here's the funny part. It turned out--and not until we got near it--that the path goes right by Chateau St. Michelle and the Columbia Winery. So it's very close to the end of the Burke-Gilman Trail on which of course I've biked on many times before. As a matter of fact, my first long-distance bike ride just happened to go by there and then knowing the route, I rode there again just for the tasting.

We stopped at Chateau St. Michelle for a tasting and then walked back the same way. This was a wonderful walk. It was full of people, but we kept on the horse trail right next to the main path and so we didn't have to worry about keeping the dogs on a leash when there were people or other bikers going by. The whole area feels like you're in the middle of farm country. The trail runs alongside beautiful willow trees and the Sammamish River. Agricultural fields surround both sides of the trail. Indeed you are in a sense, but there are residential developments all around past the farms and I wouldn't be surprised if in the next few years what's left of the agricultural area will disappear. If you go there park just east of this intersection (it's the parking lot shown on this map).

As for tomorrow, even though I got the extra rest, I'll probably only run half a marathon.

Total: 5.49mi Walk

I took yesterday off. As on Thursday, today was an 8-mile run. This time I tried to run at a more even pace and I did for the most part. My total time was almost identical.

Lap 1: 7:30 min./mi.
Lap 2: 7:24
Lap 3: 7:06
Lap 4: 6:53
Lap 5: 6:43
Lap 6: 6:48
Lap 7: 6:55
Lap 8: 8:02

Total: 8.0mi Run (57:28 total, 7:10 pace; 923 cal.; 149 lb.)

We went for an easy 3 mile run in Edwards Park where I used to run a lot before I moved from Belltown to Seward Park. We ran from the north side of the park to Seattle Art Museum's new Olympic Sculpture Park. It's full of modern art pieces and young trees. If you like modern art in general, you'll love it. Here's a sample:







Total: 3.34mi Run

No Pain No Gain

Today was my hardest workout of the year. When I got out of bed this morning I was pretty tired and even thought about not going. Fortunately, I changed my mind after a few more steps. I wasn't sure how to approach this "tempo" run. The first mile was mostly downhill so I wasn't feeling tired at all and so when I reached the mile mark I sped up. That became the plan--mile on/mile off. I pushed pretty hard and almost got under 7:00 min./mi. for the full distance. Here's my pace breakout:

Lap 1: 7:31 min./mi.
Lap 2: 6:04
Lap 3: 7:06
Lap 4: 6:30
Lap 5: 7:40
Lap 6: 6:27
Lap 7: 7:44
Lap 8: 7:23

Total: 8.00mi Run (56:29 total, 7:03 pace; 891 cal.; 149 lb.)

The book I referred to a couple of days ago--The Runner's World Complete Book of Running for Beginners--has a running schedule for 18 weeks, not 16. So I'm starting 6 weeks late, but I think 12 weeks should be good enough. My plan is to follow the intermediate (25-30 miles/week) schedule for the next 4 or 5 weeks, and then if I feel really good I'll switch to the advanced schedule (over 30 miles/week). This is what my running schedule looks like for those next few weeks:


The schedule assumes that the marathon is on Sunday, but the Boston Marathon is on Monday, so today is an easy 3 mile run. I did a little bit less than that at, guess where: Seward Park.

Total: 2.38mi Run

Yet another 5 mile run around Seward Park. I like going there. Running in shorts again as the temperature is around the mid to upper 40s.

Total: 5.27mi Run

I did the same run as yesterday. I'm getting more motivated now to run pretty much everyday. That's because I've decided to run the 111th Boston Marathon on April 16th. I just barely qualified for it last year at the Vancouver Marathon.

My running schedule will be based on the one that's in The Runner's World Complete Book of Running for Beginners. In it, there are three marathon preperation schedules--each one has a daily schedule for 16 weeks--based on running difficulty. I'll probably pick the medium one but I'm not sure yet. I'll post it in the next week.

There are 12 weeks to go. I'm really looking forward to this one!

Total: 5.08mi Run

Another Seward Park run. This time I started from home, ran to the park, did a loop, and came back. That comes out to almost exactly 4.50 miles, but I wanted to make it 5 so I ran a little bit more around the block. I didn't stop except once to retie my shoe--I've been running pretty lax the last few weeks so I wanted to see if I can even run five miles without stopping! Thankfully I can still do it :-).

Total: 5.07mi Run (7:27 min./mi. pace)

[Backdated on 01/21/2007]

We went for another run around Seward Park this afternoon. We got a couple more inches of snow this morning and the park was almost empty. We took our dog along again and he had a lot of fun, as did we. It's comedic how fast you can get addicted to a dog--it's the uncompromising loyalty... Anyway, I look forward to running in the snow again.

Total: 2.71mi Run

We haven't been outside Seattle in a while and with the day off today we were going to go cross-country skiing. But, my girlfriend doesn't have skis and it was almost noon before we could leave so instead we went hiking to Twin Falls. It felt about 20 degrees colder than in Seattle upon arrival. The sign at the trailhead read "Emeregency Closure" but we went ahead anyway--it turned out to be a good decision because there were only a few fallen trees on the trail which we were able to bypass. We warmed up after a few minutes of walking and the wind died down. Most of the way to the two waterfalls is straight up, with a couple of small dips along the way. There was ice along the whole trail, and my girlfriend fell on her ass once ;-). Fortunately it was a soft landing and nothing got hurt. We took our dog with us and it was a lot of fun having him around. This is a great hike only 35 minutes from Seattle!

Total: 4.4mi Hike

I ran to Seward Park, did a loop there, and ran back home. It's been below freezing for about a week now, but it was nice and sunny. The only thing I had to watch out for is ice on the sidewalks.

Total: 4.24mi Run

[Backdated on 01/15/2007]

We went for another jog around Seward Park this morning. The weather was quite nice.

Total: 2.50mi Run

I commuted to work. The ride back was a little bit tough because of a couple of pretty long hills. No rain though.

I got new booties that really help out a lot in the 35-45 °F temperature range. I already had toe covers but they're only good for ~45-55 °F. They were $50 at REI, which is too much I know, but I really needed them.























Total: 14.8mi Bike Ride

We went for a short jog around Seward Park. We found some more downed trees--there were high winds last night--since the previous storm a few weeks ago! BTW, this was the first day without constant rain in quite a while--some of it froze and made for some nice formations on the car.

Total: 2.67mi Run