Hills for breakfast, hold the gnats

48F, cloudy. General aerobic run. 

Ah, summer in The Evergreen State.  :) 

Audiobook recommendation: I'm listening to Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding.  Very funny, but also a mystery/international spy story.  Good narrator, fun book.  

51F , raining. Easy w/ 1/2 mi MP near end of run. 

Blogging this a day late.  My conference is going great but I have no blogging ability during the day with just the iPhone. (It worked once but now the whole thing crashes when I enter miles.)   Also up way past bedtime last night. Driving home over Tiger Mountain, in the dark, very exhausted, was just plain scary. No run today (Saturday).  I hope to be in bed a bit earlier tonight and get another short run in tomorrow morning.  Have a safe weekend!

50F, cloudy w/ light patchy fog.  Easy w/ some 1/1 (tempo/easy) intervals on rolling hills. 

55F, clear. G-A run. 20 min. strength work. 

I was just about to crawl into bed with my book when I realized I never blogged my run this morning. That's what a busy day does to you. The weather is totally dreadful, by the way. Hot and bright.  Nice for tomatoes, not for cloud lovers.  

65F, clear & sunny.  Tempo run. 

~3.5 mile w.u., 2 x 1 mi T w/ 1 min. recov. plus 1 mile MP.   It was not the workout I had planned, but much better than blowing off the tempo miles altogether.  This sudden warm weather is very uncomfortable.  The daytime high yesterday was in the 90s, and today will be just as hot, or hotter.  It's quite a shock after so many weeks of cool weather (50s & low 60s).  

Low 60s & partly cloudy, changing to 70sF and sunny. Objectives: club run, endurance w/ some moderate intensity (3 x 2 mi MP plus 0-15 seconds), then finished with Leg Builder Hill (quite a bit of which, I confess, I walked to avoid heat sickness). It was pukey-hot those last 6 miles. Yay for me - I didn't actually lose it, though I did have to sit on a park bench for a few minutes in my 17th mile. Though it's cooler than it has been the past couple of days, it's still way too expletive-deleted hot for running, in my opinion. Many sights on this morning's run. Early on, I stumbled upon a film crew making a car commercial. The cop was mad at me for being there but I snapped a photo of the car that had the camera boom on its roof:

The wildlife count was excellent this morning: many rabbits, an enormous bullfrog, 3 golden finches (which, despite being our State Bird, one hardly ever sees), and a herd of elk. I also saw a hilarious herd of alpacas but they don't count for wildlife since it was a farm. They just crack me up after they've been sheared, all skinny with big hair just on the head. Finally, just before going up the LB Hill, along came Thomas the Tank Engine.

And as long as I'm posting photos, here is Dandelion, getting a walk on his leash. I cannot say things have improved much. Still a lot of yowling and body-fluid-protests going on. But isn't he cute?

I apologize for not following my blog buddies' entries lately. I'm doing the best I can, but life is just crazy right now and something has to give. My thoughts are still very much with you.

69F, sunny.  Recovery run. 

Sprinkler patrol, reporting for duty. 

53F, cloudy & breezy (5-15 mph). Easy run. 20 min. strength

Those who know me can well imagine how much I enjoyed this run.  My legs are still a bit dead from Saturday's run, but my brain was very happy indeed, full of ideas and energy.  

51F, mostly cloudy w/ breeze (5-10 mph). G-A run, pushing hills.  20 min. strength.

More great weather. :) 

Low 50s, clear.  VO2 max intervals by effort: 5 x 4 min hard w/ 2 min recov. 

 It's summer, it's light out, but I still have a hard time getting myself to the track.  I like my neighborhood, with its plentiful park bathrooms and drinking fountains. But I think what really stops me is the idea of giving up 20+ minutes of running to drive somewhere to run. Maybe next time. I know it would do me good. 

Low 50s, clear.  Easy run. 

Pleasant but slow run.  Feeling yesterday's workout.  

Low to mid 50s, cloudy with a little light fog.  Endurance run, club run, Leg Builder Hill. 

Lovely weather, but I had to cut the run short a bit.  Busy day.

53F, low clouds.  Easy pace run.  

Nice morning for a run.  Very quiet.  

53F, low clouds, breezy.  G-A run with steep hills.  20 min. strength.

I wanted a little more of a challenge today, but not so much that I would need a recovery day. So I picked a route with steeper hills than usual and tried to "power up" each one.   

More great weather. I (heart) my marine layer.  

No sleep, no run.  

I am beginning to doubt whether this cat is EVER going to accept staying indoors.  It has been about 1.5 months and there doesn't seem to be much of any change.  He decided to start meowing at 1:30 AM and it must have gone on for about an hour.  Am I tilting at windmills? 

57F, humid but clear.  G-A run. 

The fog was moving in just as I finished this run.  Too bad. But it's pretty from indoors too. It comes and goes, but I fear we'll have a hot sunny day.  

Mid 50s, partly cloudy. G-A run. 

I am just going to keep on being boring, not much to report.  I'm quite busy these days, but I also just haven't been in much of a blogging mood lately.  Runs are somewhat lackluster due to sleep issues and, I suspect, medication issues (some change-of-life related rx).  Also, I hate summer. Sorry, but I really do.

I am hoping to get a medium-long, decent quality workout done this weekend, since I won't be able to do a true long run.  

Mid 50s. Easy run.  

Farewell to the nice cloud layer, through a pretty sunrise.  It's all burning off now and we're in for many hot days.   Have a great weekend!

Mid 50s rising to mid 60s after sunrise. Clear & sunny.  Very warm when not in shadow. 

No club run today, since I am pressed for time.  So I decided to try for some quality and did a MP workout: about 4 miles of warm up, then 8 x 1 mile MP on all kinds of hills, w/ 2 min recovery between, then a brief cool down.  Due to the hills, my splits were all over the place, the slowest being 10:00 and the fastest 9:08.  The warmth was uncomfortable but bearable. Actually, this is the best workout I've had in a while. 

High 50s, easy run followed by hill sprints: 10 x 8 seconds on ~15% grade. 

59F, mostly clear. Easy run. 

AuntieEm is off to Paris, so I decided to "see Scotland."  (Trying not to be completely boring these days. :)  ) 

54F, clear. VO2 max workout: 5 x 5 min. hard effort (target 8:30) on rolling hills w/ 3 min. recovery between.  8:28, 8:33, 8:28, 8:21, 8:16

This is a workout I took from this Greg McMillan article.   For a number of reasons, I am not big on periodization, but it really made sense to me to put in some extra focus on speed for 3 or 4 weeks before finishing up with stamina, so that "slow legs" would not interfere with the stamina workouts.  

Through a combination of obsessive strategizing and sheer luck, I managed to pick my route in such a way as to mix the ups and downs in my favor and get pretty even splits. The worst uphills seemed to fall perfectly into the "recovery" interval.  My last rep, which I had intended on pushing the hardest, ended up being almost completely downhill.  So I'm not sure it "counts" that this rep was faster.  The one just before that, however, had plenty of Up - so I shall take full credit for that nice split.  ;) 

The fog that has been sitting down in the valley all morning just rolled up here to my neighborhood and I am temporarily surrounded by beautiful, cool, gray, luscious fog. Ah....  Perhaps my reward for a good workout.  

55F, with lovely, cool, refreshing fog.  :)   Easy run. 

It is almost completely dark now at 5 AM, and I will soon need to start out with my headlamp again.  It will be worth it if I can have cooler days.   Legs are a bit dead today, complete with monkeys - 3 on a scale of 1-5 I'd say.  But the weather was inspiring. 

Mid 50s, sunny for 5 miles, lows clouds thereafter and fog last mile (returning to higher elevation).  Endurance run w/ progression. Easy for 10 mi, moderate for 5 mi,  3.5 mi of MP in miles 15-19,  Leg Builder Hill  b/t 19.4 & 21.3. 

Nice run, though the last miles were extremely tough. I had to walk a couple of times on the LB Hill.  The reason I have 3.5 miles of MP in miles 15-19 instead of 4 is that I stopped to use a bathroom and "touch up" my chafe danger spots at 17.5, then found I had grown extremely stiff and sluggish during the rest.  It took me a half mile to loosen up again before I could push the pace back up.  Scary.