LineUpAndWait

So the plan was to just go for a walk to shake things out a little from yesterdays long run. Walking was boring so I started to run very very slow. Ended up going 5 miles and did the last mile a MP.

Ran around the track at Kentwood HS.  Did a mile warm up followed by a few 800s.  Time on the first two were 3:14 and 3:15.  Didn't get the time on the next two but I'm sure they were slower.  Did a couple of untimed 400s a slow cool down and called it a day.

I ran another great trail here in the Seattle area.  Found out about a continuous 9.6 mile trail which goes all the way around Lake Youngs, which is only a 15 minute drive from my place in Kent.  I had envisioned this trail meandering around the lake with great views of the water.  That's really not at all what it was like.  In fact, I never saw water or any part of the lake.  Apparently the lake is protected watershed and there's a tall fence and perimeter road on the inside of the fence to keep people out.  Along the outside of the fence is a nice wide gravel/dirt path which occasionally narrowed to a single track on the east side of the lake.  The trail is very, very hilly in sections and has mile/half mile markers posted on the fence.  They seemed to be accurate.  The trail was well shaded and quiet for most of the trip.  The weird thing about the path is there are numerous turns around the lake but all of the turns are exactly 90 degree turns, which meant all sections fo the path were a perfectly straight.  Kind of weird but I got used to it.  I had forgotten my Garmin so I used a stop watch to time my total run and some occasional miles based on the fence markings.  Mile 3 was 8:24, mile 6 was 8:10 and I really pushed mile the last mile which was very hilly at 7:50.  Ran past where I had parked in order to make it an even 10 miles.

Total time was 1:21:58 for 10 miles = 8:11 pace.

I will definitely be doing this run again.

There's an inexpensive marathon/half marathon west of Olympia on Saturday.  I'm not in marathon shape but I may do it anyway.  If not, then definitely the half.

This was easily the smallest race I have even run. It was even smaller than the Outlaw run at Beaver, Utah last summer. It was a fairly flat out and back course and runners could chose from a 1/2 marathon, ten mile, 10K, & 5K distances. So fewer than a dozen runners lined up together to start. Bummer I was really hoping for a bigger crowd, or any crowd, to push me along. So as soon as we started this tall guy goes right to the front and seems to be running a good pace for me so I hung back about 10 yards and followed. So I'm thinking this race won't be such a bust after all. All I need is one runner to pace off of and behold there he was. Right after my Garmin beeped at mile 1 I saw some orange cones just ahead indicating a turn around point for one of the distances. I thought, "that can't be the 5K turn around it's way too early." No big deal, I wasn't here for a 5K anyway. I just kept focusing on staying 10 yards behind tall guy. When tall guy got to the cones-HE TURNED AROUND! WHAT!! Are you kidding me?! Great, I'm going to be running all by myself for the next 12 miles. I'm not good at doing this solo. I wanted to test myself today to see where I was at.

OK time to enjoy a quiet and lonely half. Just around the corner there was another set of cones staffed with a volunteer. This was the actual 5K turn around. Tall guy had turned around at the kids race marker. I had to laugh when I thought about tall guy finishing in around 15 minutes thinking he was superman with a huge PR. The rest of the race I just enjoyed the great weather with temps in the mid 60s. Tried not to bonk the last 5K. Did OK. I really think I could have run some of the middle miles quicker. After the "race" I drove another half an hour to see the ocean since I was so close.