Jarhead’s Running Myths & Misadventures

I hit the stairs again yesterday, 20+’ of hard steady climbs and then followed that up today with a clean out cruise on the Breakwater route.  Tomorrow I’ll get in some longer intervals around Beacon Hill, maybe one of those Finn inspired tempo ladders or possibly some mile repeats…

Today I had the pleasure of joining Packman at the “Y” where we gave a presentation on motivation to one of the running clinic groups.  It was a ton of fun and I found myself wishing for the opportunity to do more of this kind of thing!  We were able to incorporate some of Packman’s MdS slides, some of the Gobi slides and a few other random pictures of our running adventures to tie everything together very nicely.

My weekend training was saved by some motivation techniques.  On Saturday I was totally wavering on going for a run, the weather was nasty and my couch and a video were calling, but a call from Packman in the afternoon changed that quickly.  He had some free time was going for a run and asked if was I into it - I shot over there as quickly as I could and we got in a great run in the wind and rain.

Sunday I was up for some FUN so I made it a point to sleep in and not worry about getting out early to train, I had no plans until much later in the afternoon.  I wasn’t too sure where I wanted to run at first but after my coffee Thetis Lake got stuck in my head.  This time I left the watch at home, filled up my new platypus bladder (it doesn’t quite fit properly in the HPL pack but it does work, I am waiting on a replacement bladder from Nathan) with some nuun, stuffed some Shot Blocks in the HPL then hit the trails.  I had no set course in mind and just wandered aimlessly for the most part - it was awesome!

With the legs feeling kinda perky on Tuesday I took them out for an intense stair workout that afternoon.  Ran a good warm up, cranked out 20′ of stair climbing and then finished up with a good cool down.

Yesterday I ran the Songhees into Westbay at a relaxed pace, flushing out the legs again.

Today it was time for some more punishment.  Used the run from work to Beacon Hill Park as the warm up, blazed through a couple of hard(ish) miles and then cooled down on the way back to work.

I’ll run another easier paced workout tomorrow and then get in some longer stuff on Saturday and Sunday.

After running the JdF last Thursday I took Friday off from training and then on Saturday I met Pan-Pan at Beacon Hill and ran some tire repeats with him.  I woke up Sunday with legs that felt like they were glued to the floor and full of lead so took Sunday off as well.  I did run this afternoon, a clean out cruise on the Breakwater route - the legs are feeling much better!

On Thursday evening I discovered a couple of small wounds I got from the JdF excursion.  While running the trail I had hit my head on a branch at one point and at another slipped, while crossing one of the rocky beaches, and smacked the inside of my left foot on a rock while trying to catch myself from falling.  They both stung but I didn’t really pay much attention to either - at least until later that evening.  My foot wound I noticed during Roz’s Birthday party at her parents place when I saw that my sock was soaked with blood and the head scrape I discovered once I got in the shower and started to wet my head - it was an all new stinging sensation!!!

The title of tonights post is a combination of closings from a couple of emails I received yesterday.  Put together they totally explain what I got up to today…

Seegs, Norm and I ran the Juan de Fuca Trail

We had a funtastic day!  The only bummer to my day was that the bladder in my hydration pack blew a seam and emptied completely within our first hour on the trail - which made for a very thirsty day…

Here are some pictures from both my trips out to Juan de Fuca: Storming the Juan de Fuca