My next 100 mile race is quickly approaching, this week and next are supposed to be peak weeks for me – logging at least 75 miles each. One of the reasons I run, is because I am a closet techy geek — ok — not so much a “closet techy geek” most people who know me, know I love this crap. After an activity I love to pull up my map or “fitness report“.
Most miles logged in a month
I nearly hit the 400mile mark last month, missed it by 11 miles. Guess I’ll have to try harder this month.
Saturday morning I woke up at 3:00am and headed out the door — this is the moon and pretty much all I saw for hours…
Running by Moonlight…
It is hard to tell from the picture, but this moon was the brightest I’ve ever seen. And THANK GOD it was! I had 30miles on my schedule for this morning and unfortunately I left the house w/o my headlamp. My plan for this morning was simple enough; Run the 9 miles from my house to Penitentiary Glen, meet up with some friends, run the Believe and Achieve course and mark it for a training run they were having later in the day, then head out for another 9 miles with my rockstar running friends from Outrun before making the 9 mile trek back home. This happened — sort of…. I made the 9 mile run to the park with no problem – other than the fact it was a net uphill run to the highest point in Lake County!!! We made the 3.1 mile run through the Believe and Achieve course and marked it then headed out for a few more miles before meeting up with some more friends. At this point I found out that my stomach CANNOT handle peanut butter and honey sandwiches during a run 😦 My stomach was ROCKED! I ended up telling everyone else to go ahead without me, that I was going to head on home. They all headed off and when I looked at my watch noticed that it was almost time for the believe and achieve training run to start, so I hung out and waited for them. I am so glad I did! This little 15/20min break was enough to settle my stomach down and I was glad to head out with this group for an AWESOME easy “run”.
Believe and Achieve group training run
What a great group of people! Love meeting new runners and being able to help them along. I “ran” this course with that little guy on the right – Tristan. This was his first trail run and he (and I) had an absolute blast! Conversation never ceased. I learned that hippos weigh more than elephants because they have bigger butts and that cheetahs run 120mph… He learned a little about trail runs and as we waited at the creek crossings for his Mom, about crayfish and frogs 🙂 His Mom said that he cannot wait to get back out in the trails again! Love it!
Only picture I have from during the run..
Adding in this training run worked brought my mileage to just over twenty. I had 9 or 10 miles left to get home which made my 30 miles for the day. It worked out perfect! I made it home with just over 31.2 miles logged — Here is the map/data for it . Not quite sure why my heart rate monitor didn’t work properly at times but still… what a great, sweaty day!
Now I was supposed to log another 20 miles on Sunday but did NOT feel like getting up in the morning. So had the bright idea of trying to get in a night time 20mile run, alone. in the trails…. did I mention at night and alone? Normally I have no problem running the trails at night alone. For some reason this night was different. I started out at 9:30pm/10:00pm and planned on finishing up around 1:30/2:30am — but about a 1/4 mile into the woods I heard a howl, louder than my headphones from behind me. I stopped, pulled off my headphones and heard it again. I wasn’t positive if it was an owl or a coyote. So I put back on my headphones and started running again. For the next 100yards or so I felt/heard something running along side of me through the trails. I wasn’t certain if it was a deer I spooked or coyote. Coyotes have followed us along during runs before and usually when with a group it isn’t a big deal.. but this time I was alone so it kind of freaked me out. I ended up falling twice (I almost NEVER fall) and had a hard time getting my bearings. So I decided to get out of the woods, hit the road and head home… here is the data from my crappy night time run… Was supposed to be 20, I cut it to 5.2x —- wussy, I know.
I didn’t quite log all the miles I was supposed to this weekend running, but made up for the loss of cardio activity with some biking. Sunday came and I should have made up the remaining 14.x miles of my run but it felt sooooo good to sleep in! 🙂 I was supposed to have plans for Sunday evening so I asked my oldest daughter to watch the kids overnight. Things didn’t pan out as planned so I ended up hitting the road on my bike for a quick ride, grabbing a bite to eat and watching the sunset at Fairport Beach…
Fairport Harbor just before sunset
After watching the sunset, eating subway, and chilling at the beach I made the 16.89 mile trek home. The best part about this ride home was the look on the persons face in the passenger seat of a car when passed them up in a 25mph zone! Priceless.
Between the ride to the beach and the ride home I logged over 32 miles on my bike and decided that that was more than enough to make up the 14.x that I missed out on in the trails…
How was your weekend? What did you do active?
Oh yeah… As a quick little “sidebar” relationship post (I said I would keep relationship things to a minimum and think I’ve done a decent job at that :))At dinner about a week ago or so, I talked to the kids about how they would feel if I started dating again? Jeremy’s response — “sure that’d be cool, why?” and after I told him that while sharing my life with them is fantastic, I’d love to share my life with someone else special also. And then Emily’s response? “Daddy you should go on Match dot com” bahahahahah!!! Thought that was so funny, and had to share… Love them kids!
No Giving Up Now 