Baseball, Speedwork, Cookies, and Trail Runnin' Bloggers

Just a normal week in the life...

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: I ran what I have begun calling the Lasagna Loop. 6 miles from my house to my mother-in-laws. My brother-in-law had been in town from Rocklin, CA so we were blessed with lasagna again. During the run I caught up to two guys, mid-20's. We chatted for a bit. They were running Robert's Loop. They are contemplating the LA Marathon next year with go at the Long Beach Half Marathon. This is a great combination that many local runners put together, especially first timers. The races are spaced apart nicely.

Wednesday: I ran the Santa Fe Dam after work. 8 miles. I tried to stay nice and relaxed. I pretty much felt like I was on autopilot. I never felt pushed or tired. I maintained my long run pace of 9:00/mile.

Thursday: Speedwork. For some reason I just dread these workouts. I am way more comfortable with long runs, even 20 milers, than I am with these track workouts. I ran one 400 at 1:45 just to get used to the idea. Then I did 3- 800's with a recover lap between. The times were 3:35, 3:37 and 3:38. I definitely felt more tired on each set but I was happy that although I slowed down each time it was only a second or two. If it wasn't for the watch I would have thought that they were a lot slower. I finished up with one more 400, then took an easy run home. This Runner's World article on Yasso 800's predicts a 3:3? marathon, cool. I do need to increase the number of these I do. With that bit of information sitting out there in front of me I may look at next week's speed session a little differently.

Friday: Rest. The family and I had some cheap seats to the Anaheim Angels ball game. Our seats were in the second to the last row at the top of the stadium between home and first. We had a great view, just from what up in the stratosphere. The Angels actually won, 12-7, over the Seattle Mariners, including a grand slam by Juan Rivera. On the way to the game we drove past the two guys that I had seen on Tuesday out running again. Good for them.

Saturday: Long run. Today my wife actually got up before me on a Saturday morning. She was walking the Revlon Run/Walk 5K for Women's Cancers. She had to catch a bus at 5:30 a.m. from the local medical center along with 203 other participants for the ride down to the LA Coliseum. This is a huge event. She heard that there were about 5500 55000 participants this year. It took her and her friends over 2 hours to walk the 5K course just because of the shear volume of people. The finish is inside the Coliseum. So there is a huge bottleneck to get 5500 55000 people through one tunnel and onto the floor of the Coliseum. Last year I ran the 14 mile Malibu Creek Trail Race in less time than it took her to do 5K.

This year the two races fell on the same day again. I opted out of Malibu Creek this year because of the marathon training. I would have liked to do it, since three local blogging buds were all participating. Jeff, Jessica and Matt all did the race today. Matt's write up is all ready up. I'm sure Jeff and Jessica's will be there soon. Speaking of trail running bloggers, Rob ran the McDonald's Forest 50K today. Reading about that will be cool, I'm sure. Rob loves these crazy long runs.

I went down to Yorba Linda to run with the CA Cruisers. It has been over a month since I last ran with them. Between vacation, long runs, and races before you know time flies by. I ran 10 miles with Cecil. Some of the others were running 14 miles training for the Saddleback Half on Memorial weekend. This is one I've have wanted to do. It would have fit nicely into the training schedule. Instead, we will be camping at Carpinteria State Beach with a big group from church. That is always a very fun weekend. I finished the run just seconds shy of 1:30.

After the run, I did yard work. Then I cleaned up and went shopping at Trader Joe's for a Mother's Day BBQ. My wife's mom is coming over for lunch. I finally got the propane tank refilled too. It has been empty since last fall sometime. I used the excuse that it was too dark outside to see to cook anyway. This time of the year I don't have an excuse, plus some things just don't taste the same cooked indoors in a frying pan. By the way, if there is a Trader Joe's near you, don't buy the Dark Chocolate Chunk and Almond Cookies. These are bite sized and delicious. The problem is they seemed to disappear. I don't know where they all went. Six hours after buying them they are just gone. (In my defense, I didn't eat them all. I only had a few, really)

Off to Bonelli tomorrow morning for a counter-clockwise loop.