W12D5

A bike ride and day at the beach with friends prompted me to push my long run up a day. I took a vacation day on Friday to accommodate my scheduled 15 miler. The bike ride includes an overnight stay in Redondo Beach so I also scheduled my usual Sunday morning workout with the trainer on Friday morning at 6:00 a.m.

While at the concert last night I got a text from the trainer saying, "Hey! 6:30 tomorrow!" Apparently he'd had a cancellation. I texted back, "OK, cool." And then just for fun I sent him the following text, "I'm in Lancaster at the David Cook concert." I enjoyed his response, "Haha, nice. What time's that sh*t gonna be over??? You gotta get some rest, training at 6:30 and then you're running like 100 miles, right? Haha." 15 or 100 is all the same to someone who doesn't run.

The concert was good and short so I was home in bed by 12:00. I was up by 5:30 and had breakfast before going to the gym. We did a pretty strenuous chest and triceps workout. I left there, gulped down some water, changed my shirt and headed straight to my run.

I had picked Chino Hills State Park as my running destination. I figured the 4 mile climb up North Ridge would be good training for Heart of America. I started up the hill just running until I realized I hadn't set my run:walk timer. I ended up setting the watch for 5:1 but really only walked about 30 seconds during each break. I've found that taking the walk breaks is a good reminder for me to take a drink of fluids, something that I am notoriously bad about.

It was a beautiful sunny morning but not too warm. I ran up North Ridge to Four Corners and headed back out on Telegraph. I enjoy this route. I was running for about 1.5 hours before I encountered any other human beings on the trail and then it was a biker. Later on Telegraph I came upon a lone runner, a pair of runners and one last lone runner before all was said and done.

I ran for 2:21. I knew the route was somewhere between 12 and 14 miles. I was hoping for the later. I mapped the route once I got home and came up with almost exactly 13 miles. So adding in the mile warm up a few hours earlier at the gym I tallied 14 miles today. A tad off from the planned 15 but with the hill effort on North Ridge, I don't think I suffered a training deficit with that one mile deficit in the totals.

Tomorrow will be an active rest day with the bike ride. Have a great weekend.