Week Six - Discovery Park

It's great running with friends when you can. This morning I went out to Discovery Park with Nari, Maggie, and Chris (though, Chris runs way too fast for me, so he humored the rest of us for about a mile and then took off...).

We ran somewhere between 7-8 miles all on trails - did the big loop that goes down to the water (by the sewer treatment plant, sadly) and then back up the hill to the small loop. Lots of fun, sweat and stairs.

Had my heart rate monitor on - said I stayed in my zone for about 45 minutes, with an avg heart rate of 158, max of 179. Total calories burned: 1900. Could that be right?

Either way, we were glad for the time change for sure...

Week Five - Lincoln Park

Lincoln Park was a lot of fun this week. I think I put in about 5-6 miles (ran for about an hour - maybe a little more). Lots of up and downs and varied terrain. Took my phone out a couple times and grabbed a few picks as well. I'm getting more and more excited about the thought of completing my
first ultra marathon for sure!



I'm gonna try and get some advice from my friend's husband, Justin Angle. He's a really good ultra marathoner, and I think he'll have some great tips for me, especially with respect to training and equipment.




I'm secretly hoping he might even be willing to pace me on a segment of the race or something cool like that.

Week Four - Alki Pavement

Had a good long run for week for with my friend Nari and one of her marathon buddies. We went about 7 miles, with about 5 of that on the nice *flat* running path along Alki Beach.

Looks like I'm running about 10 1/2 minute miles now on flat pavement. It would be nice to get that down to somewhere in the 9's before the big race...

We'll see I suppose...

Week Three - Camp Long

Had a great run at Camp Long today. Ran for a little over an hour, up, down, and all around on trails I'd never run on. It was a lot of fun (I enjoy zoning out while running through the woods).

Ran across various bridges and creeks, through narrow trails and a few wide paths. I went ahead and took my Timex Ironman watch and heart monitor. I think I did fairly well. I spent about 25 minutes in my 'Zone', which I believe is 155-165, still programmed from my triathlon days. I need to go in a get that re-evaluated to make sure it's correct for trail running. My avg was 158, and according to the watch, the calories burned was about 1275... not sure how accurate that really is.

Either way, I think I finally started losing wieght (I think I'm down about a pound), and though my knees hurt a little at the start and on a couple of the really steep hills, I felt fairly good. At this point (next week's long run), I'm going to have to start thinking more about hydration and nutrition for sure.

Happy running! :)

Phil

Week Two - Depressing

Ugh...

So now my Blog is apparently flagged as spam... Bummin. Hopefully that will be taken care of soon.

My guess is it got blocked because of the '*'s in the title... not really sure why. I've submitted it for review though, so hopefully it will be unblocked soon.

Week two, and I haven't lost any weight. That's a drag...:(

I felt ok on my long run, but I only did weights twice this week, and only ran once. I need to step it up this week (even though I did bike to work every day, which puts about 75 miles of biking in for the week, but since they don't allow bikes in the ultra trail runs, that kind of kills the point.

I still very much enjoy the long trail runs though. I'm looking forward to my hour trail run this weekend. Maybe I'll try a new place - I'm thinking of running over at Camp Long this time. I've done some mountaineering training with the Mountaineers Club there, but never just run around the trails...

Week one: Base Training

So week one is all wrapped up. As you can see from my google docs training page, I didn't exactly follow the training schedule to a 'T'.

I do ride my bike to work every day, so I get an automatic 30 minutes of cardio twice a day. I wouldn't call it hard riding, but sometimes it is (whatever.. I know, just making excuses...)

I did, however, do my 45 minute trail run in Schmitz Park - which after the first 10 minutes, I felt surprisingly good. I really enjoy trail running, and I'm starting to think this is going to be a great, fun adventure.

Hmm... didn't drop any weight though this week. We'll see how next week goes....:)

Here's some pictures ( Caleb's Public Picassa Pics )

Apparently Triathlons are not enough...

When I started training for my first triathlon 4 years ago I weight in at about 225 lbs.

Though I've completed 10's of olympic distance triathlons, 4 Half-Ironmans, and one Full Ironman since then, I'm still weighing in just over 205lbs. That's a little frustrating to say the least!

Apparently I need to go longer, train harder, and watch what I eat. So now it's on to ultra running... Maybe that'll do the trick?

So I've chosen 2 ultra-distance trail runs to train for.

My first, a 50k will be on Orcas Island ( The Orcas Island Fat Ass 50k).

The second, should I succeed in the 50k, will be the North Face Endurance Challenge 50 mile in Bellingham (unless they don't have one in 2009 - then I'll have to find a substitute...)

For my training plan, I'm using a plan I got and modified a little for me that was published on page 83 of Runner's World, April 2008. You can take a look at it here on my google docs page.