Wednesday Zork run

>i
ipod
watch

>use ipod
You hear the Magnetic Fields

>use watch
You start your watch

>w
You run westward through a Florida subdivision. Crossing US 19, you enter Innisbrook. There is a gate in the road.

>look gate
The gate is closed.

>w
You run westward, around the gate, and continue through Innisbrook. To the north is a golf course. &$#%. You fall down.

>look
You have scratches on your hands and knee and a gouge in your ipod.

At your feet is a piece of plastic construction debris.

>kick debris
You kick the plastic construction debris onto the curb.

>use ipod
You hear REM.

>w
You wind through the streets of a new gated development, listening to music and cursing the construction debris. You come to a cul de sac. There is a golf course to the west.

>look
You see a golf course.

>look w
A golf cart path winds through the golf course to the west.

>w
You run across the golf course and come to a road.

>e
You wind through the streets of a new gated development, listening to music and cursing the construction debris. You come to a cul de sac. There is a golf course to the west.

There is a golfer on the golf course

>talk golfer
Sssshhh!

>w
You run across the golf course and come to a road.

>e
You wind through the streets of a new gated development. You come to a crossroads and, for the first time, see a sign pointing east toward the exit.

>e
You run eastward until you come to a gate.

>e
You run through Innisbrook, crossing US 19 and enter a Florida subdivision. You wind through the streets until you come to a house.

>use watch
You stop your watch.

>look watch
The watch says 55:51

Sunday afternoon, 5.5 in 42:33

The route is lost in the tubes, but it was a simple one. I just got out this afternoon while Si was napping for a little run around the superblock. I ran past the old homestead, which is repainted and looking nice. The hills on my old street are less imposing than they were in my childhood, when biking up the third hill at the south end of the street was a perpetual challenge. I cheated today by starting at the south end of the street, running down the tough hill instead of up. But I think I could have taken it.

21 miles this week, in two runs. Yeah.

Running long in Georgia

Friday pm, 15.2 miles, 2:00:45

This post contains discussion of bodily fluids and is therefor rated for Runners Only.
Fair warning.

If you're only going for one run in a week, it may as well be a long one. My cold from last week is now 12 days old and shows no signs of giving me relief, but has instead spread to take over my head. Combined with travel and the fact that Silas considers time zones to be a bourgious concept that will not survive the revolution, Monday through Thursday have been goose eggs. Anxious to shed myself of sloth, I headed out the door late this afternoon, telling Christine and my mom that I'd be back in 20-90 minutes, depending on how crappy I felt. I brought the ipod with me, and wisely started out with Radiohead's In Rainbows, one of my best running albums of late. 15 Steps always gets me off to an aggressive start, and Jigsaw always seems to come up when I'm at the midpoint of a big hill.

So, with my teeth threatening to fall out and my head ready to explode, I worked my way out of mom's subdivision with not much plan in mind but to run through Sandy Springs. Feeling good after about 25 minutes, I decided to run all the way out to my old high school, North Springs, and run a Trowbridge loop, the abominable circuit that made up our cross country course. I realized on this run why North Springs will never be a powerhouse in cross country. East Sandy Springs is the land of disappearing sidewalks; that, combined with the oppressive heat of a Georgia summer, keeps anyone from training during the offseason. At least it did me.

I made it out to the high school and turned back as dusk was settling in. I decided to take a slightly longer route back along Spalding Dr, partly because it looked like there was sidewalk to run on. This was an illusion, of course, and I was back to running through people's yards after about half a mile. This section of Spalding near the Chattahoochie River is the high-rent district of Sandy Springs (which is pretty high-rent on the whole, anyway). I played baseball with a kid who lived around here; his dad had been one of the initial investors in a local hardware chain. Even with this in mind, I literally laughed out loud at one of the newer homes that I passed: it was modeled in the style of a Roman temple, complete with dome, and had a life-sized statue of two lions in the front, in marble, with spotlights. Awesome.

After a while, I wasn't laughing anymore. The run was long, my hands were cold, and I was leaving a snail-like trail of mucous from my nose and throat. And it was dark, and I was going to sprain my ankle running through people's gardens who weren't decent enough to put in a stupid sidewalk.

Making it through this area, I started to feel better as I got back onto familiar ground and had a little more space to run. I made it back to the subdivision, and tacked a little bit on down the hill and back, since I'd be damned if I stopped my watch at 1:59:59. Made it home and enjoyed a lovely evening with post-run bronchitis.

Runs will be sporadic for the next few weeks until I get home after New Years, and posting will be more so.

Best of Tilden

Saturday, ~7 miles in 1:??
Yesterday afternoon was a holiday trail run organized by endurance runner extraordinaire Sarah. A group of about 12 people and dogs met up at the head of the Selby Trail at the end of Centennial Dr., where Sarah provided us with Clif bars, maps, and cue sheets for a 6.25 mile loop through the park. She suggested that we start by walking the initial 300 foot climb in the first climb, get to know one another, and then sort ourselves into running groups. We all complied initially, but after about half a mile Mike from Portland decided it was time to pick up the pace, and I followed. We made our way up, and then down, through a picnic area and over some tables. By the second picnic area, we'd gotten lost so we looped around a bit until the rest of the group caught us, then we found South Park Dr. (closed during the winter for newt migration). We didn't see any newts, but we stayed with the group until the next turn, and then we decided to take the high road at the Big Springs Trail instead of the prescribed Quarry Trail. Matthew and the dog Clover decided to join us as we quickly climbed 200 feet, then missed our next turn. No worries, and we just took the road up to the next trail for a big downhill toward Lake Anza. Conversation turned toward the excremental - I was the only one of the three of us who had never thrown up on a run, and Mike had actually (awesomely) thrown up in a unicycle race.

The trail around Lake Anza was rocky and rooty - it was like the football drill where you run through the tires, but with climbing, mud, and a water hazard. Somehow the other guys navigated this quickly without any sprained ankles, and by the time I caught up, they were figuring out that we had gone too far around the lake and had to turn back and do it again. For some reason, running around the lake was just exhausting to me as I carefully watched my steps to avoid slipping into the water or twisting an ankle. Making my way around the lake dug my grave, and the two miles uphill to get back to the start pretty well pushed me in. I let the guys get away, and finished up at my own pace.

With the extra wandering around, I'll call this run about 7 miles, and the elevation ranged up and down between 800-1600 feet. A great run, and a good introduction to the singletrack trails of Tilden.

More buses

Thursday pm, 5 miles in :41

No sooner did I get home from work tonight than I was asked to perform my husbandly duty; that is, take Silas out for a run so that Christine could spend an an hour studying with our friend Sara. Always happy to comply, I suited us up and grabbed the stroller. It was already dark, and Silas wasn't in the best mood at the end of a long day, so I decided to take a simple route that would maximize our bus-seeing potential. We scored right away with a school bus on MLK, but things were dead for a while longer until we saw the 79 at University Ave. No more buses for a while, and Silas was getting annoyed with this process. I kept the chatter up, telling him about the evening, and our upcoming trip for the holidays, and pointing out Christmas lights, but he was uninterested. Finally, after making it up to Shattuck and back towards downtown, we hit the mother lode! Shattuck Ave is home to 5 or 6 bus lines, plus university and Berkeley Lab buses. We saw about a bus a minute, all the way down to the Berkeley Bowl. Very satisfactory. We left the run an open loop as we did a little shopping and then walked home, sharing an Arkansas Black apple.

Some people enjoy an inner dialog when they run. These days, even when I'm alone, my inner dialog has to interrupt to acknowledge any bus or train that might make its presence known.

A little bit...

Tuesday pm, 3.4 in :27

I did get out for a short run last night. Silas and I went out at sunset to visit the North Berkeley BART station. The running was easy and uneventful, and I barely broke a sweat. My nose was streaming by the time I got home, so I was glad to have the run in the books. The cough started today, so I really don't think I'll go out tonight.

40? I meant 30.

Saturday am, ~7 miles
Sunday pm, ~6.75 miles

As usual, things didn't go as planned. No run on Friday, and a couple easy runs over the weekend. I took Silas for a morning run on Saturday that took us up Marin Ave to Shattuck, then home by a route that I've forgotten. I lost the time as well, but it must have been 6.5-7 miles.

Sunday afternoon was a fun, roundabout run with Silas. I took him straight to Shattuck to look for buses, and then we tried to see as many different bus routes as we could. I didn't keep track of all the numbers, but we saw different bus lines on Shattuck, Hearst, Oxford, MLK, and Sacramento, for at least 8 in all. I changed directions several times, like when I tried to chase down the 72 on MLK. I'm not sure about the exact distance, but at :52 with plenty of hills, I'll guess about 6.5-6.75 miles.

Si and I have a cold this week, which is messing with my sleep and my running, but I may get out for a bit tonight.

Wednesday pm, 6.1 miles in :47

I didn't run yesterday morning, and I knew that commitments this morning
and this evening would preclude a run today; so, with a belly full of
pizza, I ran my usual tempo route last night. Not much to report; it
went a bit slow, with .75, 1.0, and .25 mile splits of 5:13-6:46-1:25.
I clearly wasn't in the spirit of the run on the first leg, and
gradually picked up my speed over the next 1.25. My plan for the rest
of the week is easy runs on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, for ~40 miles
all told. If so, it'll be my first 40 mile week since I ran 50 back in
June.

In other news, Christine and I are planning a trip to Philly in the
spring, and I think I've convinced her that the first Sunday in May is a
much better time for a visit than April, cherry blossoms be damned.

Monday am, 10.2
miles in 1:22

That's right, 0-for7 last week. I have logged miles with crippling back
pain, a stress fracture, and tendinitis, and even post-marathon, but
last week I didn't run at all. For no particularly good reason. I even
went so far as to put on my shorts and shoes on a few mornings, but just
didn't make it out the door. By last night, I'd had enough, and I vowed
to get up at 5:45 to squeeze in 6 or 7 miles before Si woke up.

Well, Si had other ideas (actually a stomachache and low-grade fever),
so we were awake by 4:45 this morning, and I crawled out of bed
around 5:20. After reading a few books, I grabbed a flashlight and we
headed out the door to find the stroller in the dark. We headed out
into the early morning, watching Berkeley slowly wake up (while Silas
played with the flashlight in the stroller). I decided to pick up some
bagels and then get in as many miles as I could.

We turned up Marin Ave, my old nemesis, but this time for fun rather
than battle. We crossed the Circle, but just headed up one block to
Shattuck before turning down (with a sense of relief, sanity, and, yes,
slightly burning lungs) to run through the Gourmet Ghetto and Holy
Hill. We ran up through campus, past the lab, and wandered around
Elmwood and just into Rockridge before heading home. There is
absolutely nothing like a 10 miler first thing in the morning, and it's
a feeling that my legs have been missing for a while. Last week and
this morning make it clear that consistency is still elusive, but I will
try to hold onto this feeling as motivation to get myself up for more
predawn runs through the winter.

Oh, and Silas? He fell asleep by mile 3.

LMJS 10k LBRR

I've had plenty of runs since my last posting, but haven't felt the urge to write about them. Of note were my last Marin Ave run; no, I didn't finish, but I decided upon hitting Euclid that I might die if I tried this again. I mean, I may try it again, but I will have to advance at a more gradual pace to build my strength. I also had nice trail run last Sundayon the Strawberry Creek trail; I made it all the way up to Grizzly Peak Blvd, but then made the mistake of running back downhill on the paved roads instead of the trail. This cut about 2 miles off the return trip and was, consequently, much steeper and brutal on my knees. I also had a pretty good tempo run on Thanksgiving afternoon (before dinner) which left me feeling pretty good about this morning's 10k, the Lake Merrit Joggers and Striders 4th Sunday run.

LMJS puts on a no frills race every month on a certified course around Lake Merrit in downtown Oakland. The lake is about 3 miles around, and runners can choose to do a 5, 10, or 15k. I just wanted to take my pulse to see where I was after this rather mediocre year of training, 53 weeks after running a 1:24 in the Philly Half Marathon. I was hoping to find that I could come in right around 40 minutes, and I planned to try to negative split my laps, 20:12-19:48, if I was up to it.

I took Bart to downtown Oakland and jogged a mile to the start in the park, paid my $5 and pinned a tag with my name to my shirt. The start was a little late since Students Run Oakland had come out for a training run and registration was going a little slowly, but about 100 folks lined up and were off by 9:05. As I expected, a couple of students jumped out to the front but quickly fell back, and by 1/4 mile I was in a loose pack of 4, with (I think) another guy way out ahead of us. The pace felt a little fast for me, but I thought it a good idea to hang on until I got my first split. When we hit mile 1 in 5:57, I felt some relief but knew that my pllan was out the window. I dropped back, along with another guy in a green shirt; I later recognized him as Phil, a guy that I've run with at the Transports trail runs. I followed him through mile 2 and then felt him slow, so I passed and hoped that he would latch on to push me forward. Soon the sound of breathing faded, though, and I had to push myself through the next mile. Phil soon caught back up to me; turned out that he was running the 5k and just passed me as he finished. My 3 mile spllit was 7:04, but the next .1 mile measured only ~:27, so mile 3 was clearly long. Not sure about mile 2, which had split in 6:35. Anyway, my 5k split was 19:55, which made me happy although I was pretty sure that I wouldn't break 40 for the race running in no man's land. This turned out to be the case, and I had no competition for my position for the next 3.1 miles, although I lapped a few folks at the back of the pack. I finished the 10k in 40:18, first in my age group and, I think, 3rd overall, but the overall results haven't been posted yet.

The race is pretty easy to evaluate. I was about 2 minutes off my PR, set last fall at the Ben Franklin Bridge run, but I'm not in a bad position considering that I've run not even 2/3 the mileage this year. I have been running low mileage this year, with very little speed work, but I've done hella strength work with all the hills that I'm running, and that seems to cancel out one of my deficiencies. I was reminded, though, that track and tempo work is important not just to build speed, but to work on pacing. I'll have to spend some more time running in circles if I want to run a steady 5 or 10k. I would have liked to finish under 40 minutes, but the fact that I could run a sub-20 5k and keep going is pretty encouraging to me that with a gradual increase in mileage and by folding in some more specialized workouts, I should be able to get back into my 2006 shape.

We could neither run, Norwalk

Friday am, 5.3 miles in 42:48
Saturday pm, 11(?) miles in 1:31
Monday am, 4.6 miles in 39:10

Well, we could actually walk, but there was a little bout with the stomach flu last week that had everyone incapacitated for a couple days. Silas is still not quite right. I had set an unspoken goal of running at least 4 weekdays last week, but Wednesday and Thursday were out of the question. I managed a short run with Si on Friday morning, and had a very nice solo run on Saturday, out and back on the Strawberry Creek Trail in the rain. After investigating the map, I figured that I could have gone another half mile or so to hit the end of the trail. Sunday was a day trip to Santa Cruz with some hiking, and this morning was a short bagel run with Silas, battling stiff quads but enjoying the cool air.

So, I guess it's better to have spoken goals rather than unspoken ones. I was searching around for a good goal rain the spring that I could spend about 6 months working towards. I couldn't find any marathons that suit my needs, but there is the Tilden Tough Ten in May, a ten mile trail run put on by one of the local clubs.

As the name implies, it's a tough course, and I think I would shoot for under 70 minutes (garnering myself an Under-70 shirt in the process). I'm going to spend a few months building my base into the New Year, and then do some more specific training through the spring, including a few road races. The same club, the Lake Merritt Joggers and Striders, has a no-frills Fourth Sunday race every month on a certified course around Lake Merritt in Oakland; runners can choose 5k, 10k, or 15k. I think that I'll do the 10k this month, just to take my pulse. As far as training goes, things will be a little erratic as Silas adjusts to Standard Time and recovers from his bug, but I will plan to run 4 weekdays and 2 weekend days each week, with Friday as an off/makeup day. The mileage doesn't need to be high, but I should be doing 40 miles/week consistently by the winter holidays (when, of course, everything will be thrown off again). So that's the plan; let's see what happens.

The Race

The course: The North end of Milvia St, a rolling quarter mile starting
at Hopkins. A net climb of 30 feet.

The scene: Silas and I are heading east on Hopkins, toward Milvia.
Another runner is heading west on Hopkins and turns onto Milvia ahead of
us. I'm going to catch him.

The prey: He has about a 20 meter jump on us and is running at a
slightly faster clip. I turn right onto Milvia and size him up. He
reminds me of Jim: large frame, deceptively fast. Weak ankles. His
shorts are blue.

The race: There is a psychic link among us. It's clear that only one
(or two) of us will come out ahead. It's also clear where the finish
line is - the top of the hill at Milvia and Berryman. Silas and I push
it on the uphill, then start blueshorts in on the downhill. He is
running on the left side of the road and we, in the spirit of fair play,
are on the right. He looks over his shoulder, taking stock. He is
toast.

We hit the last uphill, a steep one, and blueshorts is still about 5
meters ahead. Suddenly I hear a sound behind me - a cyclist is trying
to get into the mix. Si and I are closing the gap with blueshorts, but
halfway up the hill, the cyclist pulls even with us. Then she drops
back, and we pull ahead of blueshorts. We hit the top of the hill steps
ahead, and he crosses behind us, turning right on Berryman. The cyclist
catches up to us and continues on her way, and Silas and I take a
victory jog back home.

5.5 miles in 42:19.

Sunday pm: Marin #7, 7.9 in 1:14
Monday am: 5.9 in ?

I took Silas out last night for the next shot at Marin Ave; despite my
lingering cold (and lost voice), this run would cap a big 13 mile week
and I was hoping that the effects would balance themselves out. I took
the first 3 miles to Marin Ave quickly, then took it easy up the hill to
Regal St. Standard time caught me by surprise, but it meant that Si and
I got to stop by the Berkeley Rose Garden for a great view of the sunset
over the Bay. The rest of the run home was in the dark, taken slowly to
account for the downhill and potential cracks in the sidewalk.

I stayed home from work this morning while Christine recuperated from a
night of baby-catching-helping and took Silas on an errand run. We went
to Transports to pick up some new shoes, but they didn't have my 2130s
in size 13-EEEE, so I'll have to wait a few days. We also browsed a bit
in the bike store next door, looking at trailers, infant helmets, and
tricycles, before heading back home. Probably due to a timing malfunction,
the run apparently went down in 40 minutes.

Saturday am, almost 5 miles in almost :38

I've been slightly sick this week, which shouldn't necessarily have kept me from running, except that I wasn't sleeping well and just didn't want to get up in the morning. Saved by the weekend, I took Silas out this morning to pick up breakfast and knock the rust off. It was an easy run, past the Edible Schoolyard, half a lap on the MLK track, up and around to the Cheese Board, where I picked up a couple pastries, and home again on Milvia. The ease of the sub-8 pace tells me that I probably should have made more effort to run this week, but maybe the rest did me some good. I left large quantities of phlegm in my wake, anyway (in case you wanted to know).

Followed up with some cross-training, i.e., digging a garden bed in the back yard, and some ginger-cayenne-lemon-honey tea, a homemade concoction that is providing some relief for my sore throat.

Maybe next year...

I missed it this weekend, but I now have a training goal for next fall.

Catchup

Monday am, 4.9 miles in 40 minutes
Friday pm, Marin #6: 7.4 miles in 1:05.
Saturday pm, 10.8 miles in 1:19(?)

Judging by the log, I've only had three runs so far this week, but I thought I went on Tuesday also. Oh well, the log doesn't lie. Silas and I did Marin #6 on Friday, to Craigmont Ave. It was hard, and slow.

I wanted to get in a long (ie, >1:45) run this morning but didn't get around to it. Instead, this afternoon during Si's nap I headed out for an 80 minute run. I wanted to get about 10 miles and figured I'd just run around until the time was up or my legs were beat. I started with a fast pace down to the Bay and headed up to Gilman. There was a timing malfunction on the Bay Trail when I stopped to tie my shoe and forgot to restart my watch for a few minutes. I continued on a new route, for me, up San Pablo into El Cerrito. By the time I got into Berkeley, I decided to run past the Cheese Board collective so I could figure out how far it would be to walk there for dinner (about 1 3/4 miles). I had dropped the pace a bit while running up Cedar, and by the time I ran around to home my legs definitely were beat. My watch read 1:15, but I'm guessing it was more like 1:18-1:19. That makes for a 7:19 pace for the run, which is feeling pretty good in my legs right now. After my shower, I walked back to the Cheese Board with my mom and carrying Silas, and the pizza was awesome. We took the bus home.

I now have 999 miles for the year. It hit that point on June 30 last year, but I'd never hit it before that, so there it is.

Marin #5

Saturday, 7 miles in 59:51

I had to spend a few tedious hours in the lab today, and when I got home Silas was waking up from an abbreviated nap. We let off some steam by reading a Woodie Guthrie book, The New Baby Train, and then he brought me my shoes, so it was time to run. This was a 5 block attack on Marin Ave, going up to Spruce St. I had not been looking forward to this last block, which I will have to run 8 more times, because it appears abruptly steeper than the previous block, and I measure it as a 16% grade. Not coincidentally, this was also my pace in minutes per mile for the 4:57 that I spent running from The Circle to Spruce St, not that anyone's counting. Spruce St also represents, more or less, the midpoint in elevation between the Greenway and the top of the road. And, of course, I lived on Spruce St in Philly, so it holds a special place in my heart.

I normally take the steep downhill back into town at a pretty cautious pace, but with Silas in the stroller shouting "Whee!" I may have picked up the pace a bit.

Thursday pm, 3.5-ish miles

I got home a little late on Thursday, just in time to see C off to journal club. I took Silas for a short spin, just to get in the run; the plan was that I would be able to wake up early today for a solo tempo run. Didn't happen, though, because my legs and brain were too tired at 5:45. Oh well, on to the weekend.

We received a mystery package of ice cream today as a thank you gift for something. No name on the tag though. I'll still be able to enjoy it, but hopefully the mystery donor will step forward...

Fartlek

Tuesday pm, 8.2 miles in ?.

The good thing about a fartlek is that it can't go wrong. The pacing of this run was a little awkward, though, since there was a stretch of over two miles that was all downhill that made it hard to pick up the pace and feel like I was still in control. Silas and I started this run from the Farmer's Market, loaded down with greens, Asian pears, and grapes. We headed north while I tried to to think of a route, and ended up zig-zagging down toward the bay. We saw no less than 6 buses while waiting to cross San Pablo, which totally made Silas's night. Silas watched the crescent moon over the bay, along with all the trucks on I-80, while I did a 3/4 mile pickup on the Bay Trail. I kept the pace brisk during the recoveries, and my watch read 55:08 for the run, which was either a timing malfunction or simply shows how I was burning up the road.

We came home and made burritos with some great Red Russian kale from the market and some really good tortillas from Trader Joe's. Silas warmed my heart by eating all of the kale that I carefully concealed in his bites. Just a little bit of salsa does the trick!

I have a complicated plan for Wednesday that may or may not involve a run from work, depending on how things come together.

Lessons learned

Monday am, 4.6 miles in 33:12

I've been pondering my slow runs a lot lately, and not really feeling
satisfied without that gentle ache lingering in my legs through the day.
It occurred to me yesterday that the solution to the problem of slow
running is, simply, to run faster. I did that yesterday with a pretty
quick run, considering the long uphill, and again this morning in an
out-and-back to get bagels. I only had time for a short run this morning,
since Silas and I didn't wake up until 7. Normally I would have skipped
the run, but I got us both ready pretty quickly and we were out the door
in 20 minutes. Lately, Silas hasn't been eating breakfast first thing, so
it's a little easier to get out the door and then eat with him when we get
home. A nice run, and I'm feeling the ache.

My back has been sore for the past week (I hurt it lifting a 34 pound
sack of cuteness). I guess the lesson is that I need to stretch every
day, even if I don't run every day. Hardly seems fair.

Marin #4

Tuesday pm, 5.5 miles, 44
Saturday am, 7 miles, 1:00:00
Sunday pm, 8.9 miles, 1:10


Only a few runs to report. Mainly Saturday morning's run with Silas, in which we made our fourth attack on Marin Ave. The San Benito-Santa Barbara block is a short one, so this was probably a good week for it. We took the usual approach, via the Ohlone Greenway, at a pretty brisk pace. My legs were feeling fresh from 3 days off, but I had to be sure to save myself for the hill. We made it up four blocks and turned off, ending up 430 feet above home. Looking at the map, I see that I'll have to start planning these runs, because the roads get pretty winding further up the hill and I could end up getting lost on the way home. On the other hand, the answer may be to just run downhill. The downhill run from Santa Barbara is pretty steep, so I took it as a cautious pace. My day was made when I got home and hit my watch at exactly 1:00:00.

Today's run evolved as I went. Silas had skipped his nap, and fell asleep down by the bay about 20 minutes into the run. I decided to stretch things out a bit to go for a 10-miler. We ran up Gilman and hit the Greenway, then back to revisit Marin Ave. We only went up a block, though, before turning downtown. We saw Christine walking home from yoga at the Y, though, and decided to stop and walk with her. I was enjoying the run, but this is generally a good idea.

I haven't finished Born to Buy yet, because I'm a slow reader, but I've been reading about all the sleazy ways that corporations target kids, including actually writing curricula for public schools. I was somewhat relieved to read a shout-out for the Edible Schoolyard, which is right next to the track at MLK Middle School. Maybe we're in the right place.

Marin #3

Thursday pm, 7.6 miles in 1:05

After work last night I took Silas, full of pomegranate seeds, out for
another attempt at Marin Ave. We took a different approach that usual
since I needed to stop by the library to pick up a book that was on hold
(by the way, the Berkeley Public Library website is pretty awesome, and
includes contents and excerpts of books in the catalog.) From the South
Branch, we proceeded northward on Milvia and The Alameda (passing the
Central and North Branch libraries).

We hit the circle and headed up. Today's course was 3 blocks, up to San
Benito. I was concentrating so hard that I almost missed the best yard
art of the run, a rusted iron skeleton holding a brass saxaphone.
Appropriate, since I was breathing hard and tasting blood by the time I
hit the top of my run. From San Benito to downtown was a pretty steep
downhill, to boot, so I kept a slow pace for much of the return. I was
able to get my footing enough to pick up the pace a little bit by the
time we hit the Cal campus, and wandered up and down a bit to tack on
some distance on the way home.

The route is here. I'll have to do some more planning to design a course
that includes the Claremont and West Branch libraries as well. Or maybe
not.

The book? Born to Buy, about how Silas is meant to serve as a conduit for
advertisers to access my (meager) wallet. A creepy proposition, if you
ask me.

Tuesday pm, 30 minutes
Wednesday am, 5.5 miles tempo

I slept through my alarm on Tuesday and had a packed schedule even after
work, but I was able to squeeze in a 30 minute run with Silas, running
from the Farmer's Market to the grocery store (the long way). It was
good to keep the run short and easy, anyway, because a tough evening run
is a sure recipe for skipping the next morning.

As it happened, I dragged myself out of bed at 5:45, made an espresso,
and sat down to read the previews of todays playoff games. I then
remembered the reason that I was up, and got out the door by 6:07.
Having moved to the Bay Area in May, I had been under the impression
that it is a place with remarkably long hours of daylight. It turns
out that this isn't the case, and the days are actually starting later
now. This apparently has something to do with the tilt of the earth.
In fact, the length of the day seems to vary sinusoidally over the
course of the year, with a maximum in June and a minimum (I reckon) in
December. Most incredibly, the rate of change of the length of the day
has the same variation, but seems to be phase-shifted by about -3
months. Fascinating.

With such ruminations on my mind, I missed starting the first split for
my tempo run, so I'll call it 20:52 for the first 3/4 mile. Things
could only get better from here, and they did, but just barely. I was
running the long version of the course, and the plan was to feel
like quitting by the time I hit College and Dwight, and then hold the
effort for another 1/4 mile downhill to Dwight and Telegraph, for 3
splits of .75, 1.0, and .25 miles. I was feeling it by the time I hit
Dwight, but the mile split was a dismal 6:58. Even accounting for the
uphill run, this is the slowest that I have taken this mile and was
pretty deflating. I managed the next 1/4 mile in a fast 1:28, though,
so I'm not sure what to make of the run overall. It's possible that
my mind wandered during the mile and I let the pace drop off a bit.
I'll have to try it again next week and see what happens.

A challenge

Two great runs this weekend, but neither were done by me. My erstwhile running buddy from Philly, Kevin Forde, won the Masters division at the Fifth Avenue Mile in NYC in an unthinkable time of 4:25. And of course, this morning in Berlin, Haile Gebrselassie finally broke the men's world record in the marathon in an even more unthinkable 2:04:26. I have never run with Geb.

Me? I had cake for breakfast this morning.

But I did also get in a couple of runs this weekend, both with Silas. Saturday morning we headed south into Oakland, then turned around, stopping at the Berkeley Bowl for tofu. 5.3 miles in 41:30. This evening, we headed to Marin Ave, and went a block further up than last time, to Oxford St. 6.8 miles in 57:30.

Today's run is the first (or second) day of my new challeng: run to the end of Marin Ave. This means advancing up the .75 mile upper section of the street, one block at a time, until we make it to the top. The rules are that I must make at least one attempt, with Silas, each week, and that I must advance at least one block, without walking, each week. Bonnie Lane doesn't count as a block for my purposes, since it doesn't cross Marin. The beginning of each run will be the same as today. So this is a 13 step process, and I have passed the first two steps. I'm not sure if I will actually be capable of making it to the top of this hill, which has something like a 16% grade and about 720 feet of climbing, but it will be good to have a project and a reason to get on the road every week, even if I will never run a 4:25 mile.

Temp

I didn't have much time to squeeze in a run between work and Silas's bedtime, so I decided that we'd do the short version of the tempo run I've been doing recently. It's a 4.3 mile course, with a mile of warmup, .75 miles uphill at tempo pace, a left turn with another mile uphill, then a cooldown on the way home.

The tempo segment was a bit trickier than I remembered it: dodging trashcans and cracked sidewalk and pausing twice for pedestrians. I felt like I was running pretty hard, but we hit .75 miles in 4:57, which was slower than I remembered doing it in the past. I decided to bag the tempo and take it easy for the rest of the loop. After about half a mile, I remembered that I haven't actually done this run with the stroller before, which explains the navigation problems and the slow pace. Ah well, I still have that pleasant, post-tempo feeling in my legs, so it's not all a loss. Time for the run was 32:58.

Oh, and there's this.

Nimitz trail

A confluence of events had me joining the Transports group run again tonight. First, the run was on the paved Nimitz Trail, meaning I could bring Silas. Second, I ignored my alarm this morning and didn't get an AM run in, which is always my first choice. Third, Silas slept in as well, and had a late nap, meaning he was ripe for an evening out. And finally, my experiment at work went poorly today, but in the way that had me coming home early rather than late.

So I came home and loaded Si and the stroller into the car and we headed up to Tilden Park. After a while, he recognized the drive and said "Moo moo". I had to explain to him that it was too late to go to Little Farm, and that we unfortunately weren't going to see any cows. He seemed skeptical about this.

There was a thin crowd at the run tonight, and we started off by ourselves at first. I had realized that the stroller tires had been quite flat for some time, and running with newly inflated tires I was effortlessly clicking off 1:45 quarters on the marked trail. After about 1.5 miles I caught up with Phil and we slowed to a more conversational pace for the rest of the run.

This Nimitz trail is rolling with only 2 steep climbs/descents, and is marked at 1/4 or 1/2 miles for the first 4 miles. It runs along a ridge in Tilden Park, and this evening at sunset was the most beautiful run I have done out West. We had clear views of the North and West Bay, with the sun setting in the west and the full moon rising in the east above Lake Anza. As it turned out, not only did we run through a cow pasture, but we passed two horseback riders as well.


We turned around a bit before 3.5 miles to salvage the last of the light on the return, and Silas had a short nap on the way back. I'll call it 6.75 miles in 56:14. We came home to a dinner of baked eggs with cream and spinach (somehow in celebration of National Pancake Day).

Still here

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, mainly becaue I didn't feel like writing. I've been running, though, and have gotten a few good runs under my belt. Notably a 14 miler 2 weekends ago; I started it as a bagel run with Silas for 6 miles, then dropped him at home and picked up the iPod to listen to the new Aesop Rock album ("Eight planets bullied number nine until he fell"). I stopped by the lab to take some Petri dishes out of the incubator and then headed for the hills, exploring a little more of the area just north of campus. I then followed my nose around town until I got home; 14.2 miles in 1:53.

I had a nice fartlek last Tuesday as well, running with Silas, running for 7.3 miles with about 9 pickups between mile and half marathon pace. My mileage isn't really high enough right now to justify speedwork, but it's fun to pick up the pace a bit and a fartlek is a great way to do that with a stroller.

No memorable runs over the weekend, and I ended up with only 20 in 3 days last week (31 in 4 days the week before). Today was a run with Silas after work while C was at yoga. 7.2 miles in 1:02; I paid a visit to my new nemesis, the Marin Ave hill. I've only worked on the hard part of the hill twice before, and once with a stroller, and I was feeling the challenge. We only made it one block up the steep part before I decided I'd had enough, then headed home. Someday Silas and I will take on the 3/4 mile hill, but for now we'll just have to dream... Si was zenlike for this run, and I would have stretched it out to a 10 miler if it weren't getting close to his dinner- and bedtimes.

The best news of the last 2 weeks, running-wise, is that the pain in my right Achilles has gone away after nagging me for 2 months. I credit this to a recipe of dutiful stretching, massaging my calves, and otherwise ignoring it.

Par

Monday night, 4.25 in 34 minutes.
Of course, the problem with the Mendoza line metaphor is that in baseball, you want to hit above the Mendoza line, and in running I want to be below it. Maybe golf is more apt, in which case I was right on par tonight (any faster and it would have been a sub-par run). Not that the speed really matters for these runs, but it's nice to feel a little spring in my step. Silas had a doctor's appointment this morning, which scrapped our run and led to my being at work late today. I ended up seeing him just as he was going to bed, and then headed out for a short run before eating. Nothing special - par, like I said. Came home and had a bowl of chili and some sweet potato pie. Yeah.

I was just going through my running log, which I keep in an Excel spreadsheet, and found that I missed commemorating Silas's 1000th mile. It was on July 31st, a 9 mile run with Deirdre. Here's my posting from that run.

Friday night, 4.4 in 37:44
Saturday morning with Silas, 7.3 in 1:02:32
Sunday afternoon with Silas, 7.6 in 1:07:05

For the latter half of my life, the 8 minute mile has been the Mendoza line of my training runs. If I run much faster than that, then I'm running pretty fast. If I run much slower, then I'm running pretty slow. For road running, these three runs all came in much slower than the Mendoza line. All three started with the same uphill stretch that pretty much set the tone for the run, and I didn't feel like pushing it after that.

Anyway, Silas and I were slow getting out the door on Friday, so I decided to bag the run and hope to get it in later. I was happy to make it out at all on Friday night, after Si went to bed. An easy loop around the Cal campus and back home. I mapped this in topo mode; extra credit if you can guess where the fault line is.

11 hours later, Silas and I hit the road again for a run through the Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland. I don't know it for a fact, but it looks like this neighborhood has the highest concentration of coffee shops, yoga studios, and used bookstores in the Western United States. It's no good for running in the late morning or afternoon because of all the foot traffic, but it was a nice stretch of clear sidewalk before turning west at 40th st into the real Oakland to head home.

This afternoon was another run in Berkeley while C was at a yoga class. The main lesson of the run was that if you choose a road called Scenic Ave, you should know what you're getting into. The secondary lesson is that, running with a stroller, a wicked downhill can slow you down as much as a wicked uphill. I saw some friends out in their yard with their little girl a couple blocks from home; I yelled hey, finished the run, and walked back to be social.

I'm probably not running tomorrow unless I can squeeze another in in the evening.

5 miles in :41

I barely went out in the heat during my week with family in Florida, and with my running shoes on the opposite coast, running wasn't even a temptation. I did happen to step on a scale for the first time in a few months, and let's just say that I learned what happens when I eat like I'm training for a marathon and run like I'm training for a 10K*. My twin vices had been balancing themselves pretty well for the last couple of years, but 9 months at 20+ miles a week isn't cutting it right now. I'm going to work at keeping my mileage over 30 miles a week, and maybe try eating like a normal person** for a while.

Anyhow, I'm back in Berkeley now, and I took Silas out for an easy 5 this morning to pick up bagels and some milk for C's tea. The red sun had made its way across the country to visit us on the West Coast. The air was cool, in the mid 60s at 7:30, and the air was hazy from some local wildfires. I had been hoping that the week off would be good for my right ankle that has been bothering me for over 2 months now, and indeed I was able to run without any twinges. Today at least.

*a slow 10K.

**This might actually be a terrible idea, but I'll try to use some common sense.

11 miles in 1:30

Great run tonight. I wasn't exactly feeling up for it, but I brought
along my iPod with a This American Life podcast to encourage myself to
stay out for 60 minutes. I wandered northward, across The Circle, and
ended up on Solano Ave, in the bougie part of town. Down Solano with
the sun in my eyes, to the Greenway, and back downtown via Ohlone Park.

I was dragging a little bit less by this time and when the podcast
ended, inspired from yesterday, I put on some Judas Priest. The uptempo
songs had a refreshing effect on my legs, and I picked up the pace and
decided not to turn back home. After Priest, I put on some Assuck in
honor of tomorrow's trip to Tampa and continued southward into Oakland.
It's been a while since I didn't want a run to end, and the feeling was
a good one.

Since it was getting late, and I know that it's not a good idea for me
to go on spontaneous 15 mile runs, I decided to turn home by 55th St.
My legs were starting to ask "are we there yet" as I approached home,
but with an act of will I pushed myself a few blocks past home to bring
the run up to 90 minutes. The topologically complex route is here.

Perhaps, as Reba suggested and Kurt Vonnegut did not warn me, living in
Northern California is making me soft. In any event, I am not bringing
my running shoes on my 5 day trip to Florida, where it is currently 190
degrees.

Bear Creek Trail

7.5 miles in 1:04

Since Silas is out of town, I decided to get in another trail run this
week. I barely made it to the Transports trail run last night;
actually, I didn't make it, but several others were late, including
the run leader, so I was able to get a late start with some company.
This week's run was on the Bear Creek trail at the Briones reservoir.
It's over the hills (or through the hills, since I took the Caldecott
Tunnel to get there) in Orinda, where our water comes from. Being stuck
in traffic was made more bearable by hearing "Hell Bent for Leather"
played on Fresh Air; thanks, Ian, for arranging that.

The course was singletrack out and back, mostly hugging the reservoir
but with wild fluctuations in elevation. It basically started with a
short downhill, a long uphill (where I took a spill - rolling to break
my fall and causing some concern for one of the early-birds who was on
her way back to the start), a long downhil, and a flat stretch past a
herd of goats to the turnaround. I spent most of the run with a new
guy who recently moved from back east; we chatted a bit when the hills
weren't too bad, but I dropped him on the way back as he had some GI
issues.

The sun was setting on the way back, making for a beautiful run as the
brown scrub on the sides of the trail took on new colors that I hadn't
seen before. This more than made up for the long hill that I was
struggling up, and I picked up the pace quite a bit for the last long
downhill. I met with a few of the runners in the parking lot and then
we headed down to Oakland for a post-run dinner.

pm tempo

5.5 miles tempo in :42

Another long day at work, but thanks to the wonders of automation I was
able to get out for a couple of hours at lunchtime to make up for this
morning's DNR. I biked home and set out on a slightly longer version of
the tempo
run that I did a couple of weeks ago. I tacked on about 6
minutes to the warm up by running down to Sacramento Ave at the
beginning, and a bit less onto the end by running down to California
Ave.

It was about 1:00 when I started, and the conditions were a bit
challenging. 70 degrees or so with 50% humidity (I know, cry me a
river). The tempo portion is all uphill, starting with about 3/4 miles
for the first leg, then a turn and 1 mile for the second leg. I'm
going to add a 1/4 mile downhill leg to this, but today wasn't the day.
The first leg went quickly in 4:42, but I slowed down considerably for
the second leg (6:50). This works out to 6:38 pace for the fast bit;
nothing special, but it was good to get a run in.

During my warm up, I noticed the "New Economy Laundry and Dry Cleaning."
I take this to mean that they accept Paypal, or maybe I can monitor my
spin cycle in real time via streaming video. What will they think of
next?

Oh, here's today's route.

am DNR

Well, I got home from work at 10:30 last night and so I decided to sleep in a bit this morning. Maybe I'll get home early enough for a run tonight.

Did I mention in yesterday's post that the hills were foggy? And I ran into it? In the hills?

Into the fog

I got one good run in over the weekend. Christine's folks were in town, and I stuck around and made breakfast on Saturday morning. While everyone else went to the farmers market later that morning, I waited a respectful length of time for the blueberry pancakes to digest, then started out, looking for 90 minutes on the road.

Since I was running without Silas, I decided to get part of those 90 minutes off the road, and I headed up toward the Strawberry Canyon trail. This is a hilly route on a dirt fire road above the Cal campus; I have hiked on it before, but never run. I thought I might just take the first leg of the trail, where one has the choice of heading up a very steep quarter-mile hill or turning out onto the residential streets. I had been planning to go with the latter, but changed my mind at the last minute and chased another runner up the hill. He was more up to the challenge than I (did I mention it was very steep) and I had to walk the last bit of hill, but I continued on the trail for another 10 minutes or so. I asked a couple of hikers for directions; they told me I could continue on and come out above the national lab, then I could take the road back into town. I considered this, but the at the thought of pounding back downhill on solid asphalt I decided I should double back and get as much time on the dirt as possible. I mostly retraced my steps coming home, taking the long route around the University and grabbing a few extra blocks at the end. I can't map this route, and I had a slight timing malfunction, but I'll call it 11.5 in 1:33.

I'm almost done with a busy day at work, but it's looking too late to get in a run tonight. C and S left for Tampa today, and I'll be joining them on Friday. I'll try to get in runs each of the next four mornings, but I think I'll leave my shoes at home for the trip.

8ish miles in 1:05

I have a long day at work today with a long break in the middle - my E
coli are growing without my help right now - so I went for a
mid-afternoon run after lunch. I gave myself about an hour to digest,
which wasn't quite long enough, and I was feeling pretty sluggish out
the door. Add to that the afternoon sun and the warm day, and I decided
to head down to the bay to seek out some ocean breeze.

Caesar Chavez Park always reminds me of a scene from the book A
Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. It is a place of youth and
invincibility, where one can throw a Frisbee 1000 yards. I was feeling
pretty old and vincible, rather than young and in-, but a loop around
the park put a spring in my step. I didn't see any Frisbee players, but
the kites were out in full force. Having cooled off, I headed back into
town to wrap it up.

Friday, 5.5 miles, 44 minutes
Saturday, 7.9 miles, 1:03
Tuesday, 5.5 miles, 42 minutes

I've decided against running a marathon this fall. I still have a vague
pain in my right ankle that won't go away, and I'll probably have to take
a few weeks off to really get it healed up. Plus, I just don't have
the time on the weekdays to get in the 40 miles or so that I need in
addition to the long runs. I am OK with this, and I may try to find a
10K goal race for something to work toward.

I attempted a run Sunday afternoon, but neither Silas or I were up for
it, and that was just too much malaise for me to handle. Turned around
before half a mile. Skipped Monday as well. Part of this is because I
finally borrowed the new Harry Potter book, and I didn't get a lot of
sleep this weekend. I also watched Without Limits this weekend. I
didn't really think the movie was all that, too Hallmarky and
sentimental, but I could watch that Munich 5000 any day of the week,
even in recreation, and I also was reminded to keep my pelvis level when
I run.

This morning, for a change of pace, I decided to run a fartlek. (sorry).
I should say "decided", because most of my runs these days have just
involved following my feet out the door. This morning that involved
turning right and following the same route down Milvia that we took on
Friday. I felt my pace accelerating, and decided to mix it up a bit. I
did about 7 accelerations over the 5.5 miles, varying between mile and
marathon effort. Silas just chilled out and took it all in this
morning.

I didn't run much last week, just a couple of 6-ish mile runs over the weekend as I was pretty busy with work during the week. Silas has been training a lot harder than me, of late, on his own legs - hill repeats Saturday on the way home from the farmer's market, distance on Sunday when we went to Muir Woods, and intervals Monday night before back (laps through the laundry room, bathroom, and bedroom. 12x, I think).

Chagrined, and having finally submitted a proposal on Tuesday, I went out for a short tempo run by myself after work. The loop I did has the makings of a good weekly standard if I'm training for anything less than a marathon, but it needs to be stretched out a little bit, especially at the beginning since I think I need a longer warmup. I get ahead of myself.

Started out easy, running south on MLK to Alcatraz, then turning uphill. I wanted to get through the major intersections before I picked up the pace, so I crossed Shattuck and then turned it on. The tempo portion of the run is all uphill, with the steeper part in the first 3/4 miles. I had to stop the watch at Telegraph to wait for the light, but then made it up to College (.73 miles, 4:34) and turned north. Another stop for the light at Ashby, and this segment ended at Dwight (1.0 miles, 6:33). The total tempo portion was 1.73 in 11:07, or 6:26 pace. I actually ran the beginning part faster, and I was definitely feeling fatigue by the time I hit Ashby. The start-and-stop didn't help that much, but it's hard to find an uninterrupted stretch of road or path for tempo runs around here. The run mapped to 4.25 miles in 31:09 and was followed up with kale burritos for dinner.

6.5-ish in :52
Si and I ran a version of Tuesday's run, but turned off of Marin before the big hill and headed straight home. I'm pretty busy and plan to keep running next week, but probably won't be blogging much. "Without Limits" is next on the Netflix queue.

I'm considering running Philly, but it depends on Thanksgiving plans and whether I actually commit to marathon training. CIM is another option, of course. Maybe if there were a G42K...

Club West Philly - West, Part 2

9 miles/1:13

DAB is in town for the week and stayed with us last night. I promised
her this morning we could go on a run that includes Marin Ave, a hill
that starts gradually and works its way to over a 15% grade at the apex.
It's actually a novelty, like a giant foam cowboy hat: attracts your
attention, but completely impractical for actual running.

Once Si got some raisins in him, I packed him up and we headed out to
the Greenway to get started. We got off to a shuffling start, still
feeling the effects of Sunday's running (me more than DAB, I think), but
got down to a pleasant pace soon enough. Silas enjoyed the chatter and
chilled in his stroller for the whole journey, occasionally pointing out
a bus or a BART train.

We missed Marin, which wasn't marked, but looped back at the next block
and started heading up, joking that I felt like Rocky - maybe one day
I'll make it to the top of the hill. By that time, Si will be old
enough to get out of his stroller and jump around with his arms in the
air at the top. I have always quit once I hit The Circle, which is
where the real hill begins, but we decided to head up one more block to
Shattuck. Even that short block was intense, and I was nearly laid our
horizontally pushing the jogger up that bit. A map of the Marin Ave bit
with elevation is here; the end of the road is another 3/4 miles further
and 700 feet up.

Took Shattuck into town, ran through campus a bit, and then back south
on College Ave and toward home on Russell. I didn't map the run, but
it's probably just shy of 9 miles. I give myself a little extra credit
for the hills. DAB kept going for "a couple" more miles, while I ate
breakfast, showered, and changed 2 diapers.

San Francisco Half LBRR

First, for the record, Silas and I ran about 5.5 in :46 on Friday evening. A slightly longer version of this loop, and I threw in a couple of surges at interval pace on the way back.

I woke up at 4:00 this morning to pick up a couple of folks and drive to San Francisco for to run the San Francisco Marathon (First Half). My training has been inconsistent, but I was signed up for the Wave 1 start (sub-1:29), so that was my goal for the race. I parked easily and jogged around a bit after checking my clothes, then found DAB at the start. The SF marathon has 2 companion half marathons, covering the first and second halves of the course and starting a few hours apart. We started with the marathoners at 5:30 on a cool and foggy San Francisco morning on the Embarcadero. Dean Karnazes said a few words (something like "Who's going to run under 3 hours?" - DAB cheered) and we started. DAB, who is in much better shape than me, still didn't have a race plan and said that she'd just run with me and keep an eye on the women at the front to decide if she wanted to make a move.

The first few miles were along the waterfront, and mile 1 felt slow but split at 6:29. Foolishly, I took this to be a good omen. I dropped DAB accidentally but decisively (or she dropped herself) on the first hill of the race, around mile 3, and took the downhill pretty hard, but my third split still read 7:02. I picked it up a bit as we ran along the north side of the city towards the Golden Gate Bridge, but not a lot. We began to see signs posted along the course, Ron Horn style but classier, with inspirational quotes from the likes of Mohammed Ali and with trivia about San Francisco (did you know that the Golden Gate Bridge goes uphill in both directions? This is done via a system of hydraulic pumps that were devised for the 1906 World's Fair. Unfortunately, the great earthquake that year forced the fair to be moved to Milan, and the world never learned about this amazing feat of engineering. Except for the poor schmucks running it today).

Although we were technically running over the Golden Gate at dawn, the fog was so thick that there was no indication that a sun existed. In fact, I just realized that I was looking west for the sun, when I suppose it was probably somewhere to the east of us.

After the turnaround at the other side of the bridge, I looked over my shoulder and saw DAB about 50 meters behind. She had apparently decided against making a move. This was around mile 7, and my legs were feeling it - the big hill leading up to the bridge, plus the dual uphill nature of the bridge itself, were taking their toll. I decided to slow imperceptibly to allow her to catch up so I'd have someone to hang on to. Unfortunately, I continued to slow imperceptibly after she caught me, and before long I was, imperceptibly, on my own again. By that time, the marathon 3 hour pace group had blown past me as well, and they were out of sight in the fog. I passed the 10 mile mark in the Presidio at about 1:13 into the race and did some quick math - if I could manage the last 5k in 21 minutes, I could still break 1:30. I have no idea why I believed this to be true.

At this point, we finally got some downhills to run, but with all the fog and mist the road was too slick to really get much of a boost from gravity. We continued through the Presidio, and across to Golden Gate Park. At the 12 mile mark, I realized that I could still look respectable at the finish, and picked up my pace a bit for the last 1.1 miles. I crossed the finish line at 1:35:16 and was quite glad to be done. A 2 mile cool down with DAB (who came in 5th) and stick a fork in me.

This was my 5th, and slowest, half marathon. My best was in Philly last November, when I ran 1:24:40. First, the excuses. This was a legitimately hard course! The winner, who ran a 16:04 5k earlier this year, only managed 1:18 for this race. I came in 79th place, among over 2000 men, which I consider a pretty decent finish. Realistically, though, I don't think I passed anyone for good after mile 3, and I was passed by plenty of folks over those last few miles. In fact, looking at the 7.4 mile splits, almost half the people who finished ahead of me passed me in those last 5.7 miles. My training just wasn't up to snuff, as I knew going in. June was a solid month, with 153 miles, 5 hill workouts, and 3 long runs, but instead of building on that in July I pretty much imploded. Only 1 week with 30 miles, and 1 tempo run. I had a sore ankle, I didn't feel like getting up in the morning, and I didn't try to get long runs on the weekends. I'm going to have to consider whether I'll run a marathon this fall and decide whether I can be serious about getting the mileage that I need. I'll have to give that a few days (or weeks) of thought before I make up a plan.

On the plus side, while I was writing this the Cardinals had a 5 run inning to beat the Brewers, so my Cubbies are now 1/2 game out of first place in the rockin NL Central. I think this will be the year!

Sunday, 6.1 miles in :50
Wednesday, 3.5 miles in :29

Christine was taking an herbs class on Sunday, so Silas and I headed out around lunch time to meet her on her break. We hung out in the garden at the Berkeley Eco House for about 30 minutes, then continued on our way. One of us slept for the rest of the run.

I'm not even trying to get in a lot of miles this week, since I have a race on Sunday, but I've just been having a lot of trouble getting out of bed. Any run either needs to end before Silas gets up, which means leaving by 6, or start about 30 minutes after he gets up, which means these days leaving as late as 7:30. I slept through my alarm this morning, but instead of bagging the run again I just decided to take Si out for a short spin on the Loop That Shall Remain Nameless. A pleasant run, in perfect marathon weather (overcast with a slight chill). For some reason, Berkeley didn't smell very good this morning. Maybe because it was garbage day on all the streets we hit. I've noticed that my right ankle feels a bit sore for a mile or so at the beginning of all my runs recently, but the pain dissipates after that.

Club West Philly - West

Unfortunately I only have 2 runs to report. I've been working on fellowship applications and Silas has been sleeping in, so there's not a lot of motivation to get up early and run.

I went out with Silas Wednesday evening - before dinner, this time - for a modified Hopkins loop. I figured out the loop was shorter than I remembered and tacked a little bit on in the middle and at the end. 6.6 miles in 50:25. I remember feeling like I was really dragging and probably running pretty slowly, but gmaps doesn't lie, and the run came in under 7:40 pace, which I consider a good clip for an easy run. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not.


Seebo came to California for a family vacation, so we met up for dinner (burritos and gelato) last night and a run this morning. He's taking a break from serious training, and apparently I am too, so we decided to run for an hour or so down to Oakland. Si and I met him near his hotel, and I tried to play tour guide by running past such sites as People's Park and the old Black Panthers headquarters. I missed most of the spots I was looking for, though, so I guess I'll have to keep my day job. It was nice to shoot the shit and catch up a bit, though. My 7.8 miles went down in about 1:08, just like the slow days of Club West Philly (sans Deirdre, of course). Later, Steve brought the kids over for breakfast, and Christine and I made a chard tart and pancakes. Seebo's parenting style seems pretty similar to mine; in spite of this, his kids seem pretty well adjusted, so that's a good sign.

I slept in Friday morning, but Friday night I went with the philosophy
that something is better than nothing. So, after dinner I headed out
with a belly full of Indian food to get in a 30 minute run. Silas,
wisely, stayed home. We shall not speak of this again.

Things were looking better on Saturday. I headed out with the boy for a
90 minute run. We started with an out and back on the Greenway,
stopping to pick up a mini bagel for Silas, and then headed into
Berkeley to revisit the Loop that Shall Not Be Named. I noticed a sign
on a barbershop on Alcatraz Ave - "Wimpy's Place: Where Class Isn't Just
a Word". I'll have to check it out if I ever cut my hair again. A bit
under 11 miles in 1:27.

Sunday morning, Silas and I did an out and back to Oakland, sticking
mainly on Shattuck/Telegraph. I took a little detour on the way back to
stretch it out a bit, but also picked up the pace. Out in 29:44, back
in 29:45, for 7.4 miles.

Berkeley smelled good this morning. I'm not sure if it was coming out from under the (unfulfilled) threat of rain the last couple days, or maybe just because I was running on the sidewalk and was that much closer to the flowers, but it stuck with me. Si has been sleeping in of late (he's still asleep as I write this, after stretching, eating breakfast, and making coffee) so I got up early and headed out on my own. I found myself heading toward the dirt track at MLK middle school. There's a nice synthetic track at Berkeley High, closer to home, but it doesn't open until 7. Checking the log now, I haven't run on a track since March 9th. Given that, and the proximity to a half marathon, I decided that a tempo run was in the cards. I'd been looking for an opportunity to do this so that I could start developing a race plan instead of pulling one out of thin air.

The track had plenty of people walking, jogging, and stretching, including one woman running clockwise. There were no lanes, of course, and parts of the track were muddy from the sprinklers running overnight, but I was able to beat a pretty clear path. The plan was 3 miles at 6:30 pace, which is just about my half marathon PR pace. Went down like this:
6:16
6:31
6:32
Not half bad, especially considering the fast first mile and that I couldn't hug the rail. I felt pretty beat by the end and walked half a lap before heading home. Ideally I will follow this up with a 5 mile tempo next week, maybe at 6:35 pace or so, to try to triangulate a race pace.

total, about 7 miles in 48:55.

For Shame

OK, so I slept in again this morning, and was shamed when I read a posting in a friend's blog. She works for the State Department and is currently posted in Iraq; her most recent post describes squeezing in her daily workouts around her 13 hour workdays: running on a treadmill in a trailer in the Green Zone at 5:30 in the morning, or swimming in a pool in the Palace complex. I'm not allowed to link to her blog, but here's a quote:

I had some wonderful runs while on my trip outdoors at the military bases. The most memorable one was a 5 miler along the flight line (i.e. runways) at Al Asad airbase. It is in the western desert and one of the JAG office folks took me on his regular route at 8pm and so we saw the sunset with all sorts of planes and helos landing and taking off against a barren empty sky. Pretty cool on the scale of memorable runs and it stands out even more because I haven’t been able to run outside here. At the other base we visited I ran on the paved streets alongside a multitude of others also doing their PE but in uniform. So I stuck out like a sore thumb! The mornings are really nice - only about 90 degrees Farenheit right now as the sun comes up and no humidity so it feels wonderful in comparison to the daytime highs of near 120.

So maybe I'll squeeze in a run tonight....

Treading Water

4 miles, 31 minutes.

It's pretty frustrating when my training gets interrupted this close to a race. I had been hoping for a fast half marathon this month in SF, maybe not matching my 1:24:40 in Philly last November, but maybe 3 minutes faster than my Caesar Rodney time. It's pretty clear to me that I won't be able to put in my best performance, which makes it just that much harder to get out for a run in the morning. Hence, I skipped yesterday, and just got in a short run with Silas after work today. Strangely enough, even this run was shrouded in malaise. My legs were barely moving, I felt short of breath, and when I turned around I briefly considered walking home. I kept at it, though, and I'll just see if tomorrow is another day.

I watched NOVA tonight instead of the All Star game, which I've always found to be the most boring game of the season. They had a piece that relates to a topic from a Thursday night run last summer. The swarming behavior of insects, or flocking behavior of birds, or, umm, swimming behavior of schools of fish is described by emergence theory, or the emergence of complexity from individual actions. There are a few simple rules that govern this behavior in animals, like stay close to your neighbor, move when he moves, and avoid predators, but the result looks like these animals have a hive mind. They also interviewed some scientists who are applying this theory to neuronal organization - hypothesizing that thought and even consciousness can arise from complex networks of neurons - and self organization of molecules as a possible origin theory. Crazy scientists!

Hola amigos!
I know it's been a while since I last rapped at ya, but don't say I didn't warn ya. After a planned layoff during a long weekend in San Diego, my heel was still bothering me. Add to that that Silas was sick with hand, foot, and mouth syndrome, and so nobody was sleeping well at night, much less ready to run in the morning. By Saturday, though, he was feeling better and I was getting stir crazy, so I decided to take us out for a run in the morning. Nothing special besides a stop at the bagel shop, about 6 miles untimed. Plenty of stretching and ice, and my heel didn't really feel any the worse for it.

Inertia threatened to take hold again this morning, but I got an email from back east that got me in the spirit. Around lunchtime, we went on a meandering run through Oakland and Berkeley that went something like this. We kept to the sidewalks for much of the route, which were particularly crowded in Rockridge, which meant lots of starting and stopping, so it was hard to get a good rhythm going. We even stopped to help an old lady cross the street. Silas dozed for about 30 minutes of this run. Total was about 8 miles in 1:04.

Later this afternoon, we went for a 2 hour hike in the hills with Christine - Silas on my back - and he napped again. Needless to say, my legs are feeling it, but I'll try to get back out again tomorrow.

Sequoia-Bayview Trail

Yesterday after work I headed up to Redwood Regional Park for the weekly
Transports trail run. The course was an out-and-back on the
Sequoia-Bayview trail, supposedly an "easy, baby trail" by East Bay
standards. I was already skeptical, as my ears had popped on the drive
there, but this part of the trail was, mostly, pretty easy. There was
one long, steep hill that was made a little more tricky as there were
goats grazing to thin the underbrush, penned in by an electric fence
that encroached on the trail. Several other short and steep hills made
this far from a walk in the park, but it was still much easier than our
run at Sibley two weeks ago. I was a bit disappointed to find that the
"Bayview" part of the trail was only about 25 meters, but the "Sequoias"
were as advertised. There was a steep dropoff to the side of the trail,
and as you look down you realize that the trees go down as far as they
go up - it was like running on Endor.

I ran most of the out leg solo, but had some company for the back leg.
Call it 7.2 miles in 57:47.

Of note, before the run I had a twinge in my heel (okay, where my
Achille's tendon connects to my heel). It didn't hurt when I ran, which
to me is the difference between pain and an injury. It was super stiff
when I woke up this morning, though, which has me a bit concerned. I'm
taking a long weekend in San Diego, so I think I'll leave my running
shoes behind and see what develops.

Cursus interruptus

Monday evening, 3.5 miles in 29:33
Some run is better than no run. I've been trying to adopt this as my
motto, and after sleeping in and staying late at work yesterday I
decided to put it to the test. It's hard to do a <4 mile run for a
couple of reasons. The first is that I can't get psyched to get out for
such a short distance; the second is, once I'm out there, it's hard to
cut it short. I tack on a mile, or 2 miles, and end up late for work,
or with a crabby baby, etc. So, I took Silas out knowing that he needed
to be in the bath in about 45 minutes for an uphill-downhill loop in
Berkeley, over to UC. Suffice to say, I resisted my impulse to swing
down to Oakland for a little extra and bath and bedtime went off without
a hitch.

Tuesday morning hills, 4.4 miles in 32:17
12 hours later, we hit the road to Ohlone Park for the weekly hill
repeats. The hills went down in 1:20, 1:15, 1:16, 1:17, 1:18, and the
workout was over by request from Silas. I have no complaints about the
pace, but I can't really compare this week's half workout to last week's
full workout. I really felt like I was pushing it on 2 and 3, so I'm
not sure if I could have held at 1:18 or if I would continue my upward
climb, so to speak. Stay tuned for next week.

Oakland foray

Two runs this weekend. I headed out with Silas on Saturday morning
set on doing a 15 miler in 2 loops. We dropped down to San Pablo Ave,
a main thoroughfare that is pretty empty on weekend mornings. Heading
toward North Berkeley, we turned on Marin Ave, a road that starts off
with a gradual incline near the Bay and gradually gets steeper and
steeper as you move toward the hills. About 2 miles up, past "The
Circle", it really takes off, but I didn't feel like testing my
strength. As we headed back home to drop Si off near the middle of the
run, I began entertaining thoughts of turning this into a 20 miler.
"I'm feeling good - I know that I'm registered for a half marathon next
month, but maybe I could switch to the marathon!" I counted off the
weeks in my mind, figured that I could probably fit in three 20 milers
by the end of July, or maybe just 2.

I was delayed for about 15 minutes at home while dropping off Si before
I headed south for the second part of the run. The running gods here
saw an opportunity to punish me for my impudence, and my legs were
dragging from the break. I came to my senses and realized that I owe
the marathon more respect than a 6 week training period. I decided for
the second part of this run, I would head down into Oakland and try to
find Lake Merritt; I had a vague idea that I could head south until I
found MacArthur or Grand Ave, then follow it to the lake and maybe run
around it. I wandered around a little bit through an atmosphere that
smelled distinctively of fried food, found a map on a bus shelter, and
finally found my way to the lake, which sits next to downtown Oakland.
The lake was further than I thought, so I looped around just when I hit
it and headed home. Total distance for the run was 16.2 miles in 2:11.

Sunday was a nondescript 6+ miles in about 50 minutes, mostly over the
first part of Saturday's run. I only managed about 35 miles in 4 days
this week, compared to 50 in each of the previous two weeks, but I feel
pretty good about the 16 miler. I'd like to have a few more 50+ mile
weeks over the next month, and I should be in pretty good shape for the
SF half marathon in July.

Finally, I need to find out where Alan Webb and Tyson Gay get their rocket
fuel.

Sloth

No run yesterday, but Silas went to his swim lesson, and I biked to
work, so I guess we can enter a father-son triathlon now. If the swim
leg is a 1 meter assisted splash. He had a great time, though, and
maybe this will dampen his habit of doing laps in the dog's water bowl.

This morning I climbed out of bed like I had 3 toes. Si and I read 3
books and split a banana, then decided we may as well go for a run. We
took an easy run that was a slight variation of the Milvia-Gilman loop,
but ran Grant St instead of Milvia, through the MLK Middle School
campus. We saw the student garden (The Edible Classroom) and took half
a spin on the dirt track before hitting Hopkins.

The run was otherwise uneventful, but I did have to swerve to avoid
hitting a snail in Ohlone Park. I also found that a couple of my
frequently run blocks are in Google Street view:Delaware
St by the BART station, and the area around Ohlone Park.

About 5 miles in about 40 minutes.

Hills surprise

No run yesterday, and I had other commitments this morning, but I was able to get out with Silas after work today. I was planning on an easy 7 miles or so and was feeling pretty sluggish as I got on the road. I was surprised, then, to find that I hit University Ave at about a 7:30 pace, so I decided to do some spontaneous hill repeats in Ohlone Park. This is a repeat of a workout that I did two weeks ago, but this time I was doing it with a stroller. I didn't have any expectations for my times today, due to the handicap, but I was pleased to see the first rep go down in 1:21. The next 8 ran from 1:22 down to 1:18, and I nailed the last one in 1:16. This compares very well to the last iteration of the workout, and I'll consider it an improvement. We took a short play break in the park before jogging it home; all told, 6.6 miles in 49:03.

Tomorrow will be a cross-training day for Silas as he starts his swim lessons at the Y, but I may take him out for a double in the afternoon.

Ian, we first had the broiled grapefruit at the White Dog, but there's a recipe in the Joy of Cooking. It's an easy way to class up second breakfast. Just slice a ruby red grapefruit in half, dust each half with sugar, star anise, and ginger, and broil it for about 5 minutes until the sugar caramelizes; garnish with berries. It would probably also be good with cardamom.

How's your father?

I awoke yesterday at 5:15 am to a kick in the face from Silas, who was
deciding whether it was time to wake up or not. Happy Father's Day. He
decided the time hadn't yet come, though, so we got another hour of
sleep. After a small first breakfast, we headed out for an easy loop: down to the Bay, and back via North Berkeley. I have to give Silas props for sticking out our 13 miler on Saturday, but on Sunday he was pretty fidgety. We made lots of stops to pick up toys, exchange water for
snacks, etc, and we had to walk a few blocks to check out the gardens in
Northbrae. Watching a honeybee pollinate flowers for a few minutes
provided a centering experience for a few minutes, and we were able to
continue home without incident. Second breakfastby Christine, including
broiled grapefruit, made my day.

Gmap says 8.1 miles, in 1:07:20. No run today, yet.

Donut Run

The assignment from Coach C this morning was, basically, that I could run any distance at any pace, as long as I came home with some donuts. With that mission, Silas and I set out for Dream Fluff Donuts, the long way.

After a run of warm and sunny days, this morning was the more typical 50s and overcast. We started off with an easy out-and-back on the Greenway, out to the far side of El Cerrito. We took a short break at the softball field in Ohlone Park to say hey to my friend Dan and his son Nikki, who were playing baseball with the dog. We then took a meandering route up the hill and toward Ashby, alternating steep uphills on the eastbound blocks with gradual downhills on the southbound blocks. We hit Russell, a block before Ashby, and I wander to get in a little more distance before stopping for donuts. Continuing up the hill, it gradually gets steeper and steeper; just as I figured the hill was too steep for decent folk, we hit Claremont, so we turned around and headed down to College and Ashby for Dream Fluff. I bought my standard apple fritter and a couple of donuts and we headed the rest of the way back home. The total distance was13.1 miles, in an easy 1:48:02.

Of course, I left the donuts at the store, and we had to drive back to pick them up.

Bagel redux

I took Si on a repeat of last Saturday's run, complete with bagel stop. I
was still stiff from Wednesday's run in the hills, and was going on 5.5
hours of sleep after staying up to watch Gandhi last night (taking baby
steps into the 21st century, we joined Netflicks this week... Soon to be
spending some time on the couch watching The Prisoner). Nevertheless,
we went at a comfortable sub-8 minute pace, and got to see some buses
on the way. No hummingbirds for a while, though.

I am starting to recognize some familiar faces on the greenway, which is
nice. I need to develop some new routes, though, because Christine has
assigned me another errand run to go on. This could develop into a bad
habit...

8.1 miles in 62:43.

Skyline Trail

One of the local running stores organizes a weekly trail run that moves
around from week to week. I got out yesterday evening to join the group
at Sibley Park to run the Skyline Ridge Trail to the steam trains at
Tilden Park. The trail was out and back, singletrack, and one of the
hilliest runs that I've ever done. I'll admit: there was some walking,
but it was brisk.

Sibley Park is about 7 miles from home, and the drive up there is scenic
in itself. Much of the drive is on Grizzly Peak Blvd, and there is a
striking contrast between the views on the right of the East Bay cities,
Sanf Francisco, and the Bay, hundreds of feet below, and the views to
the left of undeveloped hill country. This satellite view gives some
idea of what's going on.

I forgot to bring a waiver, but I told the run leader that I understand
that running is foolish and dangerous, which was good enough for him.
We set off in a group of about 15 or so, but the hills sorted us into
smaller packs pretty quickly. There was a long, winding downhill at the
start, followed by lots of up and down. I spent most of the run with a
British couple living in Oakland and we made small talk for much of the
distance. Saw a couple of cows on the path as well.

The approximate route is mapped here, but without the twists and turns.
The actual distance was 8 miles in 70-75 minutes.

I still had gnats in my teeth this morning and didn't feel up for 2 runs
in 12 hours, so today is a DNR.

Cat's Cradle

OK, I've never actually read that book, but it certainly describes todays
run much better than Slaughterhouse 5. I decided to take Silas on an easy
hill workout just by running up and down the grid bounded by Oregon on
the South, Dwight on the North, Telegraph at the top, and Shattuck at the
bottom. As urban runs go, it might see like a pretty mundane route, all
within 1 mile of home, but it was actually interesting to see gradual
changes as I worked my way downtown, 1 block at a time. Also got to
watch Telegraph transform itself from an Oakland thoroughfare to a
countercultural Main Street. I think this would be interesting to try
on a southward grid toward Oakland sometime, and also to stretch out to
a 10 miler or so. This morning was 6.9 miles in 55:34.

Yesterday, Silas and I ran on the Greenway; 6 miles in 46:30, plus a
stop at Berkeley Bagels on Gilman to carry breakfast home.

Two runs this weekend. Saturday morning Silas and I hit the Ohlone Greenway for an out-and-back to El Cerrito. No much to report from the run, except that out was in 32:03.56 and back was in 32:03.96. I blame the gradual uphill on the way back for the extra .4 seconds. Gmapped it as 8.1 miles in 1:04:07.

We headed out again this morning without an aim, but ended up heading north on Milvia (a street that is forver branded as Mulva in my mind) until it ended at Hopkins. We were close to the hills, but I took the easy way out and head down Hopkins, then to Gilman, and home via the Greenway. We took a detour past the BART station so Silas could check out the buses. As usual, the streets were pretty quiet in the morning. We got to see an area of North Berkeley that was new to us, and quite pretty with lots of old, overhanging trees. The plants out here are still very strange to me, and I am frequently struck by something that I've never seen before, like a huge Eucalyptus grove or strange trees covered with white flowers on the top and green leaves showing on the bottom. I'm no gardener, but folks out here seem quite inspired.

This morning was 5.9 miles in 48:23, giving me 50 miles for the week. This was my first 50 mile week since last November, a week that began with an unplanned 13 miler with a sleeping baby and culminated in a 10k PR.

Expedition

I met one of my coworkers this morning at Grove Park and we set out on
an expedition to find the elusive Southwest Passage, a land route across
I-80 to get to the Bay Trail. We worked our way down Ashby, running
through tall grasses and over rugged sidewalks, and received a momentary
setback when a person sleeping under a bridge in a wheelchair blocked
our path. We resolutely continued on, running in the street, but when
we reached I-80 we found that there was no way across, so we gave up.

Jacob headed home, and I turned south into Emeryville. Emeryville is an
enclave west of Oakland that, if covered, would rival the Mall of
America for Pure Shopping Enjoyment. There's no roller coaster, though,
and no underground tunnels either. It is also the home of Pixar. About
8000 people live there, all in new, brightly colored apartments and
condos, along fake Main Streets. It wasn't a bad place to run, since traffic
was light at 7 am, but it suffers from disappearing sidewalk syndrome.
On the way home, I passed through a warehouse district between E'ville
and B-town that included a State Farm office for hipsters and some other
interesting establishments (the Co-op Kitchen?).

I didn't map the run, but I'll call it 6.5 miles in 51:53.

Two runs to report, both solo.

I got home late again last night to a nearly empty fridge and decided to kill two birds with one stone. I ran an out of the way route to Whole Foods, picked up something to go with the cabbage back at home, and ran an out of the way route home. 3.6 miles in 29:xx;a short run to fill the gap between two tougher workouts and get me into bed so I could run in the morning.

10 hours later I woke up and jogged over to Ohlone Park for some hill repeats. There's a straight, uninterrupted stretch of sidewalk that goes about 345 meters at a 3% grade. The plan was 10x hills hard, with an easy recovery downhill, and see how long it takes. The first rep went in 1:19, but I quickly lost focus and had slowed to 1:24 by the fourth rep. Here I chastised myself and got my head back in the game; the remaining reps came in mostly at 1:19 or 1:20, with the last two in 1:17 and 1:15. I jogged the mile home easy, for a total of 6.5 miles in 51:19.

I'm still feeling it a bit in my quads, so I guess it was a good workout. I haven't done a lot of hill repeats, in the past, preferring to run on the track, but I think that out here strength training will serve me better than speedwork; particularly since I'm doing most of my runs these days with Silas and the stroller, which isn't really compatible with the track. The SF Half Marathon is 7 weeks out, and it's looking like this will be my first 40+ mile week since the beginning of April. Here's hoping for a good 7 weeks. I'm looking forward to C and S getting back home tomorrow night and hitting the road with Si this weekend.

I registered for the first half of the San Francisco Marathon* today, which gave me the motivation to go for a long run after work. I've been putting this one off for a few days, and looking through my log I actually haven't run long since a 15.5 miler on April 1st. If it's not clear from the route, that only became a long run because Silas fell asleep around mile 6 and so I kept doing loops near the house to let him finish his nap.

Anyway, today was another solo run. The purpose was to run 100 minutes, and the goal was to see the sun set behind the Golden Gate Bridge. With that in mind, I headed west toward the bay and toward Cesar Chavez Park, near the Berkeley Marina. I had never been there, but it is a piece of land at the end of an isthmus (can't remember what that's called) with lots of trails and a ~1.5 mile loop that has quarter mile marks. When I got there, it became clear that the sun doesn't actually set behind the Golden Gate Bridge, but rather behind Marin County to the north; this doesn't make any sense to me - shouldn't the sun keep south of the Tropic of Capricorn where it belongs? In any event, I ran around the with some stiff tailwinds and wicked headwinds for a while. Notable features of the park included great views, even without the sunset; paved and dirt paths; and wild fennel growing on the north side that smelled awesome. The other feature was that it was a pretty boring place to try to run for 45 minutes, so I turned home early and picked up the slack by running around my neighborhood a bit before returning home. I clocked in at 1:40:02, and I'll call it 13 miles based on a few wind-assisted and wind-handicapped splits that I timed in the park.

In a bizarre follow up to Seebo's post earlier this week, I swear I saw two snails mating this morning. Didn't get a picture, though, but it wasn't nearly as hot as the leopard slugs. Did I just type that?


*if that's not clear, it's a half marathon that covers the first half of the course.