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.