Six miles

This week was one of our recovery runs—a mere six miles! We ran a different route this time, up the Great Highway past the Cliff House (whew—quite a steep hill compared to the smaller inclines we're used to), up the trails past the ruins of the Sutro Baths, through Sutro Heights Park, and then on down the Great Highway to finish. We had some great ocean views through the trees along the trails, but it was a bit confusing to try to find the right direction, especially since our pace group leader didn't show and no one in our group attended the pre-run meeting to learn the route. But all in all, it was a good run.

I've been slacking off a bit on my midweek runs. I've been walking to a consulting job downtown, which takes about 50 minutes, and telling myself that's enough. But lately the long runs have been getting harder, and I decided I need to do some actual running during the week. So this morning, it was back to the Panhandle for 45 minutes of running and walking. I was surprised by how good it felt. Anything less than an hour seems quick and easy these days. I'm hoping it will make the upcoming 14 mile run go by a little easier.

Twelve miles

I was out of town this weekend and couldn't make it to the group run on Sunday. So I did my weekly long run on my own today. We were supposed to do twelve miles. I studied my map and decided that if I ran from my place to the Panhandle, all the way through Golden Gate Park to the ocean and back, it would be somewhere around eleven or twelve miles. Close enough.

I headed out at around 10:30 this morning, thinking it was a much more civilized hour to be running than the usual 8 am. Somehow, although we've done as much as ten miles through the park on our various runs, the thought of running all the way from one end of the park to the other and back seemed like quite an undertaking. But I made it to the ocean by 11:50 am, ten minutes ahead of schedule. No, I don't think I was running extra fast today—I think it wasn't really quite as far as I'd thought. In fact, by the time I got back to the east end of the Panhandle, it was only 1:10, so I decided to backtrack a few blocks to get in another twenty minutes.

For once, I got home feeling fine and didn't need an afternoon nap. Looks like the sleepiness is only because I generally do my long Sunday runs on four to five hours of sleep, not because the running wears me out!

Five miles

This week was a recovery week, meaning we ran only five miles. Only five miles! From now on, we will increase our mileage every other week, and in between will do shorter recovery runs. Our route took us through Golden Gate Park by the bison paddock, past the duck pond, around Stowe Lake, and along some horse trails. Very scenic.

The marathon we will be running is the Honolulu Marathon, on December 9. Visit their website for a virtual tour of the race course! Over 25,000 people from all over the world ran in the 2000 Honolulu Marathon. The current men's course record of 2:11:43 is held by Ibrahim Hussein of Kenya, and the women's record of 2:28:33 is held by Lyubov Morgunova of Russia. No, I don't plan on setting any new records. I'll probably be just about hitting mile eight when the winner crosses the finish line....