Training Log Archive: Ari-o

So Seattle. It has bus lanes. It has bike lanes. It has buses that leave downtown and take you to nearby trailheads. That's not bad!

Also not bad was how I felt waking up, having eaten Tums (candy!) and some ibuprofen (less candy). Still felt a little chest tightness, but probably 85% of the way to feeling fine. So all systems were go. We got on the bus, rode out to the trailhead, and started up the trail. In the 60s, reasonably dry, sunny.

I definitely wasn't 100%, so we didn't run the trail up, kept it in L1 the whole time, which was fine going up Mount Si. Fast-hiking most of the trail, and then a real scramble up to the top. Felt fine, but certainly need another day to get to 100%. It was buggy at the top and the views were a bit hazy, so we went down, and then up the other Peak, Teneriffe. That was a nice hike, first on a bit of an old logging road, then up a trail, with nice views at the top. Some food and water, and then down.

Also, vert! Next few weeks will be flat, but this will put me up to over 46km. Going for 100!

Running down, mostly, but tired legs so not too fast (only one sub-10 mile). Stopped at a stream to fill water bottles with my new magic filter (Sawyer Squeeze, all the thru-hikers are using it as I learned a month ago). Then ran down to the bus, which was 20 minutes late, and the last of the water wasn't enough, and the bus didn't have a/c; they could use a bit more work on some of the vagaries of this transit service, but it was otherwise a great day! Now hopefully the rest of the bizarre chest stuff resolves.

Watch said low battery at 4:00, barely held out the hike. Might have to look in to getting that replaced or replacing the watch. 4.5 years isn't too bad.

So this was very, very weird.

I woke up Saturday feeling a bit stuffed up, not great, but not bad. Figured I was dehydrated and hungover a bit, drank some water. My friend Andrew and I were going to run around Green Lake, well, me running, him run-walking (I was trying to incentivize him to try to run the whole lake, but he has some work to do). So I figured I'd golden retriever at the lake, go out for a loop, then double back and find him, then go back, etc, and get a few miles in. Then he promised me hill repeats on the way back.

I made it 8 minutes and I couldn't breathe. I could breathe, but anything beyond shallow breaths hurt, a lot. Deep breaths had me doubled over in pain. I stopped and waited for him. I was pretty sure I wasn't in the demographic for a heart attack. But I had no idea what it might be. Wasn't worth logging, but a nice day at least. I figured maybe I could run it out. So I ran up the hill repeat hill twice. A good hill! But I was completely short of breath at the top. Breathing through a straw. Felt like asthma. So that was it.

Later in the day my friend Danny and I would go on a walk in a park and he'd suggest it might be heartburn, and I looked it up, and it probably was. I still was struggling to walk up hills, and I have no idea what might have brought it on (I didn't eat great this past week, but not terribly) but my goal was to find some Tums. I could run down the hills, but could barely walk up. We found some Tums and they seemed to help. Not sure if they'll make me able to take a good hike/trail run tomorrow.

Kind of scary, the whole not being able to breathe thing. Hopefully an explainable blip or I will need to go see doctor-folks.

Loops and core for NP

And some sprints at the end.

85˚? Air conditioning! Countdown! And a countdown watching the Sox rip apart the MFY, so even better.

Well.

Chicago looks hot (90 and humid) this weekend. I figured I'd see if there's anywhere with reasonable airfares that I could jet off to last minute, out west where it has a chance to be cooler. SFO? Nope. LA? Nope. Montana? Nope. Colorado? Nope. Seattle? Oh, hello $300 round trip.

So now I'm going to Seattle and running trails. Apparently they run buses on weekends to popular trailheads. I … need to be part of that.

Month of vert will get off to a good start!

Divvy bike to NP. I can push this to about 15, 17 if I'm really trying, and 18 if I can draft a roadie.

Lots of NP things.

Then a jump in the lake, which is right there. It was perfect.

Idea for this year was 100km of vert.

Okay, this was an idea last year, when I ended July with <40km. I'm just shy of 45km right now. Last August I poured on 13km, which would have been more had I not gotten sick at the end of the month. But then I ran in to marathon training, marathon racing, and then ITB issues from said marathon.

Well, this year should be different. I have 11km to go per month for the rest of the year. But if I can knock out 15km in the final two weeks of August (which is a lot, but I'll be free and clear and not in Chicago) then it's only 10km/month the rest of the year. MSA usually punches December up to 10k+, so then I have to find some stadiums and trail runs and Blue Hills and rollerskis. I think I can do it. Goal? Goal.

Ran with the kiddos up to a playground.

Oh, Duluth, so up means up. Nice little 100m climb along Chester Creek. Jakob did most of the pushing (85 pounds of kids and stroller) and we turned in an 11 minute mile. Which is still faster than several miles on Saturday.

Run down was a bit faster. 3.5 miles felt like about 20.