forgot to check distance before i left - assumed it was 4 miles. realized about 1/2 mile out that it was probably 5 miles. i had to guess at a route & i ended up guessing about .2 miles too short. d'oh.

still slow. clearly the effort of 9 miles gook a bit of a toll. but the good thing is i was able to run fairly easily for the full hour. Saturday's 10-miler will be interesting; i'll probably need to go early to avoid the heat. it will the longest i've ever run in my life. whee?

slow, plodding - just like Higdon said. Saturday's run took a lot out of me, and the 2 parades probably didn't help much! then not doing anything yesterday: big mistake. an easy long bike ride would have been a good idea. but i did the 3 miles (a local loop, run twice, avoiding Chavez & Division).

according to Higdon, i'm doing great: i'm a marathoner!

ow. 9 miles is a long way to run. last time i did that, a 15k, was over 20 years ago, and i trained several months for that. i've only been running a month now. the hard part was on my legs & feet. plus i discovered if you go east past 50th, you start heading quite a bit uphill. that made it tough. i ran the route clockwise, so i did most of the uphill from the river to 58th in the middle of the run, not at the end. but i wish i had picked a route that skipped the hard uphill.

right now my knees and feet hurt quite a bit, but i did walk in the parade in Hillsboro this morning, too. we'll see how i am tomorrow. i'm going to bike a bit today; that will help. tomorrow is the Monmouth parade, so my cross-training day will be Monday, since i have to bike up to the Q Center anyway.

pace just under 13/mile. i'm pretty happy with that for now. if it's the same next week, with a 10-miler, i know i'll be on track for the marathon.

ow. 9 miles is a long way to run. last time i did that, a 15k, was over 20 years ago, and i trained several months for that. i've only been running a month now. the hard part was on my legs & feet. plus i discovered if you go east past 50th, you start heading quite a bit uphill. that made it tough. i ran the route clockwise, so i did most of the uphill from the river to 58th in the middle of the run, not at the end. but i wish i had picked a route that skipped the hard uphill.

right now my knees and feet hurt quite a bit, but i did walk in the parade in Hillsboro this morning, too. we'll see how i am tomorrow. i'm going to bike a bit today; that will help. tomorrow is the Monmouth parade, so my cross-training day will be Monday, since i have to bike up to the Q Center anyway.

pace just under 13/mile. i'm pretty happy with that for now. if it's the same next week, with a 10-miler, i know i'll be on track for the marathon.

so much slower than Tuesday for the same distance. obviously not a lot of energy. or maybe i took it easy on purpose; i may have run too hard yesterday. whatever. it was 3 miles, it was comfortable, and that's what counts.

still love the shoes, but i need running socks. the tongue on the right shoe doesn't like quite flat, and it's started rubbing badly. a good sock should fix that.

still feels like i'm at the edge of going anaerobic, but i never quite cross over. i could not feel the difference in the mile splits; it all felt like the same pace. the last mile was gradual downhill, which makes a faster pace easier.

i feel completely fine. i'm doing better with being effective with my pre-run stretching, although i need to do more during the rest of the day.

outward loop got stuck at Chavez & Division; that let me catch my breath for a few moments but was still slower in the first half. overall time huge improvement. had energy to sprint the last short block; not necessary but fun! clearly the previous 4 weeks of running and the bicycling, along with daily stretching, have had an effect. as they were meant to do. it's great to see & feel the improvement.

i'm also noticing an actual desire to eat better. not just the idea in my head, but a desire from my body to eat healthier food. that's pretty interesting.

and loving the new shoes.

new shoes. yay. these routes that have hills: i need to do the uphill at the beginning, not at the end.

slower than last week's longer run, but given that i couldn't even run on Tuesday, that's ok. the point isn't the time; it's the distance. and the fact that i've done 3 weeks of training now.