TWO LOOPS IN T-TOWN

Coach Jim pre-run photo. That's me on the right in gray behind that cluster of bright yellow.

On Saturday I joined the Coach Jim running group for the second straight week. Coach Jim is a free long run group that meets every weekend and does anywhere from 10-20 miles (they pick a target race and then work towards that). The last few weeks they have been doing twelve miles, which has been perfect. The weekend before I did twelve with the group and it felt a lot harder than it should have.

The problem with the group is they meet at 8am. Ugh! So it is a miracle that I have got my ass out of bed for TWO straight weekends to go running in the cold. So pat on the back for me. Today they were doing "twelve plus" which ended up being 12.75 miles. I knew I wanted to do more than that so I had plans to run more to hit sixteen so I don't fade too much from marathon distance shape.

Two loops of fun!

What was nice about this weekend's run was that it was in my old stomping grounds of Tualatin where I was born and raised. Part way through we crossed into Tigard and basically ran a bunch where I used to run when I lived in the apartments off 99W. So it was a very nostalgic run. I have to say these twelve miles went by a lot easier than the weekend before. It was a fun run and went by pretty quickly.

Once that portion was over, I had made plans to drive the five minutes to my parents' house and then run the old three mile loop I used to do from there (way before I started running seriously, when I'd do fits of running a couple weeks at a time to try and lose weight). Alejandro ended up joining me because he is always up for a challenge, so why not do 16 even though he just planned on 12?

So the nostalgia tour continued! Around mile fourteen I started to get really sore and those last couple of miles were painful. But we got them done and I had a lot of fun running my old route. After I was done I hung out with my parents for an hour or two. I was pretty sore and my legs honestly felt like I had run twenty miles! The next day I felt much better though. I just always get really sore for some reason. Old man syndrome.

All told I ran sixteen miles at a 9:39/mile pace. That's 2 hours and 34 minutes on my feet starting at 8am. I think a screw is loose in my head.