OUTDOOR NASCAR

The birthday boy! Also, notice the yummy aid station bottom right (Photos by Steve Walters).

On Friday I went running on my normal 10k course after work and continued the mend from skiing and 18 miles the week before. I averaged 8:43/mile and 8:30/mile over the last four once I had warmed up a little bit. Didn't feel like I was pushing it, effort felt the same as my previous two runs, so it was nice to get back to semi-fresh legs.

Saturday I joined my friend Jon as he ran a 50k for his 50th birthday. I showed up about an hour and a half after they started to find they had run only four miles or so. Turns out a lot of people stopped by and they kept stopping to chat. Our running pal Steve had organized the whole thing including an aid station with tons of different goodies, so it was easy to stand around, eat, and talk.

So my fourteen miles which officially took about two hours was probably more like two and a half hours in real time. I stopped and ate twice, but otherwise I was pretty focused on getting my miles in (mostly because I had Frontier coming to install FiOS and needed to be done by noon). I ended up running with someone about 70% of the time and it was a lot of fun! I ran faster than I planned at 8:53 mile... and as a result felt like I had run 18 instead of 14.

Weeeeeee!

The course was a .93 mile loop around Summerlake Park near my house. I had never ran there (I played tennis and cheered at a race there) and so it was fun to explore the park a little. Pretty nice little loop, although, after a couple times around it did get monotonous. It ended up being almost exactly 14 miles after 15 laps, but I did have to add an extra thirty seconds or so at the end to hit my nice round number.

Later that evening we went out to dinner and then to Two Kilts Brewing in Sherwood to further celebrate. Cool little brewery that I didn't know existed. I had someone driving me so I had a lot of fun. Didn't feel the greatest on Sunday and it just showed what a lightweight I am. I had four pints of beer over four hours. Not wild at all!

Sunday I took Brandon to the Family Fun Center and then to the Lego Movie (everything is awesome!). Tonight I'll be doing the seven mile rollercoaster at PRC. Pace to be determined.