This week was fun and fairly relaxed. At this point I'm just maintaining mileage per my coach's wishes.
Monday:
I got together with Mark and some teammates out at McLeod park. We went for a warmup to check out possible loops for future practices and I figure it was around 15-20 warmup. We then got in a few drills and got into the meat of the workout, 20 minutes of fartlek. We did 1-2-3-2-1-1-2-1 minute spurts of tempo pace with a 1 minute hard recovery in between each interval. We were tired afterwards, but not excessively so. Then 10 minutes of jogging, more drills, and 5 minutes more cooldown to finish up our workout. I would figure it was somewhere around 8 miles.
Tuesday:
I was a little sore from Monday, but not much.
AM: 5 miles easy
PM: 5 miles easy
Wednesday:
AM: 5 miles at harder than easy, but still relaxed
PM: I went running with Kevin who is trying to start running a little more regularly (he bought himself a pair of Vibrams last year after meeting me at CanIL for the summer, he's trying to use those, but I'm trying to get him to ease into them). We got started later than I had wanted and when we got back the gates on the parking lot we parked in were closed! We searched around for some other way out, found an opening chained off and tried to get the chain off, but to no avail. In the meantime we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes and I currently have no less than 10-15 mosquito bites on my legs and other places. Eventually as a last resort we drove down to the lower gate that looked like it was raised higher than the others and my corolla managed to slip under the gate unscathed. Interesting little adventure. No more parking there in the evenings! So the run was very easy the first 1.5 miles with Kevin then I kicked it up several notches when he turned back to the car and was holding a fairly good tempo pace the rest of the way until I met back up with Kevin. 5 miles in total.
Thursday:
AM: I changed my routine a little and didn't run at 7AM. I slept in a little and went to work as a TA and went for my run afterwards instead. It was a simple 4 miles out and 4 miles back for a nice casual 8 mile run on the Fort-to-Fort trail.
PM: I've been organizing Ultimate Frisbee for everyone at CanIL on Thursdays and this week was a blast. Three guys from an Engineering conference that was on our campus joined us for some play and they were exceptional players. One in particular, Dominic, is a Master's steeplechaser and a good one. I was too busy covering him to do any kind of zone defense, he was too good. We played for about an hour and a half and as per usual I always play barefoot. We then met up with 2 of the guys and a few other CanILers for some volleyball on the sand a couple hours later and they even gave me one of their discs which was an UltraStar 175 gram disc with the ORU logo and a Bible verse on it. ORU is a school in Oklahoma that the team I met in Tanzania was from, so that was an interesting connection. I need to look into maybe getting some TWU or CanIL quality discs like these printed. Anyhow, my feet are always too tired after Ultimate to go for another run on Thursday evenings.
Friday:
Canada Day! This was a fun day.
AM: 5 miles easy
PM: 5 miles easy
This day was interspersed with running, moose massacreing (a moose pinata that met a gruesome yet noble end), some video games, more running, pinochle, Oh Heck!(card game), Fireworks, Hot Cocoa, and Worship time until the wee hours of the morning. This day honesty couldn't have been much better, for which I praise God Almighty.
Saturday:
I didn't think it was possible, but this day was even better than Friday. I got to sleep in again and go out for a run at 10AM. It was another out and back starting in Fort Langley, but today I decided I would go further along the trail than I'd ever gone (since I found out last week it kept going and didn't stop). As I started out I saw another runner on the trail a little ways ahead and although I was only just warming up a bit he was keeping a decent pace that I was only gradual gaining on him. He stopped and talked with a couple ladies he knew a few minutes later and I passed him assuming that'd be the last time I'd see him. A few miles down the trail I took one of the side trails and as I came out along the road at Edge Bar he was running along the road where I exited the trail. So being the competetive sort I took off assuming he'd probably be turning around anytime soon and I wouldn't see him again. I gradually grew into a more casual pace after I couldn't see him behind me anymore and explored the trail a bit. As the trail came out onto the roads at the end of that section I stopped to look at the sign and see the map. I was standing there about a minute as this guy comes running through again! I have to guess he took another trail than I did which was slightly shorter since I was most definitely going faster than he was at this point. So this man intrigued me so I sidled up alongside him and we started talking. His name was Andy and he was training for a marathon. He lives in Walnut Grove so he was towards the end of his run and heading back there which is why he wasn't going to be turning around like I had assumed because he already had turned around! Anyhow, I was getting close to my turnaround point of 50 minutes so we only had about 8 minutes to chat, but he was a very pleasant guy and I enjoyed his company. So we parted ways and I turned around at 50 minutes and probably only a couple of miles away from the Golden Ears Bridge (after I joined up with Andy we went up the road instead of following the trail further which heads to the Golden Ears Bridge). It was at least 7 miles out from Fort Langley, possibly up to about 7.5 miles out. I took to a few minutes of harder running interspersed with a more casual pace as I headed back, though the closer I got the longer my harder spurts would last. I got back about 2 minutes faster than I went out and was pleased with my 14-15 mile run. Now it was time to go to TWU and get ready for the hike later that afternoon.
PM: There was a huge group of us heading to Golden Ears to do the Lower Falls Trail. It is a casual hike with a possible more intense hike after the lower falls to another fall a little ways up the canyon. The trail is probably about 1.5-2 miles long and parts of it were a little muddy, which was to be expected and was rather pleasant to feel in between my toes in my Vibrams. After climbing stumps and scaring a few friends who weren't paying attention we got to the falls and a group of us took off for the other fall. We headed up the trail and as we went it was not what I recognized from the year before so I wanted to head back and find that trail, but some of the people with me urged us on wanting to see if this one might take us there too. It met up with a horse trail that we followed for a while until I knew we had gone too far. So we headed back and saw some trail markers down the mountainside in the brush toward where we could hear the falls. On the way down we saw Christina, Jesse, Liz, and maybe a couple others who had started a little later but had the same destination as us. A little confused I decided to bushwhack straight down and see what I could find. After 2 minutes of doing that I came to a cliff. So I climbed back up and followed another set of trail markers and intercepted the group coming down into the falls from a slightly different angle. Enjoying the magnificence of God's creation we sat around for a while. There is a cliff overhanging the fall on the other side of the river that I had wanted to find a way to last year but could not. This year I was more determined. I hiked up river a few minutes and finding no way to do it dry, walked as far as I could across until I had to swim. It was a little unnerving since the current was rather strong, but I made it to the eddy I was aiming for and climbed my way back to the fall. It was amazing fun and I had conquered the river this year. I spent maybe a minute there knowing we had to be heading back. So I took my time being careful not to slip on the slippery rocks back up to my crossing and swam back across which was much easier than the other direction. I picked up my pants that I had discarded (I was still wearing my running shorts underneath) and headed back as quickly as I could. I needed to get going because the car I had ridden in noone but me had headed up here so I knew they'd be waiting. Then there was also the fact that while I was crossing the river again everyone else had headed back, and we were the tail end of our large group because we were the more adventurous sort. So I picked up my bag and started jogging when I could and climbing down the mountain. I passed the first 5 of that group at the lower falls and started to run along the trail and ran all the way back eventually passing the other 4 a few minutes later. I made it back to the cars not too long after and even made it back at about the same time as Brian and his family. My car had been waiting for me about 20 minutes, so it could have been far worse. But I still feel bad for making them have to wait for me. Either way I had a lot of fun. I'd taxed my body so much this day that I had a hard time even making it to 9 o-clock which is when I went to bed. A total of about 16 miles was run today at least.
Week: 62 miles
Running Toward God,
Jason
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