An unfortunate weekend off . . .

Well, as the name of the post above demonstrates, it wasn't the most productive weekend. It started great. I ran my usual Friday course in 1:21. Again, this course is about 7 miles and involves about 1300 feet of elevation gain. My previous record was 1:28, so I shaved 7 minutes over 7 miles. Its amazing what you can do when you are climbing well. A great sign that my speed is getting closer to where it needs to be. I think my best case scenario on this course is probably about 1:15 if everything went perfect and I was a little lighter and stronger. But I'm psyched to average 11:30 miles on the course. And I saw snake species number 4, a gopher snake! He even did his rattlesnake imitaiton routine, curling up and striking and hissing at me.

The rest of the weekend, however, did not go as planned. I went up to Seattle and was hoping to do a scout run on some of the trails for the 100. Unfortunately, 2 days before my trip, a storm dumped 3 feet of new snow on all the trails in the Cascades, putting the kibosh on that idea. Because I had family and friends to see, I ended up doing no running whatsoever over the weekend, which is the first time that's happened since Japan. Monday I went to Discovery Park which is a beautiful park with some old growth that used to be a military base. There is a nice 3 mile loop trail, but that connects to several beach trails and lets you go up and down the hill. I also put some street time in, including a run by the locks and the fish ladder. In front of the dam where the locks are located, there is a rope that runs from one side to another upon which one can often see fabulous waterbirds. This time I was fortunate enough to see a belted kingfisher, which are usually somewhat elusive. This guy was pretty determined to hang out where he was, and while he would flit off, he would always return.

Anyways, always good to run in the NW, although I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to do some more, especially on the trails. But it was chilly and damp and the beach had the deep smell of brine that is so pervasive along the Washington shore.

This morning was just the usual canyon run with Gator on my new trail shoes. I'll give a review later. As you may remember, my last pair of fancy trail shoes were a disaster on the GTR. What will become of these, who knows? I'll give the full report on my La Sportiva Wildcats soon.