Monday, December 8, 2014, 7:17 pm

10.65 mi, 1634 ft gain, 1:44:48. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm Gate #1 to Wallace Lake, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Blue.

First run in the rain in a while. I’m glad it wasn’t very cold. I sort of thought I might go about 10 mi or so, or at the very least 6 mi. I made it around the loop to the intersection where I could continue back to the car and decided to keep heading out and go to Wallace Lake again. I felt pretty good going up. I tried to keep my HR below 150 bpm. I peaked up to about 153 a couple times.

Once to the lake, I decided to continue toward Jay lake a little bit. I wanted to try the short section of single track just past the foot bridge with my headlamp. Plenty of light to navigate the roots, rocks and turns, even on the mid setting. I made a brief pitstop off the trail and headed back down.

I felt like I took it a little bit slower on the descent than yesterday. Looking at the data on Strava, I went slower for the first 2/3 of the descent and a little faster for the final 1/3.

My quads were slightly sore, not nearly as bad as they were after the Ravenna 8k race though.

The Fenix HL55 worked great in the rain. I stuck with the mid power setting. I’m still on the same charge of the 18650 battery I’ve been using. I plan to run it until it dies to see how long it lasts. I bought two KeepPower 3400mAh 3.7V rechargeable batteries. From looking around online, they seem to be one of the longest lasting brands for 18650 li-on  batteries. The HL55 is rated at up to 10 hours on mid power. I’m up to about 3.5 hours so far.

Average HR 136 bpm.

 

Tuesday, December 9, 2014, 4:54 pm

11.02 mi, 311 ft gain, 1:38:32. May Creek Rd around town to city limit back up to Gunn rd and home, solo. New Balance MR10v2.

Decided to hit the roads today. Legs were a little tired from the race and back to back hilly 10+ mi days. I felt pretty good today. My left calf toward the lower inside was kind of tight for the last couple miles.

My new headlamp seemed to make a difference with cars giving me a wider berth when they passed. I think they may have been a little unsure about a bright light heading toward them on their side of the road. A couple cars slowed way down.

I ran up Gunn rd, US2 east to May Creek Rd, around to 1st St, west on US2 out to a little past city limits, turned around and headed east on US2, turned onto 17th St and ran around that little neighborhood (never been in there before), then east again on US2 to Gunn rd and home. I ran past the house just a little to break 11 mi.

I kept the pace pretty easy, HR mostly in the low to mid 130s. Average HR 133 bpm.

 

Wednesday, December 10, 2014, 3:35 pm

10.04 mi, 1683 ft gain, 1:39:46. Olney Falls DNR Rd, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Red.

My ankles were a little sore when I went to bed last night. They were still not quite normal when I started running today, but quickly felt better.

I planned to keep an easy pace today, but with an unplanned pitstop and the dogs misbehaving, I was running short on time. I needed to get out to Monroe by 6 pm to drop some things off, so about 3 mi in, I sped up and pushed harder than I would have for the rest of the run. That meant HR in the 140s on the downhill and flats rather than 120s-130s and up to about 160 bpm on the uphill instead of up to about 150.

Even considering the harder pace, I felt great. My quads were still mildly sore early, but that went away just like the ankle discomfort.

I turned my headlamp on just after an hour. It didn’t work too well in the fog, so I switched to the Fenix e35 flashlight a couple times.
The weather wasn’t bad starting out, a little bit of a drizzle and low 50s. The temperature stayed pretty much the same the whole time, though I did go through a nice warmer microclimate about 4.5 mi out. The rain picked up a couple times, not enough to cause visibility issues. I was completely soaked, though.

That makes four straight 10+ mi days. To hit 2000 mi for the year, I’d have to average about 10.6 mi a day for the rest of December. I’m considering making the push then taking a couple easy weeks to start January.

Average HR 136 bpm.

 

Thursday, December 11, 2014, 5:32 pm

10.91 mi, 272 ft gain, 1:38:35. May Creek Rd around town to Family grocery then out and back, solo. New Balance MR10v2.

I left the dogs home to give them a day off. I’m pretty sure they’d just keep going and going until they couldn’t, and I don’t want to be carrying one or both of them miles back to the car.

I headed east up Gunn Rd to minimize running along the shoulder of US2. Running was pretty easy. There weren’t very many cars.
The weather was pretty good.

I had to make a pitstop, so I went into the grocery store to use the restroom. From there, I headed back the way I came out to the road where I’ve turned around several times when running out 20 minutes and back with the dogs.

I definitely feel it a little more in my lower legs when I run 10+ mi on the roads and sidewalks than on trails or logging roads. It wasn’t bad though.

Average HR 130 bpm.

 

Friday, December 12, 2014, 4:44 pm

10.30 mi, 1349 ft gain, 1:42:01. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #1 loop and over the hill, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Blue.

I decided to go around the loop to warm up before heading over the hill. It worked out pretty well.

On the way out on top of the hill, I caught a glimpse of something glowing in the beam of my headlamp. I got closer, and saw that it was a small owl. The owl hung out long enough for me to get my phone out of the ziploc bag and snap a picture. Without using the flash, my headlamp was plenty of light for a photo. The owl was still sitting in the branch when I left it, but it was gone when I returned.

My Fenix HL55 finally got low on batteries. It went into power save mode, cutting back to low power after about 8h 25m use in mid. I also used burst a handful of times in that time and eco a couple minutes before and after runs outside of that time. I had extra batteries with me, but I wanted to continue the test. It was another 17 min or so back to the car on low power. It was plenty of light to see my footing. It might be a little dim for going fast on technical trails though.

There was supposed to be a big storm. There was just a sprinkle here and there most of the run. It started pouring with about 1 mi to go. Thankfully, it only lasted a couple minutes, but I kept the pace up in case it was just the beginning of the storm.

Average HR 124 bpm for the first 15 min or so. Mio battery died.

 

Saturday, December 13, 2014, 3:58 pm

13.27 mi, 2153 ft gain, 2:21:39. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #1 over the hill and out toward the lake, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Red.

I went with a little easier effort than I have been. I could have kept up the same effort I’ve been running, but I didn’t feel like it.

There wasn’t anything particularly memorable tonight. Once I warmed up, I felt great. I considered going longer, but since I’ve been doing over 10 mi a day, I decided to stick with the plan.

With this run, I went from needing a little over 10.6 mi/day to exactly 10.5 mi/day to hit 2000 mi by year end. I’m holding up better than I thought I would. I guess it shouldn’t be that surprising, considering I leveled off after a pretty good build up earlier in the year, and dropped back a little for the last month or two. This week and the race next weekend should be interesting. If I make it to the end of the month, it’ll be just in time for a two week taper for a possible 50k as a training run for potentially doing my first 100 miler in the Spring.

Average HR 126 bpm.

 

Sunday, December 14, 2014, 5:22 pm

10.91 mi, 1838 ft gain, 1:55:48. Olney Falls DNR rd, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Blue.

I was going to run at the same tree farm gate as yesterday, but there was a minivan parked there, and I didn’t want to run into someone else with my dogs off leash, nor did I really want to run with them on leash.

I felt better starting today than I did yesterday. I still kept the pace easier than earlier in the week.

Even picking this route because there weren’t any vehicles parked at the gate, I ran into a hiker about 2.25 mi out. She was using her phone as a flashlight and asked how far it was to the entrance. A few minutes later, I thought that she might have taken a wrong turn and wished I had asked about it. I figured that if she was waiting at the gate when I made it back I’d give her a ride to where she parked. She wasn’t there though.

Not long after passing the hiker, I saw a glow in my headlamp’s beam off the road in the brush. The dogs were up ahead and missed it. I stopped and looked closer and it was a pretty large blacktail buck. It was hard to see how many points in the dark, but they stuck up well above and outside his ears.

It was a little colder tonight than the last couple nights and a little windy, not bad though. There are a few spots along the DNR road with very noticeable microclimates, a couple cooler and a couple warmer. I like the warmer ones. I made a pitstop at my turnaround point with a great view of the lights in the valley.

I took it easier on the downhill, for the most part, because Vida has been lagging behind when I bomb downhill. She always catches back up. I still let loose on a couple steeper sections.

Average HR 128 bpm.

 

Weekly totals: 77.1 mi, 9241 ft gain

My highest mileage week, and I feel a lot better than some lower mileage weeks.