Halloween Marathon Training Run

Wow. What a fun little training run. Some of it was a little messed up just because it was kind of a pain in the ass to check in every lap for 10 laps, and I had to run to my car a couple times to get food among other things. But I really like Bellingham. It is such a great little athletic town. And Lake Padden is a gem of Bellingham - so it's a great little venue. I've run around the lake a few times, and of course ridden the mountain bike on the Galbraith trails, and raced here also so I'm familiar with the area.

Round and round we go. There's the lake. There's a couple with a dog. A little hill. A duck. A goose. Another runner. The gorgeous lake. HOLY CRAP!!! I think I see the sun. Wooeffinhoo!!!! Although it's a short lap, and we had to do it a bunch of times I never got bored. For one, we were running on dirt. I love dirt. I've always loved it. From the time I was first raced motocross, to running XC in college, BMX dirt jumping, mountain bikes, Cyclocross (CX), any excuse I get to play in the dirt I'll give it a whirl.

Anyhoo, I dressed like a nun as it was Halloween. It was a pretty cool costume, and also the closest thing you'll ever get me to that is church related - but my weekly longish runs are sort of like my mass anyway. But running in it was a little tough; I had to hike up my skirt, or whateverthehell it's called, and it was a bit warm. So I did one lap in that, took it off and ran in the usual getup for the rest of the run. My legs were absolute crap at the beginning of the run, but I'm not really used to 60-70 mile weeks yet, but I'm getting there. To make a long story short my legs vastly improved by the 15-16 mile mark and by the end of the run I was just on autopilot and feeling really good. I felt like I could have kept on going forever.

I ran solo the whole way as I don't really know that many people in the running community. That's what I get for racing bikes the past 4 years. Plus the run was so small sort of felt like I was infringing on a group of friends' training run. But everyone was certainly nice enough, the money was donated to a good cause, I got a good training run, and I did meet a few people. I have no idea what my official time was, but I know my running time was 3:26. Not too bad for someone who has been running less than a year and ran a marathon the weekend before.

We'll see what the 50K will bring next weekend.