Rained on but not rained out!

Yeah....Bills plane has landed after 2 weeks of travel I am glad he is home safe and sound.

I saw all the emails talking about the odds of getting into WS100 and it is a dismal 16% or something like that. I tend to be the unluckiest person when it comes to lotteries so I am assuming I will be heading to Bighorn 100M. I have a lot of friends going to Bighorn so it will be super fun and a new challenge. Since the race is one week before WS100M the training cycle would be pretty much the same so between WS100M and Bighorn I should have plenty of friends to tag along with or drag to Black Saturday's :).

I got to do a new workout on Saturday. The run was 90 minutes long but after the 20 minute warm-up I did 7-10 25 sec strides with 2 minute recovery down to Z3A then went right into 2 miles at M-Pace. It sounds easy but the strides coupled with the M-pace after Thursday's T-Pace workout made it a bit taxing. My legs felt the work but pulled the paces easy and I wasn't having to drag myself by the ear. All part of the process of building a good base for the real training that's to come. We got Darin to join us for the Saturday run and he is just so much faster than any of us it was sort of like he was running in place while we were all working hard. It's fun and motivating to have a carrot to chase around. That reminds me of Sunday runs after Black Saturday's where I run for 7+ hours and the last half needs to be faster than the first half. Since Tom knows the Gorge like the back of his hand including every cutoff and side trail that exists and......he knows exactly how long it will take to run from any particular spot to another...he will challenge me. We will be on a stretch and he will say "GO, see if you can make to Gorton Cutoff trail in 22 minutes"! I am like a dog chasing it's stick trying to beat his time. He will do this for the entire run! I love this game and can't wait to play it again. I am a total sucker for a dare or any kind of challenge so I am all for it, waging my tail.....where's my next bone. I think I will call this game "Dog on Bone". Normally we are all dressed in red for "Red Hot Sunday's" but after last years attire I think the red outfits will be retired. They were just plain WRONG! Sorry for the digress down memory lane but those runs will come sometime in March and I am already looking forward to them planning routes so Tom can get his times down.

Sunday was a typical PNW treat, very wet and a bit cold. This was the first run in the rain for me but hey it wouldn't be Portland without rain and muddy trails. It was so foggy the picture looks like were standing in the middle smoke! We did a 2 hour loop in Forest Park starting at Satzman Road, a nice change from our other Forest Park runs. We are all getting stronger already and Z3A is beginning to feel more easy and comfortable for me to maintain. Micheal showed up this morning! It has been a long time without my pal so it was nice to have him come along. He has been away way to long because he has forgotten how much slower we are as he drug us around the park today. We got caught up on the latest happening with family, work, vacations, birthdays and 2008 running plans.

Next week is a Build 1 so more running.....Yeah!