Week 17, 2013

(The technical problems that I have with bringing back the weekly summary thingy turned out to not to be that easy to fix and for now I have neither patience nor time to fight it, so sorry guys, for now it's gone.)

I had quite high expectations from the previous week and it ended up being not too great. Similarly I did not have high hopes for this week, as my family was here, but it turned out quite ok. Life.

I started off on Monday with my usual fast run. It went fine and I managed to shave off 4 seconds of my PB on the loop (down to 34:00). Sure, 4 seconds are within the error margin and are not much of an improvement but the fact that I could match up my best result is a good sign.

Nothing more interesting during the week; just 3 usual recovery runs.

Then on Saturday morning I joined my family in Monterey. We did the 17-mile drive and then headed down to Big Sur. I'm not sure how many times I've been there already but I'm always happy to go again; great place.

I decided to go with my family all the way down to Lompoc to spend the night with them. The following morning I drove back and (you didn't think I'd pass on this opportunity, did you?) on my way home wanted to do a long run in Big Sur. Funnily enough on that same day the Big Sur marathon was taking place (before I was even contemplating taking part).

For my run I chose the Limekiln State Park, as I've never been there before and, being in the southern part of Big Sur, wasn't like to go any time soon. At first I was planning to just do one of the trails -- back and forth up a hill, but once I got there I realized it'd be too short so decided to go on, without really knowing where it'll take me. At some point I essentially lost the trail and once I found another one it seemed to be very rarely used and at parts was completely overgrown with bushes.

Eventually I realized that it must be out of commission and was wondering where it'll take me. By that time I was quite tired and was hiking instead of running and not even very fast. Gladly I ended up on the highway soon and with a 4K run along it closed the loop and got back to my car.

It wasn't a very long training but it was hot and the trail was pretty steep so I was tired. On the way back I ate dinner in Big Sur Bakery & Restaurant and then just went home, went to bed and slept like a baby :).

All in all, an 80K week with 5 runs, not too bad, even though I'm aiming for at least 90K/week building up for the 100-miler.

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