Luke - 3.25

3.25mi, 24:06 (7:24)

Mile loops of 7:36 and 7:09.

Luke - 6

6mi, 42:02 (7:00)

Pre's trail, 1.6-mile loop in 11:28. Winding it down with easy runs before the race.

Chris - 0

Sadly, I'm not going to be running much this week. I played in the better part of our basketball game on Sunday, which we lost by 50, (and are moving to a lower league this week). I didn't expect much after hearing they lost their first game by 35. Almost everyone on my team is pretty short and some haven't played organized basketball in a long time. I had about 20 - probably could've had more since they weren't playing tough defense, considering they were destroying us without trying very hard. So I was tired Monday. Then yesterday I went to play basketball from 8-10 at LA Fitness with guys from my team. I managed to bruise both my left knee and upper thigh, so my leg is pretty sore today. I get to go to the Blazer game with my dad tomorrow night, and then Friday I'm playing basketball again. Then another game Sunday. Lots of basketball! Which is fun, but at least for this week will leave me with little energy to go on runs during lunch...

Steve - 7.25

Track workout with the Flyers. 3 mile tempo followed by a couple spontaneous 400s without much recovery. Tempo was nice and smooth. Just kept a nice pace that I didnt need to work too hard to maintain. I Jumped in the first 400 after about a minute of recovery from the 3 mile tempo. Felt pretty good, didn't push too much, but it was a hard effort. Same with the second one.

2.25 wup in 21:11
3 mile tempo in 20:23 (6:44, 6:52, 6:47)
2x400 in 77, 78
1.5 mi in cd 15:05

Luke - 8.75

8.75mi, 69:35 (7:57)

Wednesday Fox Hollow with Zack. We took it pretty easy, going 9:47 up and 7:35 down, and going about 7:10 pace on the way back.

Luke - 10.5

10.5mi, 82:20 (7:50)

Did my Relentless Hill run, but did the hill loop of it twice. Pretty muddy.

Steve - 5.5

53:20 (9:42)

Tough hilly run in Griffith Park. Pace was pretty slow. Starts out with a steep climb for about 2 miles and finished with some downhill. I felt pretty good because I never pushed the pace too much, even on downhill. Not totally sure about the distance, but its hard to imagine it was less than 5.5 miles.

Luke - 5.25

5.25mi, 39:35 (7:32)

Mile loops of 7:52, 7:45, 7:34, and 7:03. My previous run was from 2-3pm, and between that run and this one I had seven pints of beer, so I was a bit drunk and tired for this one. Went pretty well though...the first couple I was stumbling every once in a while, but I felt good by the end.

Luke - 7.8

7.8mi, 53:45 (6:53)

1.6-mile loop in 11:22, 1.4-mile loop in 8:49.

Steve - 6.15

51:42 (8:24)

Back to Manhattan Beach trail for first time in a long time. I ran the first 2 miles easy (9:58, 9:11) then did a tempo like effort for 2.5 miles (18:12-7:17 pace). Always tough for me to keep a sub 7 (tempo) pace on the bark, even in my Nike Frees. It felt OK, maybe a bit too hard. I took it easy for the next 1.25 and then ran hard the final .25. Knocked it out in 95 seconds and it felt pretty good.

Splits
2.5 mile tempo in 18:12 (7:35, 7:07, 3:30(.5mi))
Final 400m in 1:35

Weekly Mileage Totals, 4/18-4/24

Luke - 46.25 (5)

Steve - 24.02 (4)

Chris - 11.4 (3)
Alex - 7.25 + being alive (3)

Alex - 3.57

27:05 (7:34)

Slightly slower pace than my first run back, my legs (especially inner thighs) were pretty sore from the day before, but my core/wind felt much better on this day.

Chris - 3

23:38 - 7:52 pace

Ate almost all of a Domino's medium pizza for lunch at work, so my stomach was a bit full while I did this run. Glad I got over 10 miles for the week. Also didn't want to push myself very hard because I have a basketball game tomorrow @ 5. Hopefully I'll have enough energy to dominate =P. There's 10 guys on the team so it'll be interesting to see how much PT I get...

Steve - 6.27

51:13 (8:18)

From now on I am planning on running on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, (Thursday at some point), Saturday, and Sunday. So I will always run three days in a row starting Saturday. I wanted to get in a nice easy run but challenge myself somewhat. There is a trail that is .41 miles about 1.8 miles from my house that goes all the way to the beach. I decided to run this trail out and back 3 times, faster each loop. Going out is a 50 foot climb up to 100 feet above sea level and then a quick drop down to sea level (of course because it ends right by the beach). Forgot to time the first one, but the second one was 8:21 mile pace and third one was 7:40 pace. I'm going to try do this sort of thing once a week. Doing this hill will only help I think.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3673386

6:51(8:21), 6:17(7:40 pace)

***Notation Stuff for Future Use***
.41 * 6 = 2.46
.23
1.79 * 2 = 3.58
6.27

Luke - 6.75

6.75mi, 52:00 (7:42)

3 sets of 4x300m, 100m between reps, 500m between sets.

50, 53, 53, 51 / 52, 51, 51, 51 / 52, 52, 51, 52.

They were tough. Lots of wind everywhere except the 100 meters where I was jogging each lap. Mariners hit a go-ahead Grand Slam just before I left so I was in a good mood for the run, but apparently they ended up losing.

Alex - 3.68

27:11 (7:23)

First run in probably 2 months. Can't say that I felt great the whole time, but it was good to be outside and running again.

Chris - 4.2

30:14 - 7:11 pace

Good run today. Mike left like 4 minutes before me so my goal was to catch up to him by the end. I wasn't able to, but I think it's partly because I had to stop at a port-o-pottie and got held up at a couple stop lights. Weather was perfect, and I had enough left to semi-sprint at the end. Definitely going to get over 10 miles this week. Also looking forward to my first basketball game with this new team on Sunday! Should be interesting...

splits: 15:43 - 14:30

Luke - 10

10mi, 74:41 (7:28)

37:35 out, 37:05 back, all on soft bark. Stomach hurt.

Alex - Alive?

Wow, so, it's been awhile. I'm just glad I still have login privileges here. Let me give you the quick back story. I was burning out, on multiple levels. I think this potential is created anytime you move to a new place. (Backtrack: I moved to LA in January) I stopped tracking my runs with the thought that I would just enjoy the runs and get back to goals, etc. in the future. Then my shoes started to break down, and I couldn't find a new pair that I liked so I was getting foot pains from longer runs. Then we had our week or so of monsoon rain in LA and I got a gym membership so that I could workout in doors. And then I started playing basketball, and I haven't run in a long long time. I also got embarrassed about my running break, and avoided this blog out of shame.

Well, I'm happy to announce that I'm going to go on a jog today and see how it feels. I'm not going to track it, but I plan on getting in to normal runs again soon.

Thanks for not deleting me.
-Alex

Steve - 7.25

Track workout with Los Flyers. Not too many people showed up because it rained some during the day. Track was all messed up, but there was a like 7-8 people that were ready to run. Nike Frees got totally soaked. I guess they are the worst shoes to wear on a wet surface cuz they got soaked on my first lap. After a lengthy worth up, I decided to run some 1600 repeats with one other guy. He wanted to run his in about 6:10 and I wanted to run in about 6:30-6:40. So we could kind of work together, I ran with a 25 second headstart. Worked pretty well. I did go way to slow on the last one. My second lap was a 1:42 when I was shooting for 1:38s, so I at least picked it up some in the last 2 laps. I've got a 10k on May 16 where I am targeting a sub 40.

2.5 mi wup in 25:04
6:26
6:28
6:36
2X400 recovery jog
1.25 mi cd in 12:52

Luke - 8.75

8.75mi, 63:57 (7:18)

Fox Hollow Wednesday with Zack, 7:24 up (PR), 6:50 down. Accel to 6:10 pace on the bark on the way back. Pretty good, probably since I didn't run at all Tuesday.

Chris - 4.2

32:32 - 7:44

Decent run by myself. Nice to get a little longer run in. Weather was ok - a little chilly toward the beginning.

Steve - 6.5

58:21 (8:59)

I'm back to my old routine of Monday runs at Griffith Park with my friend Chris. This run actually went pretty well despite the fact that I slept only 2 hrs the night before and had to drink like 10 cups of tea just to make it through the work day without my head hitting the keyboard.

Luke - 6.5

6.5mi, 51:00 (7:50)

Went out for a 9.5-mile run, cut it to an 8-mile run because my stomach was hurting, and then had to walk the last mile and a half because my stomach hurt more. Worst run of the year. Hopefully I can rebound from this and still make it to 80 miles this week.

Luke - 14.25

14.25mi, 1:47:05 (7:30)

Long run with Zack. We found a logging road out East of town and ran in the heat of the day. It was gradual uphill for the first couple miles and gradual downhill the next five, and it was an out-and-back course so it was the opposite the way back. It took 55:50 going out and 51:15 coming back, with the last mile probably at around 6:30. I was pushing it the last 5 miles, and especially the last one, so I was pretty tired by the end, especially since I hadn't had water the whole time. I'm very tired now.

Steve - 4

35:16

Mostly on grass on the park near my house. Nice and easy. I'm still a zombie from the jet lag. This (Monday) may be the most unproductive day of work ever.

Weekly Mileage Totals, 4/11-4/17

Luke - 69.5 (8)

Steve - 17.13 (3)

Chris - 6 (2)

Luke - 8.25

8.25mi, 59:46 (7:14)

1.4-mile loop in 10:33, 1.5-mile loop in 11:05. Felt good, and easy.

Luke - 6.75

23min warmup, 8-6-4-4-6-8 with 400m rest between each one, 4min cooldown. I forgot to write my times down before resetting my watch, but the 6s and 8s were on about 77 pace, and the 4s were 75 for the first and 72 or 73 for the second. I felt like I didn't have much pop in my legs, but once I got going it didn't go too poorly.

Chris - 3

21:57 - 7:19 pace

I played another 2 1/2 hours of basketball last night, but I made myself go run today anyway. Pretty sore, started out pretty slow and made myself stretch about a mile in. I have no idea how I ended up running this pace, I didn't feel like I was going very fast at all. Guess that means I'm getting in better running shape. On another note, I was unconscious last night while playing ball! I probably shot about 60% from the field. It's been awhile since I've played like that - so much fun! I was playing under control the whole time and just taking what the defense gave me (something that can be easier said than done when you're playing well).

Luke - 4.25

4.25mi, 32:43 (7:41)

Mile loops of 7:57, 7:34, and 7:27.

I'm starting work as a taxi driver on Saturday, and my shift is Sat-Tues 7pm-7am. I've stayed up later and later each day this week, so although I ran this at 6:30am, it's my second run of the day. Now I'm going to go to bed, and wake up in the afternoon for a track workout.

Luke - 9.75

9.75mi, 68:03 (6:58)

A few different loops of Pre's Trail. Sunny and 61º. Stomach hurt, other than that good.

Luke - 9

9mi, 67:53 (7:32)

Wednesday Fox Hollow with Zack, with an extra quarter mile because there was a meet going on at the track where we usually cut through. On the way out I wasn't feeling great, but I still pushed it up the hill in 8:38, with Zack close behind. Came down in 7:22 and Zack was feeling really good, so after a quarter mile on Rexius he picked it up and I of course went with him. We were hitting 6:20 pace on super-soft bark dust, and then picked it up to 6-flat pace. My last two quarters on the trail were 87 and 85. I wasn't feeling great before the fast stuff, but once Zack went and I went with him I felt a lot better. Other than my stomach, this week has been great.

Steve - 4.25

Final run in Japan with Namban Rengo. Wanted to run a longer cooldown, but the track closed. Ran with another guy for the last 3 and he helped me keep the pace.

1mi wup in 8:44
1200m in 4:51 (6:30 pace)
1000m in 3:48 (6:07)
800m in 3:01 (6:02)
600m in 2:10 (5:49)
1mi cd in 10:09

Chris - 3

22:36 - 7:32 pace

Played 3 hours of basketball on Sunday. I made myself run today hoping that it will help me be less sore and uncomfortable, haha. My goal is to get 10 miles a week or more until I'm done playing basketball. I figure between bball and running at least that much, I'll be in pretty darn good shape.

splits: 12:05 - 10:30

Luke - 9

9mi, 63:20 (7:02)

Ran on the bike path, 32:32 out, 30:47 back. It's getting warmer in Eugene.

Steve - 6.2

56:44 (9:08)

Went out to meet Juergen from the online running community www.RunninginTokyo.com. Did a nice 10k along the river. Rained a lot.

Luke - 13.5

13.5mi, 1:41:44 (7:32)

Lots of hills and mud, but felt easier than Saturday's 13.25. Was even able to pick it up to 6:45 pace for the last 3.5 miles. Hopefully the rest of the week I can hold up as well as I did today.

Luke - 9

9mi, 67:30 (7:30)

1.6-mile loop in 12:01, 1.5-mile loop in 11:35, 1.5-mile loop in 11:17. Felt pretty tired until the last couple miles. Shooting for 70 this week.

Steve - 8.68

My first race in Japan! The Ikegami Honmouji 10k. A challenging 5 loop course that takes place at the site of a temple with great views of cherry blossoms. Each loop has a steep downhill at the beginning, a tough uphill climb halfway through, and a few more smaller climbs towards the end, and finally about 200 meters of gravel and rocks to run through. Plus the race was at 10:10 am start on a hot day. Not exactly a PR course.

For the warmup, some guy in a dress suit led people in a stretching routine with other spiritual leaders from the temple giving a speech. Swag bag was lacking, although we did get a towel instead of the oft done t-shirt of American races.

In any case, I was just looking to have fun and run a decent time. First loop I took it easy and clicked off a 9 minute loop. Didn't feel too bad, but tons of people were ahead of me. Second loop was 8:51 and I passed a lot of people who went out too early. Third loop I wanted to drop out of the race. I felt awful. I just told myself to get the final loop and then finish with a strong kick. Lots of my wife's family members were there because they all ran the 3.5k fun 30 minutes earlier, so they were cheering me on every time I passed through the lovely gravel pit. Once I got to the fourth loop, I felt a bit better. Lots of people were dying around me. I kept plugging and finally made it to the 5th loop. I was still passing people cuz many were walking the challenging parts or doing a "sprinter's jog". Once I got through the most challenging uphill climb, I summoned what little energy I had left, and surged a bit. Passed some more runners and "crossed the tape" in 45:57, good for a whopping 26th in the 20-29 age group. Lots of young fast runners in this race. I wasn't too disappointed with the time considering I seldom run hills and my mileage is still pretty low. Perhaps I will run again next year if I am in Japan again. We went for some soba afterwards. I'm gonna miss Japanese food when I return home.

1.23 mi wup in 12:22
Ridiculous 10k in 45:57 (9:01, 8:51, 9:35, 9:33, 8:57)
1.25cd in 11:30

Weekly Mileage Totals, 4/4-4/10

Luke - 60.75 (7)

Steve - 15.8 (3)

Chris - 13.87 (4)

Chris - 3

21:21 - 7:07 pace

Worked Tue-Sat this week, so ran by myself during lunch at work today. Good run, I'm definitely getting in better shape again, but I can tell I'm nowhere near where I was last summer. Knee was feeling tight toward the beginning, but felt better as I continued on.

Luke - 13.25

13.25mi, 97:32 (7:21)

Long run with Zack (his longest ever). We drove out of town a little bit and ran past farms and stuff. Animals seen on run: horses, sheep, cows, goats, llamas, birds, ducks, chickens, a dog, and a pony. We stayed mostly relaxed on the way out, but still kept a very decent pace, and our goal was to run a negative split. We both started getting heavy legs 3-4 miles from the end, but we pushed each other and ended up speeding up quite a bit. With two miles left I tried to put a little distance on Zack, and I came through the mile (according to the milepost signs) at 7:01, with Zack 5-10 seconds back. Then the last mile I gave the rest of what I had, which ended up being a 6:42, and finished about 20 seconds in front of Zack. My splits were 49:50 out and 47:42 back. I'm a bit sore now (60 miles this week adds to that) but the day was definitely a success.

Chris - 4.2

31:33 - 7:30 pace

Nice manageable pace. I did a couple intervals during the first half, but didn't want to kill myself since I still had to make it back. My knee was bothering me the last 1/4, but not too bad. I'm going to run again tomorrow....still trying to get back in decent aerobic shape before I start this basketball league in a couple weeks.

Luke - 7.5

7.5mi, 57:22 (7:38)

21min warmup, 3 sets of five 200m intervals, 200m rest between reps, 600m rest between sets, 5min cooldown.

33, 32, 31, 31, 32

32, 32, 33, 32, 32

31, 32, 33, 32, 32

Overall, very happy to stay within 1 second of 32 on every one of them.

*There should be an asterisk next to each split because they were all wind-aided.

Steve - 6.3

56:35 (8:59)

I wanted to run on some grass instead of asphalt for once so we headed out to a park about 20 minutes away by train. I was able to find a nice loop I could do in grass that was about .65 miles. I did maybe 10 times or so.

Luke - 9.5

9.5mi, 72:05 (7:35)

Took the long way to Pre's Trail and did a 1.4-mile loop twice, in 10:20 and 10:17.

Luke - 8.75

8.75mi, 65:26 (7:28)

Wednesday Fox Hollow with Zack. 7:55 up, 7:19 down. 6:45 pace on the way back. Good.

Chris - 2.5

18:42 - 7:28 pace

Ram with Darren today. I think he has unfortunately contracted the dreaded Runner's Knee injury. We were going to run 3 miles, but a little over a mile in he had to stop and I went on to the turnaround point. I walked with him for a bit and talked about his injury, then I ran the last mile by myself.

Steve - 5

49:10

This was another of my "Gaijin runs through busy narrow streets" runs. (Gaijin is the word Japanese call foreigners. Literally means "foreign person"). I was wearing a black shirt and black shorts and a white hat, so I stood out even more than usual. I am in Osaka for a few days, second biggest city of Japan. This run took place at 8 am, so the streets werent too bad. I tried to run along some small rivers I found but they didnt really have a walkway like some of the rivers near Tokyo I ran last week. So mostly I was running in the street around pedestrians, people on bikes, and cars. There are lights and stops so often its hard to really to get into a rythm. I almost ran into a guy on a bike. We were crossing an intersection at the same time (perpendicular to one another). We both veered the same direction to avoid each other and then veered the opposite direction, and finally both we both stopped. Close call, but no damage done. Later in the night we took the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) back to Tokyo and I read a lot of Born to Run. Great book so far.

Luke - 4.25

4.25mi, 34:27 (8:06)

Mile loops of 7:57, 8:06, and 8:10. Felt like death.

Chris - 4.17

32:31 - 7:47 pace

Have the day off from work so I wanted to get a good run in to whip myself back into shape before I start this basketball league I'm doing with a coworker and friends of his. Really windy, blustery day today. It was raining pretty hard this morning so I waited till that subsided. The wind was really tossing me around at some points, which wasn't that fun particularly because the run itself was a bit of a struggle. Good start to the week at any rate!

Luke - 7.75

Forgot to write down my time before resetting my watch, but it was about 8 minute pace. Lots of hills, pretty muddy.

Steve - 4.5

43:48

We arrived in Kyoto around 11 pm and I decided I wanted to run before I went to sleep because our next day was going to be absolutely jammed. The great thing about running in Japan is that everything is lit up all night. So you can run and not worry about taking a false step and spraining your ankle. I decided to just head out randomly and see if I could find any of the sites we were going to the next day. Kyoto is jammed with temples and shrines of significance. I found some temple after only 10 minutes and then turned there and started running to see which it was. Once I got to the part of the temple that had English markings, I decided to just keep going. After another few minutes, I saw a sign for Nijo Castle 2km straight ahead, which we were planning to visit the next day. When I go to a major intersection there was a crazy overpass that went in four directions so pedestrians from any direction could cross through. These are pretty typical of major cities in Japan. I fired up the stairs and continued until I made it the castle. It was pretty cool to see it at night, although it wasnt completely lit up. I headed back home to prepare for what would be crazy day of touring the city that started at 6:30 am.

We rented bikes and visited three different areas of the city all in the same day. We probably road our bikes for about 3-4 hours, so I got in some good cross training. The craziest part of the day was our return trip to Kyoto Station on bike. The bikes were due back at 7 pm and the late fee for each is ridiculously high (like 40 bucks each). From our last destination, it didnt seem too far to get back to the station. We had a pretty good map and it looked doable. After about 10 minutes we realized we were really far. My wife asked for directions a few times, and I hammered the pace so we could make it on time. With the clock ticking to 7, we only minutes remaining and the number of stop lights was maddening. At last we got to the station and had to just make the final sprint to the bike rental area. I cranked it up to the top gear and skidded into the bike rental area at 6:59 and said "Girigiri" to the attendant. He said "Just on time". As you can probably guess girigiri means just on time. If I had been by myself, there is no way I could have made it. My Japanese isnt good enough to understand complex directions. But alas, we made it.

Luke - 9.75

9.75mi, 69:55 (7:10)

1.6-mile loop in 11:42, 1.4-mile loop in 10:06 and 9:12. Good start to what should be a higher-mileage week (unfortunately this only means ~60 miles).

Weekly Mileage Totals, 3/28-4/3

Luke - 47.5 (7)
Steve - 18.4 (3)
Chris - 6.45 (1)
James - 1 (1)

Luke - 8.1

8.1mi, 64:43 (7:59)

Trail run with Zack. We got up some big hills, and at the turnaround point it started hailing like crazy. Fun, tough run, and we finished strong.

Luke - 6.75

6.75mi, 48:00 (7:06)

22 minutes warmup, 400, 600, 400, 800, 400, 1000, 400, 4 minutes cooldown. 200 jog rest after the 400s, 400 jog rest after the others.

76

1:58 (78 pace)

78

2:35 (77 pace)

75

3:13 (77 pace)

73

I'm pretty happy with the times, especially on the 800 and 1000. I am able to keep up that 77 pace pretty consistently, so I guess I need to work on my speed rather than my strength. I think next week's intervals will be 200s. Also the weather was brutal--rain, wind, and cold--so Zack and I are beasts just for doing a workout at all.

Chris - 6.45

52:45 - 8:10 pace

Was really excited to do my Magneto Loop for the first time in a long time. Unfortunately I underestimated the effect of not having run in a week due to battling a cold. I was struggling the second half. I'm pretty sure I was dehydrated as well, which I'm sure didn't help much. Either way it was still good to get back out on a nice long run!

Luke - 6.4

6.4mi, 52:44 (8:14)

I was up in Portland to see Sherwood with Chris, so I went on his Magneto Loop with him. He hadn't run in a week due to a cold, so it was pretty slow.

Steve - 6.3

57:44 (9:10)

I decided to repeat my river run from a few days back. I like it because it has minimal stops. My wife came along this time on bike. She joined for half the trip as I looped around the river a few times. I kept a pretty good pace, despite running a 5k time trial the previos night. One older guy was jogging and shouted out to me "Faito (fight), Faito, Champion ni nare!", which was fun. Literally, means Keep fighting and become a champion. Japanese words always end in vowels, besides 'n', so when they use foreign words that end in consonants they sound a bit different. I get strange looks from people sometimes but people are usually pretty friendly towards me. I did see another foreigner running. He was wearing a suit with a warm up jacket and pants. It looked really stupid.

I probably ran a bit longer than this, but I am trying to be conservative with my mileage estimates.