Boo!

I ended up heading out for my long run Friday 7/27 night after dinner.  We hit Olive Garden, and well, you know what happens when you eat at Olive Garden lol ... Per my app I was 1400 calories over and an incredible amount of fat in for the day (SGF and I made sure that we ate first then logged the food so we would enjoy our dinner knowing how bad it was gonna be lol).  SGF ended up going to our gym but I didn't since I left my workout stuff at home for the day ... So I headed home, laced my Pegasus and headed out to the Centennial.  The run to the trail was about 7.5 miles.  When I reached the trail, a nice paved trail that follows an old railroad track, it was pitch black, away from the street lights, and about 10:30pm.  I was actually freaked out but eh, if I ever run an 100 miles endurance foot race there's no way around it I would have to spend an entire night running on dark spooky trails alone ... So I headed out ... In the darkness with nothing but a wide ray of light coming off my head.

This wasn't my first run in the night/dark of course.  If you follow my blog you'll know that I ran several times the airport trail near home by myself after dusk, and ran in the Mulkiteo Gulch with Bob at night as well.  What made this run different was the fact it felt more remote from "civilization" than the airport trail and that I was alone unlike the Gulch runs.  My goal for the run was to reach Snohomish, WA.  Trail's end at about 14 miles south of the trail head.  My familiarity with the trail was both comforting yet useless.  I could only see as far as my headlight.  As soon as I started heading out I could feel a "presence" following close.  I pretty much never "shaked" the feeling so the run ended up being more about to manage that feeling rather than shaking it.  At first I turned the music off because I wanted to be able to hear if an animal or someone was creeping up on me or jumping out the bushes because that was really my biggest worry there.  But after 5 minutes or running in total silence but the wind on the leaves I realized how long and creepy that would make the run so I turned the music back on ... With Josh Groban's music on I was able to relax and proceed with the run.

I reached Lake Stevens faster than I though I would.  The run from Marysville to Lake Stevens is downhill.  When I reached 20th Street trailhead, about 7 miles more into the run, I was pretty happy with myself and how I felt.  So decided to press on for Snohomish.  From there on it was about 7 miles of rolling hills.  There was also more spot close to lighted roads so less darkness to deal with. I kept a good pace throughout.  Nearing Snohomish past midnight, I had the scariest episode of the run.  Finally back in the street light I could see my shadow "running" ahead of me ... By then I was in final stretch mode where I picked the pace up significantly, less than a mile from my pickup point on 2nd and Avenue D, when all the sudden I saw a second, lighter shadow overtaking my shadow ... I literally jumped in the air and did a 180, just a reflex, to see who was running up to me like that.  Half way in the air, I could see nothing, nobody, behind me!  I got spooked by my own shadow lol

Oh well... I though that was funny.  SGF was awesome and stayed up to come extract me.  Easy pickup as I sent her ahead my final location.  Avoided some of the confusion we had on some other pickups before!  The final run was 3:30 and I covered about 21.2 miles.

That was going to be the last run for that day, but little did I know I would put in another 7 miles that same Saturday night at Seafair ... Read about that in my next article !

New Page added to SBFRUNS!

I added a new page to my blog.  It's a salad recipe page.  I will update it as I add new finds and old favorite.  Tonight's recipes is Lentil Salad, which I prepared and will have tomorrow at lunch.  Check it out now!

Insanity - Day 16

Yesterday was the first Fit Test since I started Insanity.  The results were I would say non-conclusive lol.  In areas I seem to be real good at I seem to either have lost ground or not progressed while I saw some pretty good improvements through other exercises:

Move	Test 1	Test 2	delta	% Delta
1 - Switch kicks	101	95	-6	0.941
2 - Power Jacks	43	43	0	1.000
3 - Power Knees	71	84	13	1.183
4 - Power Jumops	44	55	11	1.250
5 - Globe Jumps	10	9	-1	0.900
6 - Suicide Jumps	16	21	5	1.313
7 - Push-Up Jacks	21	26	5	1.238
8 - Low Plank Oblique	36	40	4	1.111

Noteworthy though how easy was the warm-up the second time around.  I had forgot that the fit-test warms up with just one sequence instead of three like the workouts.  When I took the first Fit Test the warm-up felt hard.  This time around I was surprised how short the warm-up was.  I think I may not have "brought it" all.  Though on the upside, my forms really improved in these 2 weeks.

I found that 2 days off Insanity in a row work real good for me.   It allows me to continue running hard.  Today 7/17, I did St  Andrews so I'll give me partial credit for Plyo that I skipped because I had to pick family at the airport.  During the run I noticed that my heart rate on these average hills (about .5 miles, 17% grade) peaked at 149 BPM.  I think Insanity has helped in that aspect.

Tomorrow, it's Pure Cardio / Abs.  I'll blog more about that ab workout.  it's very different from other ab workouts.

Hello ya'll !!  Yesterday my son son, a friend of his and myself drove to the a place nicknamed "jumping cliff" off the Washougal river.  Long drive for us, about 4 hours, but so worth the drive!  I had planned all along to hit a trail there.  As we were looking for the swimming hole we drove past a trail head that turned out to be Three Corner Rock Trail.

After dropping the kids off I headed off to the trail.  It was pretty awesome run.  The trail start with a healthy climb up, starting at just about 300 feet up.  I could feel the elevation gain.  I reached 1289 feet at the highest point of the run.  The round trip was about 7.1 miles. I would had loved doing the round trip (which is about 15 miles) but since I headed out without a map I set myself a realistic target to turn around an hour in the run (unless of course the trail was shorter).  I took a break and turned around 55 minutes in.  With steep climbs comes fast downhills and the trip back was a load of fast fun.  Most the trail is fairly easy albeit narrow at times.  The trail turns into dry creek's rock bed at times which ins't so much an issue on the climb up than down where I was being extra cautious as to not roll an ankle.

Looking up the trail description now I see that there was views and meadows probably no very far from my turn around ... So yeah I am bummed I didn't make it to any kind of summit.  But the swim afterwards made up for that ten fold!.  The best part of the run was jumping in the water after I got back.  I stripped down to my underwear and joined the kids who had been hanging at the hole while I was running.  It was reminiscent of one of my fondest memory from my teens:  I headed out on a hike on a very hot summer day in CA while camping.  I was following a river bed.  I just loved doing that type of exploratory hike even back then.  Several hours in, I was hot, sweaty and thirsty.  I was walking by this random water hole.  I stripped down to nothing and just ... jumped in.  I still remember the cooling soothing feeling swimming in the cold water I felt as the water was submerging my body.  The swim after the run yesterday felt just like that!  It was amazing because although I still remember of that dip felt like 20 years later I really not expected I would get to experience it again in my life.

Looking up-river at the swimming hole.  There is a large cave that lies behind the jumping cliff too.

  I am so glad we went there!

P90X Works!

Doing P90X improved my athletic abilities greatly.  No doubt about it.  I haven't posted while I was doing it because I was so busy between keeping the P90x workouts up as well as training for the Seattle RnR.  But I still feel the P90X fire burning inside as I hit the gym now and would like to share the fire with you too .  As my endeavor with Insanity continues I sprinkle a little weight training on my weekly routine.  I feel more confident after having pushed through P90X when it comes to weight training.  In the privacy of the home and with the feedback through the challenge group I joined in April, I learned to push much harder then I ever have in the past.  I saw myself as just "not the guy that lift heavy" before ... but no more.

For years I did some weigh training, I kept the reps high where I wouldn't have to face the pain and difficulty of hitting heavy.  During the last 4 weeks of P90X I decided to try harder.  I was reading about the workouts of one of the challenge group member and the weights he was pushing and I figured, well why not me?  After 8 weeks of P90X I had realized that I was putting myself in a box. P90X brought me out the box.

This month I am working on my V-taper by incorporating pull-ups/chin-ups/Dumbbell chest presses and dead lift a couple of days a week.  I added also some bicep routine to help maintain my gain in my arms.  I have done this basic workout 3 times so far, each time varying the basic workout a little by adding a different routine at the end, switching the pull-ups around or simply adding some pushups.  My variation today went like this:

warmup 10 min bike
pullups:
Mid/front - Wide/front - Chin-ups/neutral 6x/5x
Lat pull downs 100# x8 (failure) then x7 + hold to failure
Chest -
10 pushups / Decline dumbell presses 30# alternate 8x too easy
10 pushups / Decline dumbell presses 40# alternate 6x
10 military pushups / Decline dumbell 40# alternate failure at 5, swithch to 30# 8x alternate
For the hell of it ... tried one handed pushups after 2 min rest ... did 3 sets of 3 each arm dropping at about 6-10 inches ... on my knees still but it almost feels like my core is able to support full weight ... my arms are not there yet though
Back
Dead lefts 80# barbell 3 reps
Arms
Bicep curls 25# 24- 4 curl & hold P90x still ... although I took a 30s break at 16
For keeps I hit the Hammer strength pulldown machine at the end ...
12 @ 90+0
10 @ 90+20
5 @ 90+40
5 @ 90+20
9 @ 90+0
Cool down - 10 min on bike

total workout took about 50 min :)  ... I felt awesome afterwards!

Goat Flat, Try 1

Wow, it's been a while since I wrote last.  Since my last post I have graduated from P90X, PR Seattle RnR at 4:11 and started Insanity, and committed to Quadzilla 2012 ((in my mind at least lol) .

I ended up taking a couple days off Insanity Saturday and Sunday.  Worked out at the gym with SGF Saturday, and hit the trails Sunday.  I ran 18.5 miles up FR 41 on Green Mountain, east of Granite Falls, WA.  It had been a while since I ran a high elevation change like that so even though the run wasn't technical it was still tough from that aspect.

Run stats at http://www.movescount.com/mymoves/edit/move6258552

First waterfall on the way up ... The green color is astonishing!

The glacier in the background are barely visible in this picture but were a beautiful sight .as I crossed a small creek ...

After crossing the smaller creek, about ten miles in the run I decided this was the end of the road for me.  After a couple of minutes resting and snacking I started the trip back ...

Most of the run was under canopy except the first couple (and last couple) miles of the loop where the road was large and had several spot spot where they were harvesting timber.  Although sad to see trees gone this was a welcome sight as I knew I was close to the car at about 16-17 miles in the run ...

This wasn't my intended destination though.  I was trying to reach Goat FLat,  an alpine meadow that leads ultimately to the Three Finger lookout. It looks like I went up the wrong road, talking to some people I met on the way back.  I had parked at a fork with the road going up to the left and down to the right.

I looked at Google Maps again I can see the fork I stopped.  A couple people I met on the way down mention that there was a lake "down" the other road off the fork.  On Google map  FR41 leads close to Saddle Lake.  The trail head starts about 2-3 miles away from Saddle lake.  I found that little bit of information at this climber's trip report.  Looking through this site I think I could manage the trip up to the meadow then hit the traverse trail to Tin Can Gap to the base of the glacier.

Will update this blog after my attempt to find trail #741 again ... This weekend possibly!