Pac Rim Part 7

So Gail and I are training for the Vernonia Marathon in early April. We needed a 20 miler this weekend and we were bored running 'round da hood. So we haven't been up to Longview for Pac Rim 24 hour run for about 4 years. Life happens and we just missed it. Fred is awesome so we figured we would donate to the cause and do our 20 miles in one mile loops.

Gail had to work late on Friday so we just showed up at the start 3 hours late at noon. "Hey, it's a chip timed run and we were not going to run for 24 hours!". I know lazy bums we are but it was great to sleep in a bit. We finally started running about 12:20 and the weather was perfect, clouds and about 60 degrees. I ran the first 5 miles with Gail then wanted to push a bit to get a strong 20 in. Now strong to me is quite different than it used to be. With the bad pelvis injury and a bit of arthritis in both knees and my good hip I run much more contained these days. Like you have heard me say, "I am just happy to be able to do this". My run went well, I ate plenty and stayed well hydrated. At mile 20 took a break and Gail and I started walking together. We walked 4 or 5 miles then started jogging a bit. Later Karen  came out and it was great to have her with us for the last 5 miles or so of our WOG. I got my 50k in and Gail had one more lap to do. We got very cool sweatshirts from the race. Not sure what brand but they are cozy!

I felt pretty good about being able to finish a 50k with not having done a 20 mile run in the last 5 months so I think we are both on a pretty good track to finish Vernonia in pretty good shape. Hopefully no death march to the finish.

The good news is I have more miles in this month by the 22nd than I have run in any month since last July! Yeah for actually training. It is such a new concept to me!

Oh yeah the title? I have ran this race 7 times now. A few 60+ milers, 50 milers...40 and a couple of 50k's or something like that. I like gettin' loopy.

6 X 5k = 30k Champoeg Race

Gail and I decided to run the ORRC 30k at Champoeg as a training run. We have a goal race of doing the Vernonia Marathon in early April. Neither of us ran much this winter. I think I got 65 miles in January and barely 100 in February. I got out often just short distances. So we both made out training plans and figured a while back that we better get the long runs in if we were not going to die at Vernonia.

Champoeg park had an issue with the wooden bridge this year so instead of running 3 10k loops we did 6 5k loops, which by the way I really enjoyed. It seemed to go by much quicker running the nice 3.1 mile loop rather than going all the way out to the east end of the park before turning around. The weather turned out to be perfect! Probably 57 at the start and mid to low 60's by the finish with touches of blue sky.

Ever since my injury my training pace is just over a 10 min/mile. Slow yes but it is what allows me to continue to run. My goal for Vernonia is a 10 min pace or about a 4:25 marathon. So I figured if I could do a 9:30 pace for the first 20k then see how I feel for the last 10k. Well I felt pretty darn good. I had some great chats with other runners and the volunteers. So I figured I would just keep on doing what was working. I ended up running exactly a 9:30 pace. So I finished under 3 hours and felt great after the race.

I will most likely get a 50k at Pacific Rim One Day Run in two weeks at Longview. I always enjoy this course and I will just make it a run/walk but ensure I get at least 20 miles of running in. I will probably just do a 11 minute pace, so I don't over due it. Take some good breaks and just enjoy the day. I would like to get one more 16 to 18 mile run at race pace so that will probably happen two weeks prior to race day.