One year ago today, I ran my first half marathon with virtually no preparation. I had not ever been a runner so I was curious to see if I could run 13.1 miles -- and I did, which was a pleasant surprise for me. I finished the Seattle '05 Half Marathon in 1 hour, 47 minutes and change. I decided I needed to train and shave a few minutes off that time by getting in better shape and running a smarter race. So I spent most of the past year running... and running... and running... I logged about 800 miles this year while trying to improve my aerobic conditioning and strengthening the ligaments in my ankles and other joints. In fact, I declared a year ago that I was going to run a full marathon at some point this year (2006) but a recurring ankle injury plagued me and forced me to postpone that goal.

So I signed up for the 2006 Seattle Half Marathon, which happened this morning.

It was snowing this morning and the temperature was in the mid-thirties and there were mud puddles everywhere. Not the best of conditions, but not unlike most of my recent training runs.

I finished today's race (which should in and of itself be worthy of my satifaction, though it is not) about 3 minutes SLOWER than last year (at 1 hour, 50 minutes, 25 seconds)!!! I guess I still am not in very good shape -- perhaps WORSE than a year ago? And I think I ran a pretty uninspired and stupid race. I started out way too fast (chasing my Ironman / Divison I college swimmer friend Robin) and got my heart rate up too high for the first 4 miles, which forced me to back off and recover for the next couple miles -- and by then, it was too late for me to make a move.

Here's me near the finish line; the picture is blurry because I was running so fast. Not.



I continue to be frustrated by the fact that my heart rate shoots up when I run. I have to run so damn slowly in order to stay in a solidly aerobic zone, that I get bored when I do so. However, if I let myself to get within touching distance of my anaerobic threshold, there is no way I can sustain for more than a few short miles. While I was redlining at about 193 beats per minute while running up 5th Ave this morning, I'm sure Robin's heart rate was down somewhere in the range of 130. He beat me by about six minutes today.

I finished 784th overall (out of 7 thousand plus) and 117th out of 403 in my age group. The first half of the race took me about 51:22 and the second half (the hilly part) took me about 58:59. I think I averaged about 8:25 per mile, which is a good 10 or 15 seconds slower than my pace a year ago. Ouch! Here's a breakdown of my splits, as best as I could track them given the really poor visibility of mile markers on the course today:

Mile split times -- Average HR -- Maximum HR

1- 8:09 176 193
2- 8:04 176 193
3- 7:56 183 193
4- 8:16 183 188
5- 8:49 178 181
6- 8:49 177 184
7- 8:49 176 179
8- 8:52 177 186
9- 8:52 177 186
10- 8:53 177 186
11- 7:45 176 181
12- 7:48 176 181
13- 8:31 179 185
.1- :51 179 185


Miles 5, 6, and 7 are the flattest, easiest part of the course. That's where I struggled today, as I recovered from miles 1 through 4 and anticipated the long hills. I just checked last year's data and it looks like I wimped out pretty badly on that same stretch. However, this year I didn't charge up the hills with the heart of a mountain climber; instead, I timidly jogged up, wanting to save some energy for the last 2 or 3 miles which I ran so slowly and painfully last year. Unfortunately, I didn't even run the finish better than last year.

I had VERY modest goals for today's race. Given that my ankle injury basically wiped out all of August and September for me, and I spent most of October vacationing, I guess it should be no surprise that I sucked so badly today. I went in to today's race with what I thought was a reasonable set of attainable goals:

1) run no slower than last year
2) finish stronger than last year
3) not get hurt this time

I utterly failed to accomplish 1 and 2. Number 3 is in serious doubt as I sit here with my right foot and ankle buried in a bucket of ice.

Anyway, I am forced to contemplate the Triumph and Disaster thing once again. I don't much like this Imposter called Underachievement but I guess I better get used to it because it seems to like me a whole lot.

Oh yeah, I LIKE running. There's that, at least. Gotta keep reminding myself about that fact. I run because I enjoy it. Right? Right? (Why do I wear a damn watch when I run, then??? Huh? Maybe it's time to throw the watch away. I'm tired of seeing my heart rate push 200 bpm and my slow split times. Ha. Goodbye, $200 Polar watch...)

Vacation Part 2:

After arriving home in Seattle (see prior post), we spent about 3 hours doing laundry and re-packing for the next phase in our adventure. Late that afternoon, we drove to Mt. Baker -- this time in my car!

Mt. Baker is the northernmost of the volcanic peaks in the Cascades. It is near my hometown of Bellingham. Lorinda and I rented a little cabin near Mt. Baker. The cabin had a hot tub, which we were both looking forward to after having traveled so many miles by motorcycle, sandwiched around four days of rock climbing. Here's the cabin:



Our intention was to spend Friday and Saturday hiking near Mt. Baker. The hills surrounding the last few miles of the Mt. Baker Highway are full of gorgeous hikes, only very few of which I've ever done. I brought along my hiking trail book and we figured we'd choose whatever sort of hike suited us.

And we chose well! Friday morning we opted for the Skyline Ridge hike. After about four and a half miles of plodding up through the deep forest, we crested at Skyline Ridge and were treated to a pretty cool view of the north side of Mt. Baker:



As you can see, we were blessed with perfectly sunny weather on this day. The quality of the autumn light was strange but inspiring.



I was pretty tired. Lorinda let me nap for a little bit:



We wandered along the ridge for quite awhile, approaching Mt. Baker. It was hard to watch our feet because the views above us were so stunning:



Baker's little brother, Mt. Shuksan, also came out to play:



When we looked west, we could see a marine layer of cloudcover heading inland. We had a strong suspicion that this gorgeous, sunny day we were enjoying so much just might be the last sunny day in quite awhile. We were in no hurry to descend back into the forest. So we lingered, until we got hungry -- and then we went back to the cabin and ate and hot-tubbed.

The next day was, in fact, cloudy, but not rainy. Lorinda chose the Lake Anne hike out of my book so we drove up to the end of the Mt. Baker Highway and started walking towards Mt. Shuksan. It was considerably cooler on Saturday, so we had to stay bundled up most of the time as we walked through the beautiful forest:



Lorinda insisted on taking several pictures of the awesome scenery. The colors were terrific!



Eventually we arrived at Lake Anne, a lake which in and of itself is unremarkable. I apologize to whoever Anne is, but her lake is pretty boring.




Perhaps it's only boring because when you get to Lake Anne and turn left, you are treated to a front row view of the Curtis Glacier on Mt. Shuksan:



More fall colors:



Saturday night we celebrated Lorinda's actual birthday with a no-sugar-added fruit pie and a nice dinner. Oh, and the hot tub. The hot tub came in handy.

On Sunday we drove home to Seattle. I felt relaxed and flushed with excitement and a sense of accomplishment after such an amazing vacation. We had spent 9 or 10 days traveling about 900 miles on motorcycles, 4 days of rock climbing, and two days of beautiful hiking. I don't think I've ever had such an enjoyable time.

Of course, I look forward to our next adventure. Haven't mapped that one out yet, but we'll figure out something.

We capped the late summer / early fall dry season with a memorable bike trip -- about a month ago. I am an infrequent blogger, even when I have good material. I'll attempt to recount the fun adventures of our last trip...

Lorinda decided she wanted to do something fun for her birthday (10/14), so she arranged a four-day guided rock climbing class at Smith Rock State Park near Bend, Oregon. Smith Rock is a world-famous rock climbing mecca and boasts 1500+ climbing routes. I had never been there, so I was anxious to check it out.

Of course, the idea of travelling there BY CAR was completely out of the question. We loaded down our motorcycles with all our climbing gear and headed south from Seattle on the morning of Friday, October 6th. The sky was grey and we encountered some sprinkly rain within the first hour of riding.

The easiest and quickest way to get to Bend, Oregon from Seattle is to cruise south on I-5, then cut over on highway 26 when you get into Oregon. Basically a straight shot, and takes about 6 hours by car. So of course we chose a different route: we rode along state routes 161 and 7 south, just west of Mt. Rainier, and worked our way east along Interstate 12 to the little town of Randle. The drive south from Randle (on 131) takes you right by the east flank of Mt. St. Helens and it is gorgeous country, with views of Mt. Adams to the east and the severed head of St. Helens near enough to reach out and touch.

The only problem? It started raining, HARD! Our goal had been to ride up the famous 23 mile road which takes you to the Windy Ridge Visitor Center near Spirit Lake, on Mt. St. Helens. As we turned onto the Windy Ridge road, the rain started coming down even harder and our visibility was reduced to almost nothing -- which was really bad because the road became a tight, twisty monster.

After 9 miles of creeping along the tight turns at about 10 miles an hour, with our helmet visors pushed up in order to see anything at all, we finally pulled off the road and made the decision to descend back down to 131 and keep heading south. Windy Ridge would have to wait for another day -- hopefully a sunny one.

At the bottom of the Windy Ridge Road (National Forest road 99) we paused and took stock of our state of wetness. We both were becoming acutely aware of the deficiencies of our motorcycle gear -- in terms of staying warm in really wet conditions. My new motorcycle gloves, for example, though advertised as windproof and waterproof, failed to keep my hands dry at all. Here's a picture of me trying to stay warm:



We were cold and wet but we still had a long way to go, so we hunched our shoulders against the cold rain and kept moving south.

After climbing, then descending, we eventually escaped the oppressive rainfall. Cruising through the deep woods was quite a thrill and I'm sure we would have seen spectacular views had it not been so grey and misty. Eventually we reached the Columbia River near the town of Carson, and headed east along the Washington side of the river until we could cross at The Dalles. The skies were clear by this time, though the sun was quite low in the sky so we never really got completely dried out by the sunshine. We stopped in The Dalles for dinner, and noted that it was 5 PM and we still had about 140 miles to get to our destination.

About 6 PM we bundled up as much as we possibly could (I was literally wearing every t-shirt, long-sleeve shirt, jacket, and coat that I had brought with me) and started our way south along Interstate 97. It was dark by now, and got colder and colder as we climbed our way onto the high desert plateau of central Oregon. I distracted myself from the discomfort by focusing on the surreal beauty surrounding me: to my left, a full moon rose and lit up the rolling desert hills; to my right, I could see the sharp silhouettes of Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson, looking like grey Pyramids stamped against the twilight.

We kept our bikes rolling between 80 and 90 mph, knowing that the sooner we got to our destination, the sooner we could strip off our wet clothes and reverse the onset of hypothermia. Of course, the faster we drove, the colder it got. Sort of a Catch-22, but we still opted for faster. Plus, it's kind of fun to ride really fast. We were lucky that no deer decided to commit suicide-by-bike that night. I was too busy checking out the moon so I probably would have not even seen the deer coming.

Eventually we arrived at our destination: Eagle Crest Resort in the town of Redmond, about 30 miles north of Bend. It was about 9:30 when we staggered into the lobby of the resort office. Our 12 hour bike trip was finally over, and a long, hot shower restored my body heat quickly. My forearms and shoulders felt completely wiped out after such a long journey, which concerned me because we were about to begin a four day rock climbing adventure. Great.

At 8 AM the next morning, we met our guide: Mark, from Timberline Mountain Guides. He took us (Lorinda, me, Jen, and Ellen) down into the canyon and we started climbing. The sun shone and it was a beautiful day!



Here's a picture of Lorinda on the famous hueco wall at Smith Rock:



Smith Rock is an amazing place. It appears to be an old caldera, broken down over time by the ravages of wind and water (mostly). The remaining volcanic walls make for some fun climbing. Here's a shot of the southernmost part of the canyon, called (I think) The Phoenix Wall:



We spent most of the four days climbing in the main part of the canyon. On the left, you can see a pathway which grants access to dozens and dozens of bolted routes:



Since there were four of us in the group, we often had two ropes going at a time. Here's Jen in the foreground, belaying someone; Lorinda is in the background, belaying someone else:



I've done a fair amount of climbing outdoors, but I've never really gotten very good at rock climbing. I've always tended to brute-force my way up the wall, often employing such unconventional techniques such as the "dry-hump" and the "thigh-crusher" and the "cling-desperately-to-anything-you-can-get-your-hands-on". Our guide Mark was extremely helpful in offering all sorts of technique advice to us novice climbers. Here's a picture of Mark helping Jen figure out what to do next:



Near the end of each day of climbing, we all got pretty pooped. Here's Lorinda and Jen taking it easy:



Our second day of climbing was memorable because we spent a fair amount of time crack-climbing. Here's me wedged into a crack:



All in all, our four days at Smith Rock were brilliant. In the evenings, we drove to Bend and had good burgers and brew at The Bend Brewing Company. Most nights, we were in bed befeore 9 PM due to exhaustion.

On Wednesday, Lorinda and I still had to ride our bikes back to Seattle. We now knew that the trip was going to take about 12 hours, so we knew we needed to get an early start. The only problem was that the nighttime temperatures in the high desert were dropping way below freezing and the mornings were very, very cold. We decided to lounge around Wednesday morning and let the sun come up and melt the ice off our bikes before we headed out. So we left around 9:30 and embarked on a different route home, thinking we'd see some new beautiful country in north central Oregon. And we sure did!

From Redmond, we traveled West to the little town of Sisters where we stopped for breakfast. Sisters is a quaint little town located very close to Mt. Bachelor and South/North Sister mountains, visible to the south. From Sisters we headed north on 22 and were treated to beautiful views of several other mountain peaks, including Blue Lake Crater and Mt. Jefferson. The Santiam Pass was absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately, we didn't stop to take pictures but I would highly recommend this stretch of scenic byway.

We stayed on 22 until it started angling West towards the boring town of Salem and the unappealing I-5. At the hamlet of Detroit, Oregon, we turned north onto Breitenbush Road, also known as National Forest Road 46. According to our maps, this road would take us, more or less, back up to Interstate 26 near Mt. Hood, via some other sketchy looking forest service roads. We spent most of the next couple hours feeling completely lost and worried that we were on a dead end or heading in completely the wrong direction, or perhaps in circles. We followed our intuition and eventually I think we followed our intended route precisely. For several miles, we found ourselves on a twisty one-lane forest service road and we desperately hoped no one would come flying around a corner and smash into us.

A couple miles before we reached Interstate 26, we encountered a herd of cattle taking up most of the road. They were sort of grazing along the ditch. The noise of our bikes startled them and they started trotting along the road in the same direction we were going. We would have passed immediately, but we were on a blind corner so sort of lingered behind the cattle for awhile, until Lorinda got impatient and revved her bike to let her after-market tailpipe send a message to them: Get Out Of My Way! The startled cow nearest me let loose a nasty, green liquid stream of feces in my direction as Lorinda sped past. Left with the choice of skidding through a lake of cow poop or speeding around a blind corner on the wrong side of the road -- I chose the latter.

We hooked up with I-26 not far from Frog Lake, a few miles south of Mt. Hood. As we drove north, the dry southern flank of Hood grew bigger and bigger in our view. The chairlifts, standing still on the brown dirt, reminded us that winter ski season was just around the corner and this whole area would be transformed shortly into one of the most amazing collection of ski areas in the northwest. We intersected with route 35 near the town of Government Camp, and decided to stay east of Mt. Hood and continue our route north rather than west toward the Portland suburbs.

An hour or so later as we approached the town of Hood River, Oregon on the Columbia River, we were treated to spectacular views of Mt. Adams to the north. It was late afternoon by now. We had talked about maybe getting all the way to Windy Ridge on the way home and taking another stab at it, but we were quickly losing daylight. We decided to press on, in lieu of eating, so that we could have a chance at Windy Ridge.

We crossed the toll bridge over to Washington, then raced towards Carson where we picked up the road northward which would take us back up to Mt. St. Helens, retracing our route from five days earlier. The increased visibility and sunshine on this day was a sharp contrast to our experience then. A few miles before Windy Ridge, we pulled off at the McClellan viewpoint and soaked up this view of Mt. St. Helens in the fading daylight:



At exactly 5:30 we reached the bottom of Windy Ridge Road. We stopped and had a quick conference. We realized we were 30 minutes from sunset; the air was getting quite colder every minute; the 23 miles of road was going to take us probably 45 minutes or more to get to the top; we still had a LONG way to go to get home. As a result, we decided to postpone, again, our trip to the top.

30 minutes later we got to Randle and turned West on Interstate 12. The air got even colder and we both were suffering quite a bit from the chill, and were hungry, and wondering how the heck we were going to make it all the way back to Seattle. We pulled off at Morton a few miles later, shivering and hungry. As we pulled into the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant, we both spotted the "Vacancy" sign on a motel across the lot, and both had the same thought.

Over dinner, we quickly agreed that pressing on towards Seattle in the cold would be dangerous at worst and extremely uncomfortable at best, so we stayed the night in Morton.

We slept in late on Thursday in order to let the sun rise as high as possible. Mt. Rainier blocked the morning sunlight considerably, so we were in no hurry to get on the road. Eventually we headed out, probably around 10 o'clock, and worked our way back home around midday.

But our vacation was only half over... (See next post).