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Mapleton Run with AMBER

September 23, 2009 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
So I'm at work around 11 and it's getting smokier and smokier -- a nasty HAZE in town and smells like a campfire. NOT GOOD.

I thought of driving west for a run, just to get away from it a bit. It'd be a huge waste of time, but whatever -- I'm in taper, I'll spoil myself. As a pure SHOT OUT OF THE DARK, I emailed AMBER to see if she wanted to come with and, astonishingly -- even though I said I was doing tempo, and I KNEW she did hers yesterday -- she said yes!

So before I knew it, it was 5PM and she was walking into the clinic -- short-shorts and all, ready to run! :)

We hopped in my car and were off westward. It was slow-going d/t traffic, but we got in some good chat tyme, which was great.

We had to look at a map for places to go because we didn't have time to go all the way to Florence. We finally stopped at Mapleton, a TINY town on the Siulsaw River, about 15mi from the ocean and ran from there.

We found a little, rolling road (THE road in Siuslaw), and ran on that. There were mile marks, but I decided against using them for the AT. Instead, after about 3 mi warm-up (pretty easy ~7:20s maybe), I did 4x 5min pick-ups. Amber did the first 2 with me. The first one was pretty slow because I wanted to warm into it AND I was talking the whole time. 1 min rest in between, then another one. Amber actually pushed the pace on the 2nd one, then she bowed out and I did 2 more on my own.

After the 2nd it legitmately began to get dark. Didn't help that we were in this steep river valley. The last one was pretty much in the dark, so when I looped back to try to find Amber, I could barely see her 'til I was on top of her (not LITRALLY, of course!). The last rep turned out to be 6:45 just to catch her. Then an easy 1+ish back to the car.

Ran in the TRANditos, which felt fine. However, they put me on my toes a bit so my calves got sore. MUST not do that on race day.

Drove home. VERY FUN. About 3.5 hours total for a 9 mile run, but WORTH IT. The air was clear, we had a nice rolling river road, and very little traffic. And good company and "good scenery"! :) :)