Week 10 (44.6) - San Fran Hills

It wasn't a great week for running ...and this probably won't be much of a post. I overslept on Thursday and stood up Roger on a planned tempo. It's been insanely busy at work, but Leticia and I had planned to take the girls on vacation for a while and finally managed to get our act together enough to book a trip. There really wasn't any chance of running on Friday as we woke in Oakland after a late night of traveling and had to catch a taxi to San Francisco ...college visits and a full day, which turned out to be too full for two 15-year olds who got tired of non-stop walking. On Saturday, I woke up sore from a sleeper sofa with a thin matress and an iron bar in the middle, put on my new $41 Wave Runner 10's that I found online and headed up California Street toward Golden Gate Park. For anyone who hasn't been to San Francisco, it's extremely hilly ...although you can avoid some of them if you know the right streets to take ...which I didn't. I didn't have water or gel, so I managed 35 minutes out and 33 back and never made it to the park. Since I didn't have a Garmin, the best I could do was guess on mileage and since the hills were severely steep, I guessed the overall pace at just under 9:00, so maybe 7.5 miles total. I only saw two other runners. Obviously, none of the locals run California Street.

Sunday, I got up at 5:45 and was running by 6:00. No coffee. No sports page. It was foggy and the city was pretty much asleep. I had a 20 oz 7-11 brand lake-green Gatorade in my hand and the temps were in the low 50's. Slight coffee headache. I'd taken a better look at the map the night before and got to the edge of the park in just over 30 minutes. The International AIDS walk was starting at 8:00 and the park was packed. I ran around every spot that looked interesting and eventually got confused about where I was in the park, but caught a break and popped out without actually having to admit to myself I'd been lost at all. By the time I got back to the hotel, I was 45 seconds short of two hours ...so I ran around the block once. I guessed this run to be a tad faster than Saturday, but not much. Maybe an 8:45 pace and 13.5 miles. I'm trying to decide if I should credit myself with more miles since it was hill work. At any rate, I finished the week with only 44+ miles, which kinda sucks because when I tried to run Monday night, I was too sore and had to turn around after about 5 steps.

Hopefully, I'll get a decent run in Tuesday morning because I'll be in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday, and I'm not sure about the neighborhood. The new week will be a light one as well. I'm sure it's fine and maybe even a good thing from a recovery standpoint to have a couple of low mile weeks ...but it won't help my confidence one bit. I don't like business travel. It's a pain, but I do get to catch up on my reading. At the moment, I'm in the middle of "The Long Emergency" and it's scaring me to death.