Week 15, 2013: Another good week.

I was tired after the previous week. Monday was a day off but on Tuesday I decided to do a fast run, as planned. I missed my PB on my usual route by full 50 seconds. Then I followed up with two recovery runs.

As usual, most of the action was left for the weekend. On Saturday I decided to do something unusual. Instead of a long run, I decided to do a hill time trail on the Black mountain. It's been over 2 months since I raced there so I was curious how I'll do. I started strong, going fast and of course I paid the price for that. One big difference with my winter running there was that now it was hot. And I had no water with me. So the last bits were a big struggle. Damn, I forgot how steep that bloody thing is! I finished in 1:03:14, whereas at the beginning of February it took me 1:00:30 to get to the top.

Curiously enough I decided I didn't have enough for the day. It's getting warm these days so I decided to try a night run; something I need to train for the 100-miler anyway. I went to another favorite mountain of mine -- Mission Peak. This time however I had no intention of going fast; on the contrary it was supposed to be a slow recovery run.

Indeed going up was so slow that I was even wondering whether it was a good night-time running training; I had so much time to look around that it was hardly challenging. But then the way down should be interesting, right?

Things at night are kind of funny. I passed dozens of cows, sleeping by the road -- they are a permanent fixture there, also during the day, when I'd hardly pay any attention to them. At night, they seemed much more ominous though. I woke up one that was sleeping just next to the road and I was sure that the sound it made roughly translated to Hey Dude, can't you see I'm sleeping here? Move along fast or I'll find out how fast you can really run.

Later on, I saw a frog. When it's ugly head showed up in my headlamp light, gulping air and staring at me with its huge glowing eyes... I have to admit I got kinda scared. In my defense: it was a really big frog, ok?! :P

Finally at the peek I saw a coyote, which made me think: ok, what next? Seems that running at night can be interesting.

Going down is pretty uneventful. At least until the moment when I reach the cow I made friends with before and this time I almost trip over it. Surprisingly it hardly reacts. Probably by now it thinks I'm a lost cause.

The following day I still want to salvage the mileage and do a long weekend run, however I have no energy to face any more hills. So, just as last week, I decide to do a long flat run along the bay -- 25K this time. The only thing worth noting is that I see two snakes. The first one is big. The second one is huge. It's over a meter long. I swear I'm not exaggerating. It almost completely blocked a two track dirt road. I don't know squat about snakes but I bet it was completely harmless. Still, it gave me the shivers. At least I was not alone as the biker that come from the opposite direction almost jumped out of his bike upon seeing it (cannot blame him really).

In the end I did over 95 kilometers. Great week. But I still hope to top it next week :) (the following week my family is visiting and it will be hard to keep up with intense training).

P.S. Boston. Why some people are such sick $@#%'s?? :(