Run, Koper, run

As you probably noticed the widgets with my weekly exercises got a fresh look over the last few weeks. That's because I kinda revived my Let's create a sporting website idea. This is probably a good topic for another post. But it's not what I wanted to talk about it here. Although it's related. Well, the thing is that what gave me the impulse to revive this idea (two months ago or so) was, well, another idea. I wanted to create a map of my runs. All my runs. Firstly I thought it would be cool to have that. Secondly, it was also a practical consideration: I'm now quite advanced into exploring all the fun places to run in the Bay Area and without such a map it is getting increasingly difficult to keep track of where I was and where I still need to go. So I was very enthusiastic about making it. Gladly, before jumping head first into implementing it, I did a little research and... realized it's been done. Good folks at raceshape.com did exactly that, by interfa...

First part of the week: recovering after the race . Ok, not completely recovering because on Tuesday and Wednesday I went for CrossFit. On Thursday I wanted to go as well there was only one minor problem: I could hardly move :). Did I mention already that I'm a total CrossFit convert? ;) I also did a faster run on Thursday but I didn't expect my pace to be too impressive and, well, it wasn't. And then it was the weekend. Long weekend in fact, as Monday is off -- Memorial day. My initial plan was to use this rare opportunity and go to Grand Canyon, but I came up with this idea too late and the plane tickets were already super expensive. So no Grand Canyon this time. Instead I came up with an interesting idea. In November last year I went to Yosemite and run 100 miles over 4 days, sort of as a preparation for the upcoming 100-miler. This time I didn't have 4 days. I had 3... :) This time my base was at home and I decided to explore some places that were a bit more ...

I wake up at 6:30am on Sunday morning and the usual (or rather: usual for 6am on Sunday morning) thought strikes me: Why am I doing it?? I sure could use some more sleep. Preparations take me a bit longer than planned so the timing gets tight. I jump in the car and hope to make up for the lost time on the way. No go. For the most part the road is winding like a snake around the mountain, so the best I can do is to stick to my GPS' predictions. So I'm a bit worried when I get there, but gladly I picked my number the previous day... in fact, while at it I got myself a nice, new running vest , which I was to try out during the race; how did it go? Don't ask... It's embarrassing to admit, but I didn't exactly figure out how the bottles work ;). But I think the vest has a lot of potential. Anyway. In the end everything works out perfectly and I'm ready to roll when the time comes. Shortly after the start I realize that it's gonna be a super hot day. What...

It's been such a long time since I raced... too long. Except for the totally disastrous LA marathon in March, my last 50K race was the Montara Mountain race in that same month. But let's start at the beginning. On Monday I am seeing my family off, so no time for sport. On Tuesday I go for my first CrossFit workout. We do presses, walking lunges and snatches, followed by a 1-mile run. It is intense (read: good). In the evening I go for a hill run -- Black Mountain -- and what a run it is! After CrossFit I went for dinner and only afterwards drove to Black Mountain. That means that when I start running it's already pretty late. I don't know what's wrong with my brain but I don't realize that by the time I'll be back it's going to be dark. Completely dark. The irony is that I even have my headlamp in the car but I don't take it and happily start climbing Black Mountain. It's such a tough route. I always naively think that I can kinda run to th...

I kick off this week with a fast run on Tuesday and it's a total disaster, confirmed by my result. I don't even want to talk about it. However, I still manage to follow up with a night run on that day. That's quite an achievement as this week I'm also doing the prep course of CrossFit and that's quite a workout. I'm planning to do the same thing on Thursday and to run twice on top of the CrossFit workout. I'm tired and oversleep in the morning so instead of the hill run I go for an easy run, planning to do the latter in the evening. But after 4th in a row day with a CrossFit training I'm totally tired and don't have any energy left to do any running in the evening so I call it off. I'm still hoping to salvage the weekly mileage on Friday and on the weekend, but it turns out that I'm totally sore on Friday and can hardly walk. I don't remember having so much muscle pain. Ever. Yes, you betcha, I start to love CrossFit! :D. On Saturday...

(As you can see I updated the weekly overview. It's a new version, re-done from scratch with different technologies. It does not yet have all the features that I had before, but I was forced to roll it out early, due to problems with the previous version that I did not feel like wasting time on fixing. Hopefully I'll be adding missing features (and more) soon) Again, I'm lagging more than a week behind with the reports... I'm back to my 2 runs per day routine. Tuesday morning I go for my fast run, but after 3K I have a technical problem ;). I guess my body is not used to getting up that early. I have to turn around and partly walk the way back, barely making it on time ;). I make another attempt in the evening (at a fast run, that is ;) but it is doomed to go wrong: I'm tired from the morning run and there is a super strong wind, so my finish time is not good at all. Tuesday was the last week of April and, to my surprise, I realize that it was my second best m...

(The technical problems that I have with bringing back the weekly summary thingy turned out to not to be that easy to fix and for now I have neither patience nor time to fight it, so sorry guys, for now it's gone.) I had quite high expectations from the previous week and it ended up being not too great. Similarly I did not have high hopes for this week, as my family was here, but it turned out quite ok. Life. I started off on Monday with my usual fast run. It went fine and I managed to shave off 4 seconds of my PB on the loop (down to 34:00). Sure, 4 seconds are within the error margin and are not much of an improvement but the fact that I could match up my best result is a good sign. Nothing more interesting during the week; just 3 usual recovery runs. Then on Saturday morning I joined my family in Monterey. We did the 17-mile drive and then headed down to Big Sur . I'm not sure how many times I've been there already but I'm always happy to go again; great place...