We're heading into a very busy time coming up here. It started this past weekend with my son's first basketball tournament in Fresno with his AAU team. We have another this coming weekend in Vegas and then he has one in Oakland the following weekend, but I will be running AR50 for part of that. I then have Miwok 3 weeks after, but also have my wife's and my mother's birthdays to fit in. It's either time to strike a balance or just live with a crazy hectic schedule....hmmm, wonder which I will choose ;-)
We were to drive to Fresno Saturday morning and stay overnight so I knew a long run on the weekend wasn't very likely. Luckily, I had a half day on Friday at work since we are moving to a new building. This allowed me to get a nice afternoon run in on the Mission Peak to Sonol and back route. Since I set a 3.5 hour time limit on myself, I only hit the peak once for a little over 17 miles. I did take a little time to stop at the Ohlone Wilderness sign-in and leave a note for those doing a little more "serious" run that day. I'd taken an extra day off earlier in the week since I needed to assure I recovered from the previous weekend. However, I still wanted to shoot for my 60 miles. I stood at a little over 34 heading into Saturday.
My wife wanted to get her run in at the gym Saturday morning so we managed to get over there before the car trip. She hit the treadmill for a few miles and I headed to a nearby trail. I was under strict orders to keep it to an hour, a "real" hour, not an "hour-ten" or an "hour-five" or a "that doesn't include stoppage time to go pee or tie my shoes" hour. It was to be an hour on the clock and not the chronometer...ah she knows me too well. I guess that meant following my long run with a nice 7 1/4 miles of tempo running in 56:30. I always seem to run faster when I worry about making her wait for me. Maybe I should ask Zane to come to my next race and tell me "now, honey...you need to be finished in X hours like you promised." We headed home, packed the car for the 2.5 hour drive and made it just in time for the first game after which we headed to the hotel (got lost), checked in and headed back for the second game. I had looked up a local Rails-to-Trails trail in Fresno called the Sugar Pine Trail. Zane and I switched into running clothes and quickly drove to the trailhead just at dusk. I headed out hoping to get around 5 or so more miles in and Zane decided to do a few more of her own. Again, she would be waiting for me so I pushed it a little on the way back, though it was pretty dark so I couldn't push it too much. I ended up with close to 5 1/2 and Zane did 2 1/1 herself. That earned us both a nice sushi dinner that evening :-). I planned to head back to the trail the next morning and get a couple of hours in before the first game on Sunday. The problem is that I didn't find out what time the game was until Sunday morning. A 10am start left me with only about 1.5 hours for the run so I made the best of it and got in a little over 10 miles. Back to the hotel to shower and checkout, back to the gym for the game then lunch and the second game. The team did great in their first tournament winning all their games even though they are "playing up" a year. It wasn't a particularly strong tournament, but it was a good confidence booster before heading to Vegas wear the competition will be MUCH tougher. Anyway, packed it up and hurried home so that Zane could pack for a business trip. I did my math and found myself exactly 3 miles short of my weekly goal. However, occasionally wisdom does prevail in my head and I decide that with a 4:30am wakeup time the next morning, I needed sleep more than I needed a silly little 3-4 mile run. I am not a slave to some random number in my electronic log book!
However, how am I going to hit that number THIS week with Vegas coming up...
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