Nike Run & Bridge of the Gods Ride

Last Saturday the Headhunter team had to do packet pickup for the Hood to Coast run as our volunteer job. It was different being on the other side of the table at a packet pickup. Because of that, the long ride was switched to Sunday and Saturday was long run day. The group I tried to keep up with a couple weeks ago were going to Forest park to run the Leif Erickson trail to run 20 or so. I was only scheduled for 13, so I ran by myself at the Nike campus (top picture was from last year) where the packet pickup was. I started out by doing two loops around Nike for 4 miles and then out a paved path I saw and then down the sidewalk to a huge park that had softball and soccer games going on. Then around the office park beside Nike and I saw a runner at a corner and asked him if there were any paths nearby. He pointed over by the Max tracks (our local transit train) and said over there. Found a beautiful nature park with paved paths and wooden walkways that looked like swamp paths you see in Florida. Got back to the Nike campus at a little over 9 miles, so I did two more laps around Nike and a little more for 14 miles. Very slow, 11 minute/mile pace, but it's about time on the feet right now and they didn't have any food or water at the packet pickup so I was very hungry by the time I started running.
Sunday it was misting and cloudy so only 5 of us were there for the long ride. After about 15 miles, Julie and Dave turned to do a shorter ride, so Kevin, coach Denise, and I rode on the Washington side of the Gorge to the Bridge of the Gods at Cascade Locks. It's a beautiful bridge and Kevin took a good blog picture for me, but didn't email it to me yet. Rode across the bridge and it is a metal grate bridge that is very high- so you can see through the road to the distant water. It felt like riding on ice, the grating was pushing Gigi around. Went to a deli and ice cream store in Cascade Locks for lunch. Then since Denise is still hurt we decided to skip the climb to Crown Point and just rode highway 84 back to town. She suggested taking each exit and then getting back on so we didn't have to try and race across the exits and entrances, that worked great. Down Marine Drive and over the 205 bridge and back to the club at 80+ miles, Denise had to go so Kevin and I rode around LaCamas lake once for a total of 97.2 miles.
Monday coach said to do 10 miles running to keep building, so after a 2000 meter swim in the morning I ran at work from the base down past the new Ikea and onto the Marine drive path and when my GPS said 5 miles I turned around and ran back for 10 miles at around a 10:03 pace. That's 2000 swim, 97 ride and 24 run in three days- now to add some more and compress it into one day- no problem!!!
Wednesday Jon and Julie graciously decided to join me for a late morning swim for 3500 meters so I didn't have to do that distance by myself. That was nice having others to swim with because it gets sooo boring swimming long distances. Then I took some time off work that night and joined them for the Clark County Running Club's weekly 3 miler. It was along a beautiful flat dirt path along the Columbia river in Washougal Washington, Julie said it goes about 6 miles and would be good for long runs. I did it in 24:09 for an 8:03 pace. Jon and Julie both did it under 20 minutes for low 6 minute paces.
Yesterday was a social recovery ride and most of the time it's just two or three of us, this time there were 9. That was a lot of fun and we did 32.9 miles at a nice talkative 14.5 average.