Wauna Viewpoint and 18 Mile Run

Saturday it was blue skies and 50's for the first time in a long time, so I went hiking. It had been a year to the weekend from my last hike so my friend Kevin and I and my dog Spencer went to Wauna Viewpoint and started out slowly. After about a mile and a few hundred feet of climbing Spenser just stopped and looked around with his sides heaving. My poor guy is 11 and 1/2- 80 years old in human years. So we turned around and went back to the car having only hiked the bottom half without the viewpoint. Stopped in Cascade Locks to get a Diet Pepsi and the girl behind the counter gave me three dog biscuits for Spenser.
Then today four of us started in the morning cold (35) for an 18 miler. I wore shorts even though it was 35 because the weather report said 50-60's later. Ran and ran with lots of hills and ran out of Gatorade at 8 miles, so had to fill up with restroom tap water at a park, guess I need more than 2 bottles on my belt. At around 12 miles we were on a road in the open and it was around 60 degrees, so I shed one of my two shirts and hid it behind an electric box and picked it up later. At around 15 miles I was done for and had to walk up a hill- did an Ironman last year and didn't walk. The others came back to get me going but I could only muster an 11 or so pace, but finished running the rest of the way and did my longest run since the Ironman in September. Next week- 20 miles!

Vancouver Lake Half Marathon

Last Sunday I did the Vancouver Lake Half Marathon in 30 something degree weather. But it wasn't raining- yeah!
Rode to the race in the Headhunter's van (top picture). My training partner Natalie, (refered to as running partner 1 in previous posts) in the pink sleeves had never ridden in the Headhunter van before so that was fun. Eveywhere you go, people point and look at the van. Anyway, got to the start line and Natalie was shivering so I rubbed her arms to keep her from shaking- it was cold!
In the middle picture I'm helping her work my GPS watch so she could see what pace she was doing. The gun went off and Natalie and some other fast runners from the club took off and I went slow, I thought. Scott from the club caught up with me and we ran together for the first 7 or 8 miles at a blistering 8 to 8:10 pace which is close to my 5K pace last year. It felt good and I wasn't winded, just tired legs. At the second turnaround around 7.5 or 8 miles, I told Scott I had to fade and I slowed to a 9 or 10 pace and just slogged to the finish. At mile 11 I wanted to speed up, but didn't have any extra energy. They only had water stops and I didn't bring a Gatorade bottle or GU thinking they would have it on course, oh well. Got to the finish area (bottom picture)at a pr of 1:55:11. I came in at 162 out of 324- exactly 50% for the race overall. I think I started too fast because I hit the 6 mile mark at 49 minutes which would be an all time low ten K time. Natalie came in at 1:39 and took 3rd in her age group and 19th overall female. We stayed for awards and talked to other Headhunters who ran and then piled in the van and went to Applebee's for lunch. For a really good race report see Sarah's blog, she rode in the van also.