Victory is mine!

Saturday 13.0 miles/1:57:59/9:05 average pace

I did it! I whooped that trail's butt. Actually I just ran a lot smarter than last time- I started off at an easy pace for the 5 miles or so of gradual climbing, averaging about 9:30 or so. I was feeling good, so at mile 5 I ate a Clif Shot (Mocha flavor) and then picked it up a little until the turnaround and back up the hill. Still felt good, so I ran strong down the hill for the last 5 miles, averaging 8:20 or so with the last mile at 7:57. Whoo hoo! :) I felt fresh at the end, I actually had to talk myself out of running farther. It was a perfect run. It was cloudy and cool, low 40's, but I was warm enough and managed to avoid the rain that came later in the day. Overall, a great day.

Sunday I went into San Francisco to be one of the only spectators at the Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon. Seriously, not a lotta crowd support out there. You better believe I cheered and hollered the whole time though, most loudly the two times I saw Zach. He looked very strong and had a great race- check out his race report. All the runners battled the elements- occasional rain and a brutal headwind out on the coast. But Zach and the others triumphed over the conditions and ran like rock stars. This was the first time I've truly spectated at a race and I loved it. Although I have to say I think I was more nervous before the race than Zach was! ha ha. Oh and the coolest thing happened- one of the runners shouted out "I love your blog!" :O Who was that? You are my favorite person ever. :)

After the race we had breakfast in SF and then headed home to unwind for a bit. We watched some of the superbowl but headed out about 4:30 pm to Yoshi's in Oakland to see Chris Botti perform. The show didn't actually start until 7:00 so we did watch the big game at the bar there - it was exciting. Anyway, we saw him in NYC at Blue Note and really enjoyed it so we went to his Bay Area show. I met him afterward and he signed a copy of his CD which was awesome.

I have lots of pictures from the weekend- I'll download them and post them tomorrow.

OK, TOTAL miles for last week: 35. Plus one swim session and one weights session.

Both Zach and I took yesterday off and did some errands and some fun stuff (like mini-golf, SO fun). I started the day off with an awesome run:

Monday 8.0 miles/1:08:15/8:32 average pace

The schedule called for 8 miles with 4 at Tempo Pace. Well I was not looking forward to that, so I told myself not to worry so much about the pace and just get the miles in. Turned out nature felt like helping me out though- it was VERY windy so my first 4 miles were slow due to the headwind. But when I turned around I used the tailwind and picked up the pace to a "comfortably hard" level. I usually push too hard on Tempo runs and cannot complete the workout non-stop, but yesterday I was smart and controlled and made the whole 4 miles with only the two mandatory street crossing pauses. Sweet! My splits for the last 4 miles were: 7:55, 7:55, 7:45, and 7:27.

Here's the schedule for the rest of the week:

Monday: 8 miles (4 LT) done!
Tuesday: xt
Wednesday: 11 miles Medium Long
Thursday: xt
Friday: 5 Easy
Saturday: 15 Long
Sunday: xt

Sunday we are leaving for Tahoe for a day of skiing/snowboarding (Zach skis (extremely well) and I (try to) snowboard). We'll drive home on Monday. It will be a very beautiful and fun trip, but I'm gonna be awful on the snow since I haven't skied since moving to California from Montana like 6 years ago. Yikes. Look out everyone.

Have a great week everyone! Will post pics soon.

And all you Super Tuesday staters better go VOTE today! We're going at noon.