I’ve been wanting to run home for a while. I’d hoped we could work it into last year’s triathlon training; unfortunately, a long run never fell onto a day that lent itself to a run home from work. It’s a great option, if I have the time. A running route home can be as short as 7 1/2 miles, or 10.2 – the distance of my standard bike commute home. The workout schedule called for a 10-mile run, but I see the path of my bike commute so frequently I wanted to do something different. I decided to take advantage of being a pedestrian – the top of the pecking order in the rules of the road – and take a route through residential streets.

I’m accustomed to the first mile sucking. On long runs, I do a run/walk ratio of 4/1:30, and I walk the first eleven minutes. That eats up the first half-mile, and it doesn’t really suck. Yesterday, it took me several miles to get into a groove, and the groove only lasted a few miles. Looking at my HRM & cadence data, it’s hard to draw any conclusions. It looks like my HR spiked at the very beginning and end of running, but I’m not convinced my HR was that high. (Time to change the batteries in the chest strap?)

I ate right before the 3-mile mark, and I believe I felt better after that, but I started dragging again before the 6-mile mark. Perhaps 3 miles is too long without nutrition. If I do another long run before Bloomsday, I’ll see how I feel sticking with eating at 3 miles. I don’t want to change anything based on this one week. I haven’t been getting enough sleep, and a few nights of good, deep sleep may change everything.

While running east of Hwy 395, I encountered a pair of small dogs. One of them wouldn’t give up the chase. If I faced him, he backed off. As soon as I turned around, though, he was right back after me. I let them get too close – I was genuinely afraid the male was going to bite me. I ended up running backwards for a block, laughing at this little dog. I’m sure it was an amusing sight.

I knew going in that this was going to completely wreck my day’s nutrition, I asked that we go to RF McDougalls. I wanted a burger and beer. I opted for the salad instead of fries, onion rings, or clam chowder (I really wanted that chowder!). I ate the blue cheese dressing, which probably gave me as much saturated fat as the fries would have, but I’m giving myself credit for going with the salad. The meal put me waaaay over my allotted calories for the day, and my calories from saturated fat was 18.5% – nearly twice what my goal max is – but it’s only one day. I averaged 11.7% over the week – still a little high, but manageable.

Today is a day of gardening. I’m hopeful I can get a bike ride in, but we’ll see. I won’t accomplish anything sitting at the computer.