Over 40

Not my age.  Yet.  But trust me, it's looming.  I'm actually kind of looking forward to it.  For now, this number celebrates the first time this year where I managed to get my weekly mileage over 40.  Woo hoo!

A big reason why I managed to get it up there was that E agreed to go on a hike with me today to close out the week.  We're in Vancouver for some work stuff, so this AM we headed out to the Capilano Pacific Trail for a good multi-hour trek.

It starts at the beach in West Vancouver.

English Bay

So Arty.

After a couple of miles that are relatively flat, you start to climb through the woods.

No real drought danger in Vancouver.

At one point, you cross under a road where the overpass, creek, and graffiti make for quite a pretty view.

The trail stops at Keith Road and you have to walk along the road (to the right) until the trail restarts.  E and I failed to read the map correctly and added a nice 0.5 mile detour through the hills of a fancy neighborhood before we figured it out.

Finally, at the top of the climb, you cross the Cleveland Dam.  The views of the reservoir and mountains are gorgeous, but the chain link fence and reflected glare made taking pictures with my phone impossible.

On the other side of the dam, the downspout and river (which runs along the side of the majority of the trail) are also gorgeous, and easier to photograph.

Google promised that there was a Chinese restaurant, a Sushi restaurant, a grocery store and a pizza joint near the dam.  The Chinese restaurant was closed.  The Sushi restaurant was closed.  The grocery store was more of a convenience store.  So, we threw away the dietary restrictions and shared a pizza after 5 plus miles of climbing for our late lunch.  As E's mom suggested, there may need to be an intermittent 48-state geographic limitation on dietary good behavior (Also BC oysters!  There's just no way to say no).

The week was great, workout wise. 41.68 miles including 36% walking/hiking and 14% sub 9:30/mile.  Long run was 9 miles in the mid 11s.  3 mile tempo averaged 9:27/mile - sad, but true that I hadn't strung 3 miles together to average sub 9:30 in a long time, so I was happy with that.  Speedwork was 8X3 minutes in the high 8s and low 9s with walk/jog recovery.  I hit the yoga studio again for another 75 minute heated core and asana class. (Again, I was sore for a few days afterward - it's shocking how many muscles yoga uses that I apparently don't use otherwise.)  And, we fit in 4/6 tabata, so I'll have a couple of make-ups to do this week.

The bar is high with this one, so I'm not sure I'll be able to top it this coming week, but I'll do my best to try, at least on a couple of axes.