A cold winter week has past.

Nothing of very much interest has gone on this past week. I have gone to Anytime Fitness 3 times in the past week.
Oh, and I made a computer table. It was made according to my plan. Boy am I glad I did not have to pay for the labor for this project. I would be making monthly payments on the labor for several months!!!!!
                                                                           

This is the finished product. I made numerous mistakes so I will use this one as a model. It turned out fairly good.

It stands just high enough so that I can type while I am sitting on the sofa. I have a couple more designs in mind and will start on them when it gets warmer.

These are pictures were taken when it stopped snowing last Wednesday at 5:30 P.M.

 The snow was beautiful while I was inside my warm home with Shirley and the 2 dogs.
But it was cold outside.

So  I went outside only when I had too. The lowest temperature last week at our house was 21 degrees F.

I will start running to Anytime Fitness on Monday February 26 and do my exercise and then run back home. The total will be 7.3 miles. 3 times  a week depending on the weather. I am getting to be a fair weather runner?
The Track and Field season will soon be here.
If anyone would like to see the Swans, drive to the Smuck Rd. and watch on either side of the road.
Until next time
FINIS

February 11 to February 18

I went to Anytime Fitness on Monday. I had been going to A/F 3 times a week since January 3. Dick showed me the all of the exercise machines that I needed to do to strengthen my upper body for pole vault and sprinting.
I was doing about 13 different stations with varying weights. On Monday I tweaked my pectoral muscles. So I have been recuperating for the past week. I had received and invitation from my friend Dave Lee who is the track coach for Multnomah Bible School if I could come and help at a track meet in Centralia, WA. I said yes and when I arrived at the track I found out that it was an outdoor meet. Oh, no, no rain gear. So I found the nearest Wal-Mart and bought a plastic poncho for $5.00.
It lasted for about 3 hours, just long enough to keep me half dry for the day. It rained and rained and blew and blew all the time during the track meet. I helped at the pole vaulting and the high jumping events.
It was a cold and wet day for the officials and the participants. The wind gusts were 25 to 30 miles and hour. All you runners out there can appreciate running on the windy side of the track and running into the wind but great down the home stretch.
The meet was an open meet which means that anyone can pay the fee and participant in their event. But who in their right mind would want to do that?
Hooray for once I am in my right mind because I was an official and could not participate.
For once I am safe.    

February 18, 2108

I will write in my blog every Sunday evening. So those who want to read about my great, wonderful, magnificent, daring, challenging
journeys. Yes, Rita and Kim I will write in my blog every week!
         
Continued information concerning the 85 mile run on Nov. 14-15, 2017.  I finished in 35 hours and 35 minutes.

                                                 

At 8:30 am I was ready to go. I stopped at Philip's to say that I was raring to go! I went out to the RV and began to gather up the necessary things I would need for the journey.
I had driven the RV across the road from the driveway. This was so that I could just step off of the road and step into the RV for my aid that I would need for the 85 mile run.

You can see how close to the road I parked the RV. That handsome man is my son Philip who was going to run my 3rd leg. 20 to 30 miles with me. No wasted energy to get the aid I needed.

Shirley was my aid person plus anyone else who would help her. Bless her heart, she got just about 1.5 hours of sleep during the 35.5 hours of my journey. She prepared hot drinks and soup plus fried egg sandwiches.

During my time on the course I ate fig bars and dates. Plus drinking NUUN which is a drink potion that restores the electrolytes that are depleted during the run.

This is some of the food that I collected for the aid I would need for the run. I also had perishable foods in the fridge.

As I said that I was eager to start. I had my camelback filled with water and the snacks that I would eat on the first 10 miles of the 85 mile goal. My helpers were more interested in taking pictures than getting me started.

I was getting my gloves on and was starting. My daughter Kim was still taking pictures when it was 9:00 am and I was READY. 

So I just started out by myself. But Dick soon caught up with me and the 85 miles effort was started.

We had gone about 5 miles when my friend Steve came out on the course and said he would run with me for a while. Dick said that he was going back to the start and ride a bike out and meet us as we finished the first 10 miles.

We did not get a picture of Steve so I took one out of the Sequim Gazette, Mike the editor of the paper came out at about 11:00 am and took this picture for the paper. This part of the run went by in  3 hours and 40 minutes. A good pace to keep up for a 30 hour adventure.

Kim, my daughter was to run with me on the second  leg to 20 miles. Dick rode on to the stop and told Kim to get ready because we were coming in to get aid.

This is the course for the 85 miles that I ran. The total miles from start to finish is 10 miles. Each smaller loop was done twice.

I started the second 10 mile circle in the  clock wise rotation. The weather was still holding about the same temperature for this portion of the run. 

I stopped at the aid station just long enough to eat an egg sandwich and fill my camel back with water. Kim, my daughter then joined me to run the next 10 to 20 miles with me. 

                                                                                        
                                                                                

sorry that I am sending new posts but I am having trouble saving my posts. I lost about 10 hours of typing on my last post.

1. 61 mile week and my 3rd ,30 mile training run🍩❤️☕️ 
2. Up at 5:00 am. Ugh, but I just did my shuffle, walk until ths 30 miles were accomplished. The temperature was 43 when I started and it warmed up to 54 degrees.

Ll

Our 2 poms waited patiently for me to come home. My time was 8 hours and 50 minutes. I stopped for aid two times at home. My survival pack for my run is a camel back that carries my water plus four pockets for my phone, and food. I carry 4 or 5 fig bars and 4 dates. They are calories dense and easy to digest. I burned close to 3000 calories for the 30 miles Monday! 

Tuesday was to be a 15 mile run but I walked instead only 2 miles. It is hard to mentally to run very far the day following the 30 miles. At least for me. Wed is my day to rest. Wednesday I ran 15 miles in 3 hours and 52 minutes. It was raining for a couple of miles during this run. And the the Friday was a ten mile run. These runs are to get me used to running back to back distances for mental toughness. My run Saturday was an easy 4 miles. Relief, relief.

It looks like it will clear for my 30 miles tomorrow. I will try to send some pictures in my next blog.

Finis 

Oct. 23 to 30

I have not been very faithful in writing on my blog. As you can tell!!
In the past two weeks I have ran 30 miles on Mondays of both weeks. My time has been 9 to 10 hours. I also ran a 40 mile day the week before.
My mileage for the month of October has been 60 to 70 mile per week.
This past week on Monday I ran my 30 miles but have been fighting a cold since then so have not run since the 3rd of November.
I will run 20 miles on Monday  November 6 and just 3 to 5 miles a day until the weekend of November 11, then just rest until the morning of November 14th at 9:00 am when I start my run and run until I finish the 85 miles.
My running route will be 9 loops  of 9.5 miles per loops. I guess that figures out to be 85 miles.
It temperature has been in the 40 to 60 degrees in the past month. Not really cold but just cold enough that I have to adjust my clothing from time to time when I stop at my aid station, my home.
I have managed  my aid by myself. I stop at the house between loops and Shirley makes me a fried egg and bacon bits sandwich. Boy is it good after 5 hours of running. I carry 6 fig bars and 5 dates with me in my camel back i can run one of my 9-10 mile loops before I have to stop for a refill on my fuel.
I will not try to go that far on the loops so I can stop about every 6-8 miles. As I have written before, I will be only about 2.5 miles from home at anytime for. the total run.
FINIS
☕️☕️🍩🍩❤️❤️

Training tales for my 85 miles. On my 85 birthday

October 17, 2017.    Running for 85
My training for the past 5 weeks for my 85 mile run.
  36.95    48.85,        34.89,   34.85,    31.99  miles for the past four weeks and 2 days.
Monday, Oct. 16 was a 30 mile training run. My time for the run was 8 hours and 50 minutes. started  at 5:36 am. I got up at 5:00 am ate breakfast  and my finishing time was 2:20 pm.
8 hours and 50 minutes. Much better than I expected! The day was cloudy and about 45 degrees when I started. I wore the tights that Dick gave me 5 years ago when I ran my 80 miles on my 80th birthday.  Thanks Dick your a good son-in-law.
I was running the same route that I am going to run on the 14-15 of Nov.
each loop will have a couple of short ones which I will do twice, one loop on Wilcox and  serpentine and the next one on Sequim Dungeness and Taylor farm road. The total mileage for these loops is 5.4 miles. That means I will run 16 loops to total 85 miles. I may vary this sometimes by adding several loops on each run.
My 30 mile run Monday started out with my usual thoughts, " Why am I doing this?"
Ego?, proving something to myself, seeing the challenge to see if my body can hold out at 85 yrs old?, or doing just because I can! I did not see an out for myself except for two choices. Stop running or just continue on. By this time I was about 7 miles into the run and forgot the arguments with myself  and just began to injoy the beautiful sunrise. The Maple leaves turning gold especially in the sunrise were very intense in their color. My first stop at my aid station, home was at 8:30 am. Shirley fried me an pancake-egg sandwich which was excellent! And a cup of hot chocolate. I stopped one more time to change shirts and eat. This was at 20 miles and the time was 12: 30. The rest of the training went very well.
My training for the past month has been a couple of trail workouts plus my running. One a jogging trail from Deer park , Blue Mt., on Grand Ridge about 8 miles. Good day on that run. Tough steep trail!
But I made it.
And then another trail hike later  in Oct. was the Royal Basin out and back hike, 14.5 miles. 7.25 up and then 7.25 back down to the car.
On all of my training hikes and runs I use a camelback for my hydration and food. It works our very well. It keeps sloughing and full of vittles necessary for the journey. Thanks to my good grandson  Jason Henrie for that good gift he gave me a few years ago.
My training for the past 2 weeks has had the usual interruptions. But I have managed to keep up my training to over 35 miles a week. I know, that is just the very minimum for my 85 mile run but I will make I through the to the end. The mental aspect will be the one I will conquer!
It is amazing that I have had just a couple of rainy days so far. But I looks like that will change this week. Rain for the rest of the week!