Portland planning

I meant to blog yesterday, but I got caught up researching restaurants for this weekend's trip to Portland. I'm more excited about eating than I am about running. I've been craving good sushi for months, and I also stumbled across a place called the Happy Sparrow Cafe that makes kolaches! Back when my boyfriend and I lived in Houston, there was a Kolache Factory right down the street and we ate them practically every weekend. I'm also looking forward to checking out the Portland food truck scene.

Since it's my first trip to Portland, I tried looking for things to do besides eat, but nothing really stuck out to me as a must see attraction. Please me know if you have any recommendations!

For the most part, I think I'm recovered from the tendinitis in my left foot. I still feel a few twinges of discomfort every now and then, but overall I've been running pretty strong for the last three weeks. I don't have any concerns about being able to complete the half marathon on Sunday... I'm more concerned about Rock 'n' Roll Seattle next month. 

I don't have any plans to try for a PR in Portland. My goal is to finish in 1:50, which should be a slight challenge but achievable. I'll be happy with anything under two hours though.

After seeing the elevation charts for RnR Portland and Seattle, I figured I'd better leave the track and start working some hills back into my training runs. On Thursday I took a familar route near my house that includes a climb of about 300 feet in two miles. It's a gentle incline that I can handle without getting out of breath as long as I keep it slow and steady. On Sunday, I explored some new trails and unintentionally overdid it with the hills.

With the warm weather, I wanted to do my long run somewhere with shade so I drove to the Interurban Trail in Bellingham. I've only run the entire length of the trail once last fall and thought I remembered that there was a funky side path I had to take to get to the parking lot. I turned off at what I thought was that side path, but ended up being a trail up the mountain. I had no idea where I was going, but I decided to accept it as a good challenge and keep climbing. It took me about a mile to get to the lookout point where I was rewarded with a nice view of the bay.

From there I decided to follow the sign pointing me to Fragrance Lake, not knowing that it meant another uphill climb. Here's what the elevation chart for my run looked like.

It's a little hard to interpret because I can't figure out how to change the chart view in Runtastic to show distance instead of time. But basically it took me half an hour to cover two miles with a 900 foot elevation gain. Whew. There were definitely a lot of walk breaks thrown in there. I was happy to finally reach the lake and the flat trail that loops around the lake.

I thought the return trip would be easier, but I accidentally took a wrong turn away from the lake and ended up getting lost. I got a little scared being on unfamiliar trails, but thankfully I had my iPhone to tell me that at least I was heading in the right direction. With the help of some hikers I eventually found my way back to the Interurban Trail again. What was supposed to be a leisurely long slow distance run turned into a bit of an adventure, but it was fun and I don't seem to be suffering any ill side effects so far. The entire run was 15 miles and my legs felt like I could have kept going a little farther which is a good sign. I'm going to work my way up to 20 miles a couple weeks before Seattle and then taper.