Going Long(er)

I hit all my key long workouts this past week.

Thursday night I ran for just over 2 hours. Debbie and the kids dropped me off at the trail head to Galbraith Mountain which is about a 20 minute run from the house, but my goal was only 2:15 and this extra 20 minutes was going to put me over (or so I thought). As it turns out, I must of been flying as I made it up to the top and back down in about 1:35 so on the run back to the house I added a detour down to Haggens and then up a little trail that follows Barkley called the Klipsun trail. Great run, beautiful clear blue skies. On top of Galbraith you see far and wide.

Saturday morning I went to the pool to get a long swim in. My goal was the IRONMAN distance (4225 yards) or 1:30 whichever came first. I did my long swim workout which is a ladder, where I swim 100 yards, then pull swim 200, swim 300, pull 400 and keep alternating until the distance is met or time goal. I made the distance under the 1:30 again, but this time I took a little less rest and was swimming a bit faster so only took me 1:25:18 to swim the 4250 (25 extra yards so I didn't have to get out on the wrong side of the pool).

Sunday morning I left the house at 6:15 to meet my friend Pat at about 6:45 in between our houses. We went west into Ferndale and North onto Birch Bay. Riding though BB in the 'off' season is quite nice, not very many people yet and the views are great. The tide was all the way up as we rode all along the waterfront and around the North point into Semiamhoo and past into downtown Blaine. Blaine was very empty at about 8:15 on a Sunday morning, which is one reason we meet so early on Sunday mornings to avoid as much traffic as possible. We rode East out of Blaine along H road which parallels the international border. This road is very long, hilly and straight all the way to SR 539 (also known as Guide Meridian). We turned north and rode about a quarter mile on SR 539 and stopped at the duty free store to use the facilities and stretch out a bit. From here we continued East along a road called Borderline Road. Next week I'll take my camera as this road has a ditch on the north side of the road, the ditch is maybe 3-5 feet deep (it looks like a drainage ditch), but on the other side is another road, but that road is in Canada, no fence, but lots of camera towers, I'm sure we were being watched. We followed this road as it curved to the South into Lynden and onto the Hannegan road back home, Pat turned on Wiser Lake Road and I kept on going south. Looking at my training logs, this was my longest ride ever in terms of time and distance (4:43 and 76.8 miles). It only rained on us for about 15 minutes.

Another busy week coming up, Alex starts T-Ball this Saturday!