Running and then blogging about it
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Photogenic Running Routes

By Colleen @colleenalicia · On February 15, 2010

Recently Rozie sent me a link to a marathon training website that worked really well for her. Even though I’m still not training for any marathon in particular, I think I’ll probably end up doing one this spring, so I decided to try it out. Today I was supposed to run 3 miles. I wanted to run Terwilliger though, and my normal run there is 5 miles, and I don’t really know where I should turn around to make it into a 3 mile run, so I accidentally kept running until I was all the way to Duniway track (which makes it a 5 mile run). Once I was there, I saw Bob Williams, this guy who coached me a little in high school (my high school xc coach took pride in having the biggest team possible – we usually had over 100 people on the team, so if you wanted individual attention you usually had to look elsewhere).

I wanted to say hi to him, but he was busy coaching, so I decided to stick around a while and run on the track for a while so I could try to say hi afterward. This is how my 3 mile run turned into an 8 mile run including 4x800s. The only other track workout I’ve done in the last year was about a month ago when I did 2x800s, so I thought I’d try that again. This time I averaged about 3:20 for all of them (3:13, 3:19, 3:36, 3:14 – this is for my own record, I don’t actually think anyone else cares what my splits were). Also, I did get to talk to Bob afterward, and he kind of remembered me, asked for my number in case anyone he knew needed a massage therapist, and said I looked good on the track. Success on all accounts.

On to more interesting things – does anyone (who went to Whitman) remember how there were always tons of kids getting their senior pictures taken around campus? I always thought this was kind of embarrassing to witness, mostly because I remember it being really embarrassing to get my senior pictures taken wherever it was that I did that (not on the Whitman campus). Luckily I get to continue seeing this happen on my runs around Portland. I don’t think they’ve been senior portraits, but same idea. Last week when I did my 20 mile run, there was a girl standing on the side of the trail with one person taking her picture and another person helping her get her picture taken. This was a little before the 1/4 mile mark, meaning that I had just run about 19 1/2 miles and was feeling pretty horrible in general. Somehow seeing this model having her pictures taken made me feel even more horrible – I think the contrast of how good she looked versus how awful I felt really emphasized the shitty feelings. I also felt concerned about her standing right off the trail – that’s where all the dogs poop and also sometimes people (I’ve found, among other things, both used toilet paper and tampon wrappers on the side of the Leif Erickson trail).

Today on Terwilliger there was another girl getting her picture taken, but instead of having a person taking her picture and another person helping her have her picture taken, she had no such people at all! She was getting her picture taken, taking her own picture, and helping herself have her picture taken, all at once! So props to this girl for being self-sufficient, but seeing somebody take pictures of themselves on the side of Terwilliger did not make me feel worse at all, like it did when I was on Leif. And to clarify, when I say taking pictures of herself, I mean she had a self-timer camera on a tripod, not that she was just holding the camera out in front of her. I actually felt bad for her, because she was wearing a red shirt and holding a heart-shaped balloon, and Valentine’s day was yesterday! Maybe I should have told her she was a day late, but it would have probably made her cry and ruined her pictures. Then they would have been late and doleful.

Miles run last week: 30.5
Miles run this week: 8
Miles run in 2010: 149.5

Bob WilliamsPicturesTerwilligerYasso 800s
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Colleen

I must confess, I started running at a very early age. Sadly, my runs were unblogumented until around age 23, so you'll have to use your imagination for all the runs I went on before that. Running has always been my go-to sport, but sadly, I spend a good amount of my time with chronic injuries. I have learned to entertain myself athletically with other pursuits such as kettlebell, yoga, and bikini competitions, when I can't run. In addition to my unique talent for working out and then blogging about it, I am an amateur puppy stylist and photographer, television enthusiast, and I'm usually CPR/AED certified, but I would still prefer if you didn't pass out when we're together.

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About Me

I’m Colleen. I started this blog when I was 23 years old and training for my first marathon. I was single, semi-employed, generally directionless in life, and had a lot of free time on my hands. I have a lot less free time now, but I still love to come here and dump my rambling, unedited thoughts after a workout or race once in a while.

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