Now Heading up the Washington Coast

We just spent our third night at Fort Stevens State Park in Northern Oregon. This is probably the nicest state park that we have stayed in. It has it all---forest, hike/bike asphalt trails, a large lake, historic areas, Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean. I have really enjoyed walking and running as I have explored most all these areas.

Tuesday night, we cooked what was supposed to be hamburgers over the campfire. Hollie had bought these frozen patties and when I put them on the grill, I was wondering why they looked so much lighter than what we usually cook. Once they were ready and I bite into my “burger” I soon realized this was something different. I then looked at the box and saw that we were eating mushroom and cheese pork patties. The nutritional information said each patty had 480 calories and 40% RDA of sodium. I usually eat two burgers, but one of these was enough. I would have rather had beef patties, but just about anything cooked over a campfire is tasty and these were OK, but the pork and beans were even better. So much for allowing Hollie to do the grocery shopping.

I have been running most every day on this trip and I have upped my weekly mileage. yesterday morning I was ready to try some speed work and with the temperature of 58 degrees and intermittent light rain, I had a really good workout. I ran 4.5 miles, including 6 x 400 @ 9:36 pace. That is way slower than my usual speed, but since it has been about 6 weeks since I done anything like that, I am satisfied. It is a starting point and I am going to try to continue weekly speed, do a long run of 6 plus miles and cover 3-5 miles the other days. That will be a good return to training and if I can do that while on this road trip, I will have a good training base for the Fall race calendar.

Today we will drive about 90 miles up the coast to a Washington State Park in Twin Harbors. We’ll be there for at least two nights as we work our way up the Washington coast.