National Running Day: way to celebrate

There are so many things to celebrate in our world today, every day is an opportunity and has its National label! Fortunately we only stop working for the major ones (Veterans' Day, Memorial, Labor, Martin Luther King's, Thanksgiving) but think of those ones: Earth day, Sewing Machine Day (this Thursday!), Juggling Day, Fudge Day, Eat your Vegetable Day.. And many more available for instance at www.daysoftheyear.com. By the way, sorry Chikara, I'm not going to write about this past Saturday's National Doughnut Day which you enjoyed so much per your Facebook status... ;-) Last week, Wednesday was the annual National Running Day. With about 50 million runners in the US, this could almost be a National Holiday! Like most of the previous years (e.g. 2010), I did extend an invitation for a group run to my IBM colleagues. Last year, a handful registered but none showed up. Thankfully Agnès was able to join me and we ran a few miles together at Alviso. This year, 13 positive responses and 3 shows: not an overwhelming response, but still some progress!

Sandy and Sonoko picked the walk option, starting from the Alviso parking lot

while Sumanth and I started running from the office, 1.25 miles away.

Sumanth has already run a half-marathon and is dreaming of pushing to the marathon. We ran the first 3 miles together and I'm very confident he can do it with some specific training. I went on for 2 more miles (10 miles out and back), far enough to see a dozen of pelicans.

Since the ILOG acquisition and our move to the IBM office on North 1st Street, I've run hundreds of miles on the flat levee of this Santa Clara County Park that too few people know about.

The full loop is 9 miles but you can run any distance and see some birds along the salt ponds and the Alviso Slough which allows boats to access the Bay. There is even a Yacht Club with half a dozen docks:

Again, a nice way to celebrate the most practiced sport in North America, running!

I ran every day last week and logged 107 miles after the 106 miles of the previous week. On Saturday, I ran 31.5 miles from Cupertino to Palo Alto, hopping on the Stevens Creek Trail in Sunnyvale, running through Mountain View's Shoreline Park all the way to the Palo Alto Baylands and airport. It was hot and I was happy to clock a 3:11 marathon and 7:14 min/mile average pace overall for this 50K training run.

On Sunday, I went to the top of Black Mountain on Montebello, did the Bellavista loop for a second ascent of Black Mountain (no walking!) and enjoyed a cold shower at the waterwheel on the way back, seeing Hannes and Monique Vogel again, as we had already met the previous weekend!

Sorry for the delay in posting this account of last week's National Running Day. It was a busy weekend finishing up some work projects and packing for Europe. Next post from Portugal then!

Back to (ultra) business

Not much to share this week, with my round trip to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as I did spend more time on a plane than running. Or even sleeping for the matter! 23 hours door to door, each way, that's a lot of wasted time in checking-in, passing security, waiting to board then on the tarmac, disembarking, clearing immigration and custom, airport transfers. The irony is that, with their business week starting on Saturday, I forfeited my Memorial Day Weekend to be there on Saturday night but the customers meetings got all postponed to my last day there, Wednesday. At least I could catch-up with previous work commitments and even do some running while there. And I even managed to log 106 miles this week, the second week over 100 miles this year. At last...!

On Sunday morning, I ran 14 miles in Riyah, by 102F (39C)! And 10% "humidity" that is super dry heat. I was carrying two water bottles but I had to stop on my way back to buy more water. Not only the temperature was insane but the dust too, the pollution and the heat of the cars and trucks I had to slalom through. As I was writing after my first visit there (Running in Arabia) in October 2011, if you want to run outside, the best is to catch a cab to the Wadu Hanifa oasis at the Southern end of the city.

The rest of my stay I ran on the treadmill which was safer anyway, and logged 35 miles while watching the French Tennis Open (Rolland Garros).

I landed at SFO at noon on Thursday, did two conf calls until 3 pm then enjoyed so much a run in much nicer temperatures, even if a heat wave had just hit the Bay Area (75-85F these past days). I was looking forward to a calm weekend after such travel but my second conf call on Friday at 6:30 am pulled me in a client escalation which made me work all Saturday afternoon to prepare for a conference call on Sunday at 5 am. That's ultra business, that never stops, the sun never sets on the IBM planet... Maybe that will make me appreciate the upcoming family vacations this month even more (Portugal then Corsica), with some feeling that I deserve them... ;-)

I went for a long run on Saturday morning over Black Mountain (29.5 miles) and 16 flat miles this Sunday. The toe is better, the hematoma is gone but the nail is going to be a mess for a while and painful at times, I'm hoping it will cope with the high mileage I hope to put in this month in Europe in particular before my upcoming race in the Alps in July (the super challenging Montagn'Hard) and of course Tahoe Rim Trail 100-mile when I'm back.

I'm so glad that my fall and injury at Ohlone two weeks ago only kept me off the trails for 2 days!

Last, don't forget to celebrate National Running Day this Wednesday, June 5th! I'm organizing a group run at the office, hoping I won't be on my own like the past two years...