Today was a long run day both for me and my running partner. The only difference is we were in different states, she running the San Francisco Half Marathon, me running the Cemetery 13 run as I like to call it.

First off the main event, my running partner finished the half in 2:03:49. Amazing! I am so proud of her. She worked really hard to make it happen and she did it. An average pace under 9:30, way to go! I don’t know too many details of her race, I am sure I will though as we are planning a celebration dinner this week. Man, I am so psyched for her!

So the half of today’s running that I can account for was my run up Mt Scott along and through the Lincoln Cemetery. The run starts out with my typical path through East Moreland neighborhood to the Springwater Corridor. I took a little detour to check out this weird little spot where two creeks come together. It is a circular area with old stone walls that is tucked into a dead-end area at the end of the street. One of the creeks drops about 10 feet to meet the other in a little waterfall. Recently the city restored the creek bed before the waterfall and widened it. It isn’t as dramatic anymore, but still neat. The last time I was there the area was completely overgrown making it a really secret spot, but it looks like someone has done some work on the area. Not so secret anymore I guess.

On the Springwater Corridor usually take this path toward downtown for some of my standard longer runs, but for this one I head east. The trail is pretty flat and offers a nice path with few street crossings. I stay on it for roughly three miles before I turn off taking a road that crosses under the freeway and up, up, up the hill. The next three miles are all uphill and a great hill workout. I was trying to do an aerobic threshold (AeT) workout and keep my heart rate in lower zone two, or somewhere around 147-151 bpm. Going up the hill was really slow going in order to keep my HR down, but I did a pretty decent job of it with one steep exception where it climbed over 160. The hill runs through a neighborhood and eventually through the Lincoln Memorial Cemetery. If there is no fog you get a really nice view of the city, however all I got was a nice view of a thick gray blanket, I could barely see a few blocks behind me. The downside of this run is that the road up doesn’t have any sidewalks for most of the way and the road shoulder is very slight. I kept finding myself moving to the wet grass to avoid traffic, it wasn’t that bad but not a traffic situation I would normally want to run in. Near the top of the hill there is a huge newer development and legally they have to put in sidewalks, so I had them for a quarter mile or so. The hill starts to make the turn down into Happy Valley when I turned around.

For my downhill journey I decided to run through the cemetery. I wasn’t going to as I don’t know how visitors would feel about that. But the prospect of the crappy sidewalk-less road made me reconsider. Fortunately nobody was around, I guess it was too early and church time as well. I circled the outer rim of the cemetery. It struck me as somewhat odd that I was paying so much attention to my beating heart among all these hearts that were no longer beating. I passed by their Oregon Korean War Veterans memorial and thought of my dad’s contributions to that war. He wasn’t happy about it but drove his trucks as he was asked to do. He told me many stories about timing his supply runs ahead of mortar fire, scary.

At mile ten or so I was off the hill and no longer pounding my knees. Both of them felt a little tender when I stopped at a traffic light awaiting my walk signal. I had a run in with a litterbug that got my HR up (funny, I could see the exact moment on the report when it happened) where I got to use my favorite litterbug line “Excuse me, I think you dropped something (thank you Cindy for the life lesson! I have never forgotten it.) Unfortunately (for the world) I don’t think I made much of an impact on this clown.

I made my way back again targeting my lower zone 2 until the last 3/4 miles where I decided to pick it up and but out nine minute miles. I was able to keep it going pretty steadily for that last bit despite my bodies exhaustion. I think I was more happy about that part than any. Maybe it was because it was the first time on the run I wasn’t holding back. Hopefully I didn’t undo the good I had been struggling through for the last couple hours+ for.

My final numbers: 13.47 mi 2:22:43.