Almost a year after heading to Florida Laura and I were back on a plane heading to the west coast of America this time, in particular California. Much the same as last year my running shoes were packed and I was going to ensure I did at least one run whilst I was out there, this I did, albeit on the day we left!

Los Angeles offers some what appear to be lovely running routes the path that runs alongside Venice beach upto Santa Monica looks amazing but if I’m totally honest the club sandwiches with huge portions of food and the general attitude I seem to adopt when heading to the States makes me struggle for motivation to want to run! Anyway as my trainers had traveled thousands of miles I was going to wear them…

On the final morning I set up my kit and left for a short jog around Pasadena, this was no race, far from it. Having put on what felt like a stone in the last 7 days, it was more about getting moving and stopping my legs going to sleep. A short 5k was decided heading round in familiar territory near to the hotel. The Garmin took a while to work out where we were – I assume there is some form of intelligence that says ‘I was here last time so see if I’m nearby to that point still’. All I can imagine is walking out of the hotel and the watch going “ahhhhhh where the hell am I!!”, or something like that. » Continue reading “Running in the USA”

MSE Running Club™ has started again. This was the first run of ’09 and possibly the first run with these guys since probably about November. The group was started about a year ago to help Archie get round her first marathon and runs have happened once a week fairly regularly. Its good to get out again with the others from the team – its only short as we are limited by the lunch break but hopefully the goal is to get a 10k in during the lunch break with a bit of time to play.

This week Dan and Darren accompanied me in a 4mile ish route round Olympia way. Route can be seen here:
http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/?l=mapit,478360489 (Graph to follow).

Run was quite pleasant – my ability has evidently improved – ran at talking pace which was a pleasant change from the faster type. Look forward to more of these short impromptu runs in the next few months.