Third Leg: Capitol Hill to Sellwood-Moreland Library

Date of run: January 12, 2014
Time of run: 1:00 pm
Temp: 48 degrees F
Conditions: Cloudy with intermittent showers, 90% humidity, winds 10mph
Distance: 5.0 miles each way (10 miles total)

LONG run today. And oh man, I did NOT feel up to the task. It's a bad sign when you're taking an inventory of aches BEFORE you start your run. Mine was a nagging soreness in my right hip, probably due to an ill-advised sprint down a dark street toward last night's Tubes concert venue. Didn't feel anything at the time, but on getting out of bed this morning, something was just a little tweaked.

Well, as I've often found in the past, the best thing to do when facing doubt, or fatigue, is to just start and see what happens. So, I drove to the starting point, the Capitol Hill Library parking lot, and headed down Capitol Highway toward Barbur Boulevard, where I gradually broke into a run, aiming east toward the Sellwood Bridge.



As I started down treacherous Taylors Ferry Road, I decided to try the "shortcut" through the cemetery that I'd heard about but never ventured. Sure enough, after some twists and turns through there, I found myself on the other side, right at the entrance to the west side of the still-under-construction Sellwood Bridge. I don't think it saved much distance, but it certainly was a quieter, prettier, and most importantly, safer way to get there.



As almost the entire first half of the trip was downhill, I was also able to run (slowly) for most of the first five miles, and arrived at the Sellwood-Moreland Library in fairly good time, and in fairly good shape.



Once inside, I headed (for unknown reasons, maybe because it was on the top row and I didn't have to bend my tired body over or crouch) for the F/G section of the Pop Music CD aisle. (No Rock Music section at this branch.) I immediately found several titles that looked interesting, just by the artwork, in this order: Guards, In Guards We Trust, Jason Forrest, The Unrelenting Songs of the 1979 Post Disco Crash, and Finger Eleven, Life Turns Electric. I decided the one I would carry back with me to the car would be Jason Forrest's, based on the great title, as well as the Allmusic review, and the clever play on (visual tribute to?) an old Cars album cover.



CD in pocket, it was time to head back to the car...almost all uphill now, urgh. To be honest, I took my damn time! Jogged a ways, walked a ways, jogged a little bit, stopped to take some pictures of weird local consumer culture along the way, and finally made it back. Here are some pictures of things that crack me up - I can't believe these business can actually sustain a decent existence. Especially Frack Burger. Really?!?



Finally, a word on last week's CD selection, Maximum Balloon: Fantastic! A solo project by producer/member of TV On The Radio, David Sitek collaborated with an album's worth of musicians and singers and came up with a white-boy funky, dancey stew of good time music I'll be returning to again. Here are two samples: Opening track Groove Me, featuring Theophilus London. Feel good stuff:



And one with David Byrne:



So cool to think I wouldn't have known about this fun album if I hadn't taken on this Challenge. Check it out! Good slow running music.

Second leg: Hillsdale to Capitol Hill Library

Date of run: January 5, 2014
Time of run: 2:00 pm
Temp: 37 degrees
Conditions: Dry and sunny, 89% relative humidity, winds 8 mph
Distance: 3.1 miles to, 3.5 miles from (6.6 miles total)

Beautiful day for a run! Nice part to this one is it started downhill. Very easy to break into a trot and get going. The entire run TO was on Capitol Highway, which isn't really a "highway" anymore but just a very busy road, with very few sidewalks, unfortunately. This is the kind of run where I spent most of my time alternating between running on the road, and ducking off into dirt/gravel/whatever just off to the side to let cars go by without forcing them to move over. I also realized that although the run started downhill, most of the trek to Capitol Hill was uphill, so by the time I got there I was pretty drenched in sweat. (Three layers: technical shirt, warm long sleeve shirt over that, short sleeved jacket over that.) Note for next run: One less layer!!

Then I started CD browsing. It didn't take too long to find an intriguing prospect: An album called Maximum Balloon, by David Sitek, producer/member of cool band TV On The Radio. I've listened to their albums and always found them interesting, but wasn't aware of this solo effort. The review looks good; I'll report back next week on how it sounds.

Sweaty hat and gloves now zipped up in jacket pocket, and CD safely tucked in large back pocket of my shorts, I headed out for the run back to Hillsdale, this time taking an alternate route that was a little longer, but in addition to being a different route (for mental interest), I hoped it would have more sidewalks. Alas, such was not the case. At least the majority of this run was downhill.



Happy to report, almost no soreness or nagging injuries on this day. Just tired, probably due to staying up late with the family over the holidays, and overindulging in sweets and starch. Not to mention increasing my mileage at a pace greater than 10%/week, which meant I had to run slowly to be careful not to pull anything. I had one of those humbling moments where a guy, approximately my age, went loping past me with huge strides, but at 6 miles I had NOTHING in the tank to try to keep up so I let him go by without a struggle. (I mean, just moving at all was a struggle by that point!)

So, 6.6 miles completed, no aches, pains or pulls, a quick stop at Starbucks for coffee and ready for next week's longer run to the Sellwood-Moreland Library. At five miles each way, with quite a bit of elevation gain, this could be one of the toughest runs of the whole project, especially considering my current fitness (not that great yet, to be honest).

Looking forward to the flatter layout of east Portland!