Downtown to West Hollywood!

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Distance: 8.7 miles
Time: 1:29:12

On Sunday I backed out of a planned run with FJ. I was just too tired from an all-day outing with Sameer that included hiking in Eaton Canyon and biking through North Long Beach and valeting bikes in Hollywood in the evening. Needless to say, I woke up Sunday morning not feeling up to running fifteen miles. It was all for the best. I woke up in the morning with a headache and felt too nauseous to be of much use the rest of the day. I actually went back to sleep after eating breakfast and didn't get up until almost 3pm.

Despite having a good excuse not to run, I was annoyed to miss out on a long run, especially since the race is in a month and I haven't been running as much as I should. Therefore I told myself that I will run Monday and Tuesday. No excuses.

I almost didn't make it out of the house to run on Monday out of laziness, but I forced myself. And as often happens, I actually ran farther than I had intended because it felt good. I ran from my house and planned to run down 4th Street and turning around at Rossmore then up to Beverly and back home through Larchmont. Instead I extended it by turning at Highland instead, adding about a 1.5 miles to what should have been a five mile run. I finished in less than an hour, kind of tired, but glad that I got a good run in.

On Tuesday I committed myself to running from work in downtown to West Hollywood for the GLU meeting. Per Google Maps it was about an 8.7 mile run. I thought it would be farther, but Google does not lie--at least I hope it doesn't.

I packed as minimally as possible, but even that was an annoyance. Running with a bag on my back just bothered me even though it was extremely light, containing only a clean shirt for later and my phone. By the time I got to Vermont I took the bag off and ran with it in my hand.

As for my course, I took 7th Street from downtown all the way until it gets blocked by the Ambassador Hotel at Catalina. From there I headed north on Catalina and turned left on 6th. From 6th I ran until the sidewalk was useless, which turned out to be at Oxford. I arrived at Oxford and 6th 40 minutes into my run, so basically if I ran from work to home, I would probably arrive no more than ten minutes later than if I had driven. And I probably would have arrived home faster running than by bus.

I headed north on Oxford and took the same route as the previous night--4th Street but instead of turning at Highland, I turned on La Brea and headed north to Fountain and from Fountain to my old street, Martel. All this in an hour and a half. Not bad.

The start of the run was difficult, having to dodge pedestrians in downtown and inhaling massive amounts of auto and bus exhaust as I ran down major streets. 4th Street was very pleasant with great neighborhood scenery.

During the run, I nearly got clipped by at least two cars, dodged a lot of cars pulling out of driveways without watching for pedestrians. Most drivers can't fathom the fact that there are people who actually use the sidewalks in L.A. The worst was tripping on the uneven sidewalk, though. Thankfully I didn't fall down.

I considered running back home after GLU, but with a mile left in my run I knew it would be a tall order. I was exhausted!

While running over fifteen miles over two nights doesn't equate to running fifteen miles at one time, I'm still proud of it. I'm really not in great shape, and I'm going to misss another weekend since I'll be up in Santa Barbara this weekend. I doubt I can get my ass in gear to run when I'm supposed to be relaxing. However, I'm still holding out hope that I can get myself together in the last couple of weeks before I start tapering. Tapering? Heck, that's what I've been doing all this time!