Oregon

I'm in Portland! Yesterday was the first day of my 12 day vacation along the west coast. I started by driving from LA to the Santa Rosa Airport then jumped on a plane to Portland, which happened to be my first time flying on a turbo-prop. It was a good experience especially because they served complimentary micro-brew IPA and the flight attendant noticed my Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt and started talking Pink Floyd with me.  

I'm going to spend a couple days in Portland at my sister's pad, then drive to Lincoln City on the coast for a family reunion next week.  Below are a couple pictures of the view from my sister's condo in Portland...nice change of scenery from the rooftop views I get in Redondo Beach.

Next Friday I will drive back to Portland and hop on a plane back to Santa Rosa where I will stay until the following Tuesday. During my stay in the Santa Rosa area I will be racing in Vineman. So, that's an overview of my next 1.5 weeks, and of course, I will not be thinking of work one bit during that time.

Now that I'm back on track with the running portion of my training, I decided to go on one last long run before the race next weekend.  I did a few loops along the river and over the bridges shown in the pictures above. It seemed to be quite a popular running spot with some fairly fast runners out there today. Probably due to the proximity to Nike and U of Oregon.  Overall, I think I put in about 10 miles and my legs are feeling good.  I plan to throttle down and give them some rest over the next week.

More vacation/training updates and photos to follow...