Sunday:
Sunday I like to run with the Sunnyvale Sports Basement group. There are a few pretty fast runners which help push me on my long runs and more importantly they keep the runs much much more interesting. This Sunday it was pouring rain and I feared that no one would show up. Thankfully there were a few people there including Mamaan (I apologize if that is not how you spell it.) Mamaan was nice/stupid enough to climb under the freeway with me — THATS RIGHT — we climbed under the freeway. In explanation the group usually runs on San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail, however thanks to the rain the trail was flooded in places including the only way to get across 101. Considering we were only 2 miles into a 10 mile run, I stubbornly refused to let the be a deterrent and instead Mamaan and I scaled the slope next to the flooded trail and went hand over hand along a pipe for over 40 feet so we could get to the other side of the freeway and keep running.
Other then that the run was relatively uneventful and the rain was for the most part sympathetic as it sprinkled rather than poured.

Monday:
Did 6.5 on the treadmill. Worked on increasing the incline so that I will be prepared for the Presidio 10.
I use to be a great hill runner. I group up in San Francisco (yes in the actual city — yes people do that.) As a result all of my runs included some sort of hill of sorts. In particular one of my favorite runs with the Fleet Feet group involved running up to the base of Coit Tower and then down Crooked Street. Suffice it to say that all the hill training built a lot of quality leg strength. This trend continued in college at Berkeley where the campus abutted Strawberry Canyon and the only trail run you could access without a car involved a large hill climb (someday I will look up what the elevation change is.) Anyways now I live in Santa Clara. The closest things to a hill running distance from my house are freeway overpasses. As a result I have decided that the treadmill will be necessary to work on hill strength (at least until I find some local trail runs in the hills.)
As boring as it was it felt good to know that I could still run at 3.5% incline at 6:30 pace without too much effort. I will be building this up over the next few weeks so that I can easily run the first two miles of the Presidio 10 (which are all uphill) without too much pain.

Tuesday:
Did a nice light base run ;) 6:25 pace 7 miles. Sadly not much more to say about that.