TLDR – I’m a nerd and track my day to the 5-minute increments. New commute time will be nearly the same as old one. Coal Creek trail was a great run.

Tracking My Day

Running is one of the few selfish personal time things I commit to on a regular basis. Time with my family and giving momma breaks from the kids are much higher on my time priority list then person time for myself is. Long term running should make me better shape and result in more time, and I snuck into my day by giving up the shower at home and leaving a but earlier to work. – Looking back at my day I’m trying to determine what my new running time budget needs to be now that work moved me to a new building in Bellevue. Previously I’d leave the house between 10-10:45 to allow enough time and traffic buffer to drive to work, run, shower, and make it to my desk before the 13:00 shift start bell. Hoping the move will have a similar time cost.

Luckily I track the snot out of my day and I’m able to fairly easily create an accurate timeline of the day to math the number budget. Fitbit’s step data provides a fairly clear minute by minute outline of when I did things based on movement, or lack thereof. The Microsoft Band data for step count is laid out in hourly blocks and is mostly useless for this type of analysis. In addition to Fitbit, I also consulted with Mint for a credit card transaction time stamp for my fuel stop at Costco, I looked at goodtogo to see when I crossed the narrows bridge, but they appear to have not captured my crossings this week; major bummer, and I checked Outlook to see when I was and was not sending emails to verify run start and end, and arrival at my full booted up laptop keyboard to send emails.

Home to Costco to Coal Creek to Work to Desk timeline

Based on the data I gathered I came up the following time from home to work:

10:10 – Stuffed myself in the car and the kids pushed me out the driveway.
10:14 – Filled the insights fuel tank – (Double checked this with Mint because Costco instantly hits your credit card)
11:30 – Arrived at the Coal Creek trail head for my run (32 minutes of trail running, then swapping shoes, drinking water, and getting back in the car)
12:10 – Back in the car headed for Bravern
12:25 – Managed the 21 asshole speed bumps to subbasement level 7 of Bravern and went for a shower (tracked myself, 10 minutes to the building, but I made a wrong turn. I’ll do better tomorrow)
12:40 – Leave the shower and take the stairs down to the car for my pack
12:48 – Arrive at my desk on the fourth floor to set it up (one-time event after moving)
12:57 – sent my first email outlook vs. my phone (tracked with sent items in outlook)

In the Fife /Milton area of I5 I check a “it will take you X minutes to get here” sign to gauge my future commute speed. On a light day it will say 2X(starts with 2 ends with a number) minutes to Bellevue, normal day is 3X minutes to Bellevue, today the time started with a 4 indicating lame heavy traffic.

Based on the above timeline, a fuel a day will take me between 2 hours and 20 minutes and 2 hours and 45 minutes. The fuel stops costs me about 15 minutes, so a normal day should cost me between 2 and 2 and a half hours to make it work, run, shower, and find my desk. Which is within a 15 minute plus or minus variance of what it was taking me to drive to Redmond and run around campus.

Analysis Result – Budget the same commute time for new building vs. old building with a stop at Coal Creek to run

Coal Creek Trail Running

For the past 10 months or so I’ve been running on the nice gravel trails around the Microsoft Redmond campus. Moving to Bravern in down town Bellevue means no more gravel running trail next to my building. I’ve honestly had some anxiety about not have access to the running trails and invest time into finding a valid alternative. Checking the internets and satellite photos and chatting with peeps, the best I’ve been able to find for a non-paved trail close to my commute corridor is the Coal Creek trail system near New Castle off of I405. My back up vision is trail system on a 320-acre lot of state school land next to the freeway on ramp near our home.

For the near future, Coal Creek was an awesome run I’ll enjoy running, so I doubt I’ll need the backup; come winter or a few months from now things might change. Coal Creek starts off gravel then changes to packed mud and soil which was super comfortable to run on. The trial had some nice elevation gains to climb that I could defiantly feel in my legs. Looking back at the run tracking data after my run I was a bit surprised to find out a campus loop was move elevation gain then todays run at Coal creek. Coal creek has steep gains, and campus is more gradual less noticeable gains must be why.

Another bonus of the Coal Creek train is that it was almost completely shaded in the trees. On campus I wear sun glasses when I run. Don’t think I’ll be needed them on Coal Creek. The UV data from Band shows a 16 minute UV exposure difference, which my eyes noticed. Much slower on Coal Creek because of the hills, but it kept my heart rate better.

Coal Creek run today on my new trail.

Last day on campus, yesterday, until we move back next year.

Pictures and smells

Coal creek trail has a number of bridges over the creek made out of what smell like creosote soaked timbers. The smell brought me back to some child hood memories helping dad building retaining walls with old railroad ties. Smells sure do have some super powers. Look at the pretty bridge.

Sun glasses on my head sweat on my face

Bridge picture without my sweaty face blocking the view.

Just for the fun of it I took a picture in the car today to send to Jer Jer to prove I had more % of something then he did. I call this shot Thor the Kev