11.2.08

Ah, the wonders of the time change. An extra hour of sleep? nope, got up at the regular time. An extra hour of procrastination?, check. Well I thought I would catch the marathon this morning before church, but only got to see about 3 minutes of it then we had to leave. And of that 3 minutes, only about 1 was quality because they had the crappiest live camera's ever. On the "men's" camera it was just a bunch of guys sitting by police bikes talking about crap and absolutely no running. I think they got their cameras mixed up.

Church went fine, then we went out to eat with Van and Regina, our marriage class leaders. We went downtown to eat at the square, it was nice. Unfortunately, although I enjoyed their company greatly, it put me way past my start time. We didn't get home till 3:20 and I had a 2.5 hour long run (same as last week). And with the lovely time change that mean't sunset at 5:45 - taking me well past sunset and running in the dark. At least I could run at the park at the end of my run and not be out on the road. Still the likelihood of tripping on something in that park is quite high. Other than the broken, crater-like pavement there are dips, bridges made of uneven boards, and valleys and drop-off's all over.

So to start the run I took off nice and easy - slogging really a quick loop around the park, then off up the incline. Today the legs weren't feeling too fresh. I did run about...**88** miles last week! Gah I can hardly believe that. But surprisingly I felt pretty good. I made sure to take it easier on the hills and just push the downhills. Although at the same time downhills kill your knees, so you really don't want to push either one :-) Anyway I went my new normal route down cedar bluff and into the subdivision.

I found a new trick today though. While making my way back from the subdivision I saw a place where there is a sort of pedestrain crosswalk, just a few lines across the four-lane street. There are apartments on the other side, and I guess they put that in so people could across to the eatery's and tiny shopping center on the other side (but not that any cars actually slow down for it because nobody ever has the guts to cross there because of crazy drivers). So i saw the traffic wasnt coming and I crossed there. It was nice because the apartments had a few different paved lots to run through, and it runs into a church and then on up to middlebrook. This is great because I don't have to run across at the stoplight anymore in fear of my life. So I was happy about that.

Went on down to the Weigels and then turned right down to walmart. Still felt pretty good at this point and was probably 1:15 or further into the run so I was making good progress and didn't feel like I need water or food. So I made my way back to the Weigels and the hill just past it put a pretty good hurtin' on my quads. I was definitely slowed down, but once I got to the top I was feeling pretty good again. Went on down and made it to Aubrey's hill, which actually didn't hurt too badly. For some reason I was just feeling really good today. At this point I had a good 35 minutes left and the sun was just about to go under the trees. I stopped at my car for a quick drink and a tiny bit of laraba bar and took off again. I didn't want to lose my momentum, although my knees were pretty beat up from going a little faster on the downhills, hams weren't much better.

It was MUCH cooler at the park. I think there is a creek nearby, so a ton of cool humid air filled my lungs and cooled my arms. I ended up running three loops, starting around the track, going to the back soccerfields and running them in sort of an L shape along the outsides of the fields. I think there are 8 of them, so it makes for a good half mile extra doing that. On the third "lap" I was still feeling great. My lungs actually never worked much today at all which surprised me. So since I was feeling good and had just hit 2:32, I figured I would just go for 2:40 and see if I could make it. I ran all of this along the main soccerfields, which connect longways so it didn't take too long, plus I veered off and did a little through the park section. Finished really strong and this run was in the books. Did a little walking cooldown, but the legs were pretty trashed. Got home and took an ice bath. GREAT day.

3:30 pm. ball camp park. 73-62 degrees.
2:41:33, gf 319