sunny sunday
i got rolling in the early afternoon with the sun shining and a breeze from the northeast. i pointed myself down the hill on comanche then rolled up university avenue. approaching uw-w, off in the distance two ladies were running up the hill ahead of me. i slowly reeled them in and just before cresting the hill i caught up to them. i made a lighthearted comment about it being easier to run down the hill which got a quick laugh.
i kept heading north on university then turned east once i hit I-94. i followed the sidewalk up to the local McDonalds whereupon i made a brief pit stop. as i started to backtrack on my route, i had already covered a little over 5 miles in around 41:30. admittedly, it was much easier on the way back as i had the benefit of a tailwind. i rolled down university then back up the hill on comanche to pass my house with a little over 10 miles covered in 1:20:37.
i kept heading north on comanche then angled east again on michigan. this stretch reintroduced me to the NE wind but it didn’t seem to bother my pace much. i turned south then west to head back to my subdivision. with about 2 miles to go, a guy passed me in a SUV and was emphatically shaking his head "no" at me. maybe he didn’t like sharing the road with a lowly runner. oh well, free country…right?
at about a mile to go i ran into my buddy craig who took over webmaster duties on badgerlandstriders.org from me about 18 months ago. we chatted for a minute and each headed on our own routes. (you can only stand around all sweated up with temps in the mid-thirties for so long.) i hosed up starting/stopping my GPS watch so i grumbled to myself and soldiered on.
i made it up one last significant hill then turned on comanche for home. i rolled in somewhere around 2:00 for 15 miles, which translates to about 8:00 pace. the good thing is that i felt like i could have kept running, but i’ll save that for tomorrow morning.
(that’s a 35 mile "sandwich" this weekend!!)
MTD – 127 miles
YTD – 448 miles
Odometer – 26,786