foggy morning constitutional
the morning began with temps in the mid fifties, 100% humidity and fog. i geared up and headed north on comanche then east on madison towards downtown. i rolled through a loop of frame park and greeted some other runners passing me in the opposite direction. i then made my way back to madison and headed west for home. overall, i mustered eight miles in a bit under 67 minutes and hit the shower.
off the reservation
i stayed up late last night watching a hack team from pittsburg get lucky against my red wings and didn’t run in the morning. instead, i brought along gear and ran during lunch. temps were in the mid-50’s and it was overcast with a light rain. i headed north to north beach and just before turning around, another runner passed me heading south. i made my turn and began quickly making up distance on the guy. without even thinking about it, i began running the tangents of the bike path i was running on to save a small bit of distance.
the guy must have noticed me coming up on him and turned his head a few times. as i passed him, i said what a nice day it was and all i got back was a grunt. (he was wearing headphones so maybe he didn’t hear me…or perhaps didn’t like getting passed) regardless, i headed back with six miles completed in a tick or two past 47 minutes and hit the shower.
morning constitutional
i got myself out the door this morning and headed down comanche to the glacial drumlin trail. my legs felt good after taking the day off from running on sunday as i opted for church, brunch, mulching and lawn cutting instead. about 2.5 miles into my run, i noticed a deer in the meadow to the north of the trail. it saw me before i saw it and just stood there watching me. i kept heading west and made the turnaround after 3.5 miles and a little less than 29 minutes elapsed.
after a mile of doubling back on the route, a deer walked across the trail about 200 meters ahead of me. then a second deer began walking across the trail and just stopped to watch me running toward it. i’m sure that deer #1 found his buddy to show him this silly human running on only two legs. considering i was wearing a bright orange shirt, i was surprised at the bravado displayed by deer #2 just staring me down.
as i approached, deer #2 moved into the brush along the trail. as i passed, the two deer stood there watching as i went by. my guess is that deer #2 told deer #1 something like, "yep, that is one silly human" or something like that.
the remaining bit of effort was relatively uneventful and i rolled into my subdivision with 7 miles covered in about 56 minutes.
this saturday evening i’ll be rolling through the kettle moraine rails helping out a woman running 100 miles. at the moment, the forecast looks warm and potentially wet…both of which i’m not a big fan of. regardless, most of the running that i’ll be doing will be at dusk or through the night so i should be able to adjust.
in terms of goals for the remainder of 2008, i’m taking aim at running a BOSTON qualifier at the Lakefront Marathon then running the Chicago 50K twenty five days later. getting old has it’s benefits as my qualifying time is now 3:15 which should be attainable with a reasonable amount of training and smart pacing. for the 50K, i would love to get under 4 hours and finish in the top ten. now all i have to do is put in the miles.
mixing it up
i got out the door at about 8:30AM and headed north on comanche then west on madison. i made may way up some significant hills on madison then after 2 miles of running on the road, i turned onto the trails of the Retzer Nature Center. granted, the terrain isn’t as technical as the trails in the kettle moraine, but it was nice to run on trails again. i guess i didn’t realize how much i missed it.
i headed downhill to the southern portion of the trails and ran through a section called Brown’s Fey. it’s a rather marshy area that has planked bridges to allow folks to hike…or in my case run…through it. i wound my way through the trail and then began the climb back up the hill toward the nature center. i improvised a little extra trail running then headed back out onto madison heading toward home.
as i neared my subdivision, i decided to take a run up the quarter mile hill in Glacier Cone park which is right on the corner of comanche and madison. from the top of the hill you get a great view of the surrounding area. i’ve only run up there a handful of times but need to make a point of doing so more often.
i ran a little more on comanche then stopped my GPS watch with 7 miles elapsed.
MTD – 119
YTD – 832
Odometer – 27,170
to the point
this morning a thunderstorm rolled through so i opted to stay in bed and aim for a noon hour run. i ended up running through the marina and enjoying the sound of the water crashing along the breakwater. on the way back, i had to make a pit stop and wandered into the festival building. luckily they let me use their bathroom and i knew right where it was located because the Racine 30K race had been held there in 2007.
incidentally, i heard that they may be bringing that race back in 2009…which means i may have the opportunity to defend my title and course record. ![":-)"]("http://jerrycameron.com/blog/templates/default/img/emoticons/smile.png")
regardless, after the stop i made my way back to campus with 5 miles completed and hit the shower.