The Long Run

Mostly ran by myself. Ran towards Kathryn's house and saw her and ran with her a short bit until we ran into Jenny then I went on ahead.   Jenny was going to run 3-4 miles with Kathryn at a slow pace.  But even last night Jenny was still kind of limping a bit from the marathon and I was wondering how she'd be able to run today.  She started to run this morning but then stopped and didn't think it was going to work.  That's when I ran ahead to meet up with Kathryn.  We then turned around until we got to Jenny and I figured they would do their slow run together, but she was not quite yet ready to run I later found out.

 Nothing too exciting happened on the rest of the run.  Enjoyed the nice weather and being able to run in the light.  I did notice that for the first time in many months, the bathroom was unlocked.  I did a few quick pick ups here and there and was soon back home.

After the run, did some stretching type exercises and then a few things with weights and my favorite "perfect push-up" things.  Did a few sets of weighted pull-ups with 25lb weights and then tried on rep with Thomas on my back.  I almost made it up but not quite!

My first planned tempo run in a while, well sort of, planned it last night right before I went to bed.

Met up with Striders at Longleaf. Warmed up with 2.5 easy, then did 4 mile tempo run keeping each mile under 7:00. Splits were: 6:48, 6:52, 6:45, 6:36

I sometimes have a hard time doing tempo runs in the dark, but today I had my light clipped on my hat and have fixed the glare problem by putting electrical tape toward the bottom.  I was going to test it out on Sunday morning's run but I ended up running when it was light out.  Glad it came in handy.

Short cool down after that to put the total at just over 7 miles.

It was nice to see a few friends after - Mike, Raj, Diane, Barb, Melanie, Rudy and Randy (the PTs) and many more.

Got home fairly early and saw Dave out front - he was putting in a tree in our front yard to replace a bush I planted a while ago.  Went over where it was going to go.  I went back inside and then Andy asked from the bathroom "Hey Dad, why is the water off?"

I went outside and saw water bubbling up from the ground.  Dave shut off the water, finished extricating the bush and said he'd be able to fix it all.  Someone (me) had planted that bush too close to the water main, d'oh.

Andy finished his shower by rinsing off in the pool.  Fortunately, Jenny did not have any morning clients.  Thomas and I took a dip in the chilly pool to wash up.

 Later in the morning, Dave had finished putting in the tree, hauled off the old bush, and had the water fixed, yay!

 It's life.

Ran alone in the neighborhood. I went outside this morning, then right back inside to get some gloves because I didn't want to change into long sleeves. Very nice once warmed up. Enjoyed seeing the sky lighten as the sun came up. Savor these moments.

Started out at Longleaf. It was in the mid 40's.

Very small crowd this morning. Ran with Mike and Renee for a bit until we got to Diane's house. Ran into the park and did an out and back on the off road trails, maybe just over 5 miles. I saw quite a few deer, heard the birds chirping and reached down to verify that it really was frost on the ground.  My pace was a little bit faster going into the park, about 8:30~8:45.  I had some slower miles on the trails on the way out, but once I turned around I picked it up a little bit except on the portions where the sand was very dry (looked like piles of sugar which kept my mind off of it being harder). 

I did a slightly different route than I had done in the past so little by little I'm learning my way around and the landmarks that all used to look the same are becoming more meaningful.  It's quite a change of pace running off the paved trails.  I saw no people today, just dear, so I felt more like I was running through their territory. 

Once I left the park and was back on the pavement I realized that I was a little pressed for time so I picked up the pace a bit for the last 4.5 miles to get back in time (7:41, 7:30, 7:16, 6:58, 7:43).

Just enough time to get back home and take Thomas to bowling then had a pretty full day ahead helping on science fair project (making a cloud in a bottle), and then I took my first bass guitar lesson. 

Jenny had bought the bass for me a number of years ago for Christmas.  I was so excited to get it and tried to learn it on my own but eventually gave up on it.  So, I figured that it's never too late to try something again.  Lesson went pretty well, started learning the bass line from Black Magic Woman as well as the basics.