18 miles and a scare
I called Tom Friday and we agreed to meet at 6:30 a.m. to avoid the heat that would be arriving later in the day.
The next morning I was on time. Where was Tom? I waited 10 minutes and decided that in five more, I’d go it alone since I had no idea if or when he’d be coming.
While I waited, a deer appeared from the same trail I’d be running on. It came straight for my car and the Kinsmen Sport Center. It was just the two of us since the center opens at 7:00 and nobody had arrived yet. The deer walked right over to a 50 foot row of new rose bushes and proceeded to eat the petals off each bush one by one! I laughed out loud as I thought about what the poor gardener would do if he/she saw the deer snacking on his/her work!
Moments later Tom arrived. The first words out of his mouth were, “my morning is not off to a good start” as he held up a $176 speeding ticket.
We left for our run…
We both felt sluggish (second Saturday in a row feeling that way) but at least it wasn’t NEARLY as warm or humid as it was last Saturday. The run went well until the 10th mile when I tripped over a bulge in the pavement. I went down HARD and jarred my back pretty severely. I was REALLY worried as Tom lent me a hand up. Amazingly I was OK. I don’t know if it’s the gym work I’ve been doing but 9 times out of 10, that kind of jarring would have put my back out very badly. Thank goodness!
We continued on. It was a warm morning but very manageable. By the 13th mile, I got hungry and began to feel weak. I hadn’t eaten particularly well the night before and had intentionally not brought power gel on the run (experimenting) and I KNEW the run was about to get hard.
It did.
But I hung in there and we ran strong enough to finish in about a 2 or 3 minute negative split.
MAN was I tired all day Saturday.
On a non-running note, Lori and I finally saw Spiderman 2 last night and WOW did it ever ROCK! I loved it from the opening credits (how cool were those?) right to the end!!
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Kinda like asking, what’s that book “War and Peace” about?
Sunday July 25, 2004 @
You sure do a lot of “experimenting!” In a million years, I never could have gone out for 18 miles without a pile of food in my pockets. You just keep amazing me Mark!