10 Miles = Success!!!

Garmin Data

It irked me that I couldn't finish my run this weekend so I decided to move my off day from Monday to Sunday and redo the long run on Monday. This might turn out badly because I have basketball games Tuesday and Thursday and my buddy Hal says I'm supposed to lay off basketball for the duration. Apparently its bad on the joints or something.

Preparations for the long run included taking 3 Cliff Blok Shots (Lemon/Lime), Tina's phone (mine is about 20# and thick as a brick) and a 1/2 water 1/2 gatorade bottle in one of those SUPER cool fanny (not the British 'fanny' you dirty bird) packs. I also recently got some new shoes GT-2120 to replace my old GT-2110s. The people at Fleet Feet over by Sakura on Tanque Verde are incredibly helpful and spent alot of time with Tina on the treadmill etc. figuring out her arches and making recommendations. I highly recommend them and you should support your friendly local whenever possible. But ANYWAY...........I loaded up some podcasts (Allen I hope your eyes are not bleeding because despite that fact that its in fact an .mp3 I calls it a podcast cause its a thing I subsribe to and magically shows up in Itunes everyday) from Bill Simmons and This American Life and took off.

I mapped out a route consisting of a loop around my house and then working down the long jogging trail following Old Spanish Trail to where it meets Broadway. I live on a high ridge so its pretty much all downhill no matter which way I go. When possible I try to set it up so that I do some up hill in the early part of the run and save the downhill for later. The only problem with this particular run was that I started late and so it was very dark with almost no moon. Running down Freeman was a little nervy, I only saw 3 cars but they all tried to run me over and I couldn't see the shoulder well enough to get over much ahead of time. I think I nearly fell in a few holes but in the end no harm done.

The loop was fine and by the time I got to the downhill section I was cruising and felt fine. I changed the route a little and ran by the house my parents lived in while I was in high school. This took me a back way to Jessie Owens park along a road being chip-sealed which was smelly, gravelly and annoying. Made the turn on Broadway and did another mile and half back up OST where Tina picked me up.

I felt great throughout the run, my knee was still a little sore but nothing too bad. I'm due for a 12 miler this weekend but am going to be at a wedding full of drunken bad influences so I'll have to try for another Monday evening run next week.

By the way, I like Adam Corolla's appearances on the Simmons podcasts. He gives plot rundowns on fake movies and in particular this week he presented 'Snapper' the story of Blitz Rusher who is the fallen world's greatest long-snapper seeking redepmtion etc. I also listened to a This American Life about a Iraq war vet who had PTSD and couldn't stand being around brown looking people. He eventually joined a Muslim student association and everything worked out. Its actually better than it sounds.