Friday, November 20, 2009

Familiar Territory

Despite the lack of posting, I have been running this week. I did not actually crumble into pieces after the Wolfe's Neck Trek 5k. I've been feeling pretty good, and have enjoyed the locations of my runs. Two out of the three runs this week, I got back to places I haven't run in a while. Not quite the walk down memory lane that Wolfe's Neck was, but it was nice to get back to some familiar ground. Let's go for a stroll, shall we?

On Tuesday, I was able to get back to the carriage roads at Great Glen Trails. I hadn't been out on the trail system in a while, and while I wanted to run longer—I was feeling good—I really only had time for 3 miles. I can for certain report that I saw more than a handful of moose tracks and one big ol' pile of moose poop. I can with much less certainly report that I may have seen an owl. At one point, a very large bird took off to my right. I could only see it as it flew away, and it was only briefly, but I'm not sure what else it could have been. I felt good and finished comfortably in 26:43, which is quite a bit faster than I normally run the same loop. I closed the run out with strides as the sun was setting behind the Presidentials. Not bad.

Thursday I had to hit the road to Boston for work, but I did squeeze in a 3 miler on the powerlines from home. It was icy! Quite a bit of hoar frost—my personal favorite ground condition. I was a bit sluggish and tight out of the gate but felt fine by the time I finished.

After driving to Boston and back yesterday, I was a bit tight today. Really tight: calves, hamstrings and most troublesome, my left knee—just below and to the inside of the kneecap. It just kind of appeared after driving and then standing around yesterday. It didn't bother me on my run, so other than extra stretching, I'm not going to worry about it. I wanted to get in 5 miles today, but I needed a break from the powerlines. Plus, the powerlines are a bit rugged in places, and I was hoping for a more mellow route. I hadn't run in the Commons at all since D and I ran together shortly before the Little Lady arrived, and I hadn't run the full 5-mile loop since the end of August. Between working, watching the Little Lady while D was at a doctor's appointment and being completely covered in spit up (not mine), I didn't get out until late. It was getting dark as I started, and it was really dark by the end. Normally, I'd begin the run with a loop on the trails that surround the Bowdoin fields, but I wanted to make sure I could see while out on the rest of the trails so I opted to save it for the end. This was a wise decision because I could barely see by the end and actually had to walk some of the rootier, tricky sections. Upon returning to the fields, I ran around the perimeter of the fields on the grass. It was dark, but at least I didn't have to worry about roots. The quarter moon, while beautiful over the fields, wasn't quite throwing enough light. And, even though I've done about eleventy billion runs through the Commons, it's always enjoyable.

Looking ahead, I might do another 5k on Sunday...this one all on the road...cue evil music.

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