7 miles

My last long run before the Buck Mountain Half!! I decided not to run with the group on Dick Woods, and instead slept in and ran from my house. The plan was to run through the new development 2 miles to the high school, do a couple 800's for fun, then run back the way I came.

I woke up extremely late - nearly 8:30!! Max has been getting up between 7 and 7:30, so I had planned on getting up around then, and starting out. So I was an hour behind where I thought I'd be, not to mention I was so well rested I just felt weird. Between running, work, and Max, I'm not used to having enough sleep. My body rejected it.

So I finally strap on my CamelBak, and step out the front door, only to be greeted by a disemboweled toad carcass on the front step. That's nice, some neighbor's cat likes us enough to leave us a gift. So I grabbed some gardening gloves and a shovel, and sent the toad to his final resting place in the woods.

Finally! I hit my watch and I was off. The first mile is almost entirely downhill, which is a nice way to warm up, though I always find myself thinking about hauling myself up that hill at the end of the run. I popped through the gap in the 10 ft tall fence that shields the old neighbors from the new development, and started winding my way through the neighborhood. Much to my chagrin, the road had been paved just this week, meaning that the stagnant air was shot through with the thick smell of tar and asphalt. Not quite the bucolic run I had imagined.

When I crossed the highway to the entrance of the high school, I heard cheering. Awwww, rats. Some athletic event was going on in the stadium where the track is. So much for my 800's zen. I did a couple laps around the soccer field, and then decided to bag it since my shoes were getting wet from the dew. I headed back across the highway to the middle school, and decided to run sprints across the parking lot. However, the school is down in a little hollow, and in the still morning air, the smell of garbage from the dumpsters was more than I could handle. I decided to head home, and figured that 6 + was enough.

I exchanged garbage smells for tar smells, and headed up, up, up, and when I was less than a quarter mile from the house, I could spy the big fence. Except the hole I'd gone through less than an hour before was gone. Seriously, WTF? Workers were affixing the last few nails in the missing section, meaning that I had to backtrack almost a half mile to go out via the road. So, I ended up doing my entire 7 after all.

After having wonderful runs the past two weekends, it was jarring and demoralizing to have such a crappy day. That's what I get for sleeping in.