forward and back

The New York Times recently had a link to the men's 10k from the 2000 Olympics. I'm sure back in 2000 I couldn't have cared less, but now it seems so compelling. Check it out, it's got a great finish. And don't feel too bad for Paul Tergat, he's played the role of heartbreaker as well as Hendrick Ramaala can atest.

Maybe it's because the rest of the world has better things to do with their Saturday evenings, but it was oddly empty on the The Trail At Lady Bird Lake (henceforth referred to ttalbl) this evening. Due to miscellaneous life stuff, running opportunities have been thin as of late, so I jumped at the opportunity to get a run in at 7:30 this evening. I was originally hoping to run out to sculpture falls on the greenbelt, but that would have required me stashing some fluids out near mopac, so I figured it was late enough that ttalbl would probably would mostly shady. I parked at robert e lee and decided to run out to the east side for 8 miles rather than doing the 7 mile loop. It was immediately obvious that no one runs at this hour on Saturdays. Between the mile 1 marker and 1/2 mile marker I saw exactly 1 other runner. Then the floodgates opened and I saw 8 before mile 0. I saw 2 more runners before I-35 and then a total of 5 on the east side. I stopped counting after that since it was getting dark, so the absence of runners didn't seem as surprising.

The run itself was so-so. I stayed right around 8:00/mile for pretty much the whole run. It was hot, and I was tired from a couple of sleepless nights, so I was mostly happy just to finish. It would have been nice to have had some daylight when I finished so I could have jumped in the overflow at barton springs, but instead I just headed home.

So to catch up a little, we went to Boston to visit friends and family from July 14 - 21. It was the first (and possibly the last) trip with el beskrownito. He did great on the plane, but trying to mix in a full itinerary of visits with his sleeping and feeding routine was challenging and exhausting. By the end of the trip, we were telling people "sure we want to see you, but if you want to hang out, you have to come to us."

Despite staying at places that had good running options nearby, I didn't get to run once the entire trip. Sigh... Which was a bummer because I really felt like I had been building up some momentum leading up to the trip. The week before leaving, I had run 6 out of 7 days and put in over 40 miles which, and I know this will seem pathetic to many gazelles, was the first time I'd ever done that. I felt like I was getting some strength and maybe even a little speed back.

Then came the trip, and in the two weeks since returning from the trip, I've run a total of 4 times.

OK, enough with the self pity. The plan for the future is try to get in an many lunch time runs as possible. Since it's so freaking hot, this will probably mean running on the greenbelt. A lot. This has it's benefits. I can essentially walk out the door of my office and walk across the parking lot to the 360 entrance, and the run to sculpture falls and back is a pleasant 5.5 miles. I've really grown to enjoy this quiet and shady run. There's no water (like ttalbl), but there's spring right by sculpture falls with some cool water you can splash on your back, and because of the nature of running on a trail, it's a pretty damn good workout.

I'll still go to as many gazelles workouts as possible (as long as they're not the 3-2-1 fartlecks), but realistically, that's going to be tough for the near future.

I guess now that I've posted in August, I can wait until September to post another update.