Over the holiday weekend I got in some good quality running. It started with a 5 a.m. wakeup call on Saturday morning. Saturday morning was forecasted as being in the mid 50's and whenever I hear that I get pretty excited in knowing that I can get in a good quality long run with those kind of temps. With that, I locked up the house, left "Zagnuts" the dog to fend for himself, and hit the road just as the sun was yawning and stretching its bright tendrils over the morning horizon. (Eat your heart out John Steinbeck.) The morning did prove to be a pleasant one. Starting out, the air seemed a little heavy with a little fog lingering about. The temp was comfortable, though, and as the sun rose, it burned off whatever fog there was and got considerably cooler, even more so in the shade. The beginning part of my route was through the Village of Shorewood and the bike path behind the UW Hospital that leads to the Memorial Union. On my way there, it was pretty cool to see some morning rowers out and about, dipping their oars into the calm waters of Lake Mendota and getting in their morning strokes. When I got up to the capitol, it was still pretty early in the a.m. but you wouldn't know it. People were out setting up their respective stands around the rotunda, getting ready to sell their goods and produce at the farmers market. "The Taste of Madison" was also starting up on Saturday morning, so those vendors were feverishly setting up their booths as well. From the capitol I headed down West Washington towards Vilas Park to do a loop around the arboretum. There were quite a few runners out in the arb that morning and it was nice to see. They must have had the same line of thinking as I had... get in that early moring run in the cool of the day. One of the neatest parts of the run was about two miles into the arb loop. I was just about at the arboretum nature center when I ran by six wild turkey out foraging by the side of the road. It didn't look like they had missed too many meals, either. They were pretty big birds. I never get tired of seeing wildlife like that up close. After I finished up the arb loop, I headed toward Monroe St. and Camp Randall where things were starting to jump with the anticipation for the first Badger football game of the year. It's always pretty cool to see all the fans decked out in their red and white for a Badger game and smell the brats cookin' on the grills. My Badger gameday experience was shortlived, though, as I quickly exited the area and headed up the East/West bikepath towards home. It was a good run overall. The weather was great, I got to see wild turkeys, wild Badger fans, and got in a quality long run in the process. To treat myself for getting up early and running 22 miles, I headed to Cold Stone Creamery in Greenway Station for a little cookie dough ice cream... actually not a little... a lot. It was a large waffle cone bowl of it and it tasted good. It was funny, as I was sitting outside enjoying it, an older couple walked by and the guy said, "I bet there is no calories in that." I told him it was my reward for running 22 miles earlier that morning. He and his wife laughed and said, "Well you need to replenish what you lost then." That indeed I did... and I enjoyed doing it too.
Sunday I didn't much feel like getting up early before church to get in a run. 'Ol "Zagnuts" the dog had me up and about several times during the night so he could water the lawn. He even gave me the added pleasure and bonus of cleaning up the contents of his stomach that he barfed up on the floor... twice. He really knows how to treat his sitter, doesn't he? So with that, I decided to sleep in a little bit and do my run late in the afternoon. I'm glad I did too. I needed the rest. By the time the late afternoon rolled around I was ready for a little run. It was sunny out but the temp was mild so it was pretty comfortable running conditions. My legs actually felt surprisingly good, too. There was no residual soreness or achiness and I actually ran my last mile in under 7 minutes. It really makes me feel good in knowing that my legs can recover so quickly now. A little over a year ago that wasn't the case.
Monday was Labor Day and the last official day of summer. It was again supposed to be a nice morning so I thought I'd see how my legs would react to a 10 mile run, two days after doing a 22 miler. Again I was pleasantly surprised. After a slow opening mile (which was just fine by me) I gradually got into a comfortable pace and kept getting stronger as the run went on. I wound up averaging 7:35 pace for the 10 miles and was extremely happy in knowing that I had run 37 miles in the past three days. It was a good way to head into a day off today.
Saturday's workout: 22.1 miles > 2:52:51 > 7:49 pace
Sunday's workout: 5.1 miles > 38:39 > 7:35 pace
Miles last week: 48.5
Monday's workout: 10.1 miles > 1:16:33 > 7:35 pace
Miles this week: 10.1
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