Tired Legs

I planned a 12 mile route through east and west fairmount park and I was lucky enough to have several people join me in front of the Art museum at 9:00 am to run it. E Mike, Goat, Erin, and Jim headed up through East Fairmount across the Strawberry Mansion and over Georges hill. We cut across Horticultural Drive and there was talk before the run started that the gates might be locked on this route. Luckily this gate was open but it turned out to be the only gate open. We planned on cutting through behind memorial hall but the rear gate was locked tight. We look for spot to squeeze through but no luck. We ran along teh fence looking for a hole, we found one covered in barbed wire, no good. We decided to head back onto Belmont but that gate was also locked tight. At this point we were getting a little desperate, are pace was thrown off, we didn't feel like running all the way back to the gate we had come so we started eyeing trees to hop the fence. We quickly realized that it might be a little foolish to try this and then Jim had the idea of taking a small side path off of the main road. Low and behold at the end of this path was a a hole in the fence large enough to easily hop through. After a little delay we were right back on track.

As we continued running I just didn't feel the same. The break in running had thrown off all of our rythyms it seemed. The run continued at a fairly steady 8 minute pace down lansdowne, behind the zoo, down 34th to chestnut and then back on the river path. 12.6 miles in about 1hr 46min. Could we really have run that slow? It sure as hell didn't feel like we were running 8:25 pace to me. I really was spent by the end of the run. It was the first run in a while that I didn't finish strongly. Maybe that run on Thursday night took more out of me than I thought. The rest of the group felt about the same as me so I at least was not alone. It was still a fun run and that little detour could come in handy in the future.