Long Weekend

A fairly boring weekend at the Wesner household. Heather was working call both Friday and Sunday meaning she would be gone the entire day and night, staying at the hospital. I have a final on Monday(which I just gone done studying for) so I spent most of the weekend in the house studying. The only really nice breaks were long runs through the park, so I made them count.


Friday.:


Sometimes running feels like chore and this is exactly how it felt Friday evening. I knew I should run but my mind was see-sawing between cooking a large dinner for myself, sitting down in front of the TV while I feigned studying with a book on my lap or getting out the door for an hour+ in the park. After downpours all day the rain had abated, I knew it was going to be muddy but at least I wouldn't get drenched. I finally talked myself out the door.


After a mile I felt good, had settled in, my iPod was playing a good mix and I was enjoying the run. What really got me out the door was the chance to explore a new portion of the park that I learned about from some trail runners on the Thursday night race. I made the 2 mile trip to this section of the park and quickly got lost in huge area of the park that I hadn't really known about. It's called the Andorra Natural Area.


The sodden earth sucked at my feet as I twisted and turned, over hill and dale, past giant Beech trees and into deer filled meadows. This had felt like a chore 30 minutes ago? As promised, this section of the park was great for running. Spent a long time in there trying to figure things out and finally made it home about 66 minutes later. I only passed 5 other people, all runners, on the entire trip and that wasn't until the end of the run 8+ miles.


Saturday.


Heather and I headed out with a manic dog attempting to tire him out and get ourselves a run in the process. We took trails into some uncharted territory and my mental map of the park was expanded even further. It was slow going with a few walking breaks. A lazy Saturday afternoon run. I'd say we ran a total of 8 miles but we were out there for over 90 minutes exploring. It was fun.


Sunday.


Another solo run. Headed again to the Andorra Natural Area and then looped down to the race course from Thursday. I was able to follow the quickly disintegrating flour markings for the course, and this time I completed the entire loop. I was out there a little longer than I had planned and I quickly went from feeling great to feeling like I just wanted to get the hell home. 12+ miles in 1:33


A good week overall, 7 days running, 53 miles.