Fall Trails

Trail Babe

Capt. Morgan Stance

Hill Repeats

It's a bit of an inconvenience to drive that far to just go for a run, but these trails are umatched anywhere else as far as quality and difficulty. The Mrs. must have read my blog because she was ready to workout the moment we got home from work. No slacking this night. Usually we would eat dinner first and then go workout, but daylight is in short supply. We drove 25 minutes to get to the trails, but they are worth it. I remembered to bring the camera this time so I can collect some material for the blog. It's annoying running with a camera though, it bounces around in the pocket too much. The phone would be smaller, but my company phone is busted and I'm waiting for the replacement. Regardless, after a not-so-brief pause for the GPS to sync, we were off! Ohhh the hills. I'm still sore from Sunday's trail run, and here we are again. It's more important to enjoy myself right now as I'm only slowly getting back into the training routine so I promised myself I would walk more this night. What a significant improvement over Sunday though - there was nobody around. We had all the trails to ourselves, nobody got in the way. It was so quiet and beautiful. Sunset said 6:30pm and we were pushing it for time, but with the leaves gone from the trees we had just enough light to spare at the end. Deer, wild kitty, and plenty of tempermental squirrels made up the scenery. The sore muscles went away after 10 minutes of running, everything warmed up just fine. What a great night. Outside of the drive to the trails, I look forward to more of this. I enjoy running uphills, just like I enjoy climbing hills on a bike. It feels like a real workout and I love a challenge. Feel the burn! :)

Running before dinner meant we had the rest of the night to ourselves. I didn't feel rushed or anything. The other thing penciled on the schedule for the evening was volleyball. My company has a volleyball team that we used to play on. That is, until I broke my knee a couple years ago. I do some crazy stuff on bikes and have avoided serious injury, yet I go play some recreational volleyball and I require surgery with over a year of physio and recovery. Needless to say, I'm hesitant to return to the sport. If it was a freak accident, then so be it - but the surgeon made it clear to me that my other knee is just as bad and he expects I'll be back to see him sooner than later. As much as I would like to play, Fran convinced me it's just not worth it. Just the same, he said if I took up running I will wear my knees out before I'm 50 which is too young for knee replacement surgery. I may have ignored that advice just a little... lol.

So I'm shopping for running attire. I need some pants, preferably not jogging pants. Something more like my cycling tights, but for running. Don't suggest Lulu Lemon because that is just crossing the line! My current jogging pants are waaaay to big for me now. It feels like I'm running with a parachute on. I'm also looking for a new pair of pedals for the mountain bike. I broke mine finally after 15 years of use. That has to be a record! It still kind of turns, but with a horrible crunches noise and lots of play in the spindle but I'm really hoping it lasts long enough this Saturday that I can join the Defiant MTB group ride at Hydro cut. They ride a casual pace, so theres a chance the pedal might have one more ride in it. We'll see. I have to order the pedals from the UK and wait on shipping. It could be a couple weeks before I put the order in. I would like to order running and cycling tights too. I'll post pics, my a$$ looks great in tights ;)