the Way of the Turtle

13.4 Mile Run from Albany to Colonie & Through the Albany Pine Bush
Thursday, April 2, 2009

What a gorgeous afternoon... even though it was fairly cloudy for a lot of my run, the weather was a nice reminder of what's on the way... warm, but not too warm. Shorts and T-shirt weather. Good weather for running...

I bailed on the long run last night due to exhaustion and lousy weather... I was fairly sure if I tried doing 12-13 miles I'd end up quitting after 6 or so. So I changed plans to do the run today, the only way I could... running from home to the karate school on Colonie, where I was scheduled to teach classes. That's about 8.5 miles in and of itself, so I also planned to take some detours in the Pine Bush to raise the mileage by 4 or 5 miles.

Initial stretch was annoying because for some reason my Garmin 205 just wouldn't pick up a signal. It finally kicked in after about a mile and a half. I headed out Western Ave, looped through the SUNY Albany campus, and hit Rennselaer Lake Park at about 4 miles. From there I spent much of the next 8 miles running through the Pine Bush - a welcome reprieve from pavement, though it did slow me down a bit. I followed the trails through the Rennselaer Lake section, then crossed the road and made my way through the Fox Run trailer park to the access road and trail heading into the Karner Barrens, near the Pine Bush Discovery Center. From there I spent about 4.5 miles running the trails on both sides of Route 155. Definitely a good time!

Eventually I left the woods (bummer) and ended up on 155 for the final mile and a half to the karate school. All I can say is wide shoulders are a wonderful thing on a busy road. Despite having run almost 12 miles to get to that point, the last stretch felt decent... if need be I could have kept going for a few miles more, though I suspect my pace would have dropped quite a bit. The first half of the run was tough at times - legs felt tired and sluggish - so I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to run as far as I did today. While the terrain was a lot easier than what I'll be facing in many of the long races I'm planning to run this year (almost half was on pavement, after all, and the Pine Bush trails are gentle enough that I was able to run on them in my road shoes without difficulty) today's run gives me hope that if I keep at it I'll be ready for some of the tough runs I'm hoping to challenge myself with over the next 9 months...

JMH