the Way of the Turtle

FINALLY... RUNNING AGAIN!
6 Miles in the Pine Bush
Friday, June 1, 2007

One of the minuses to being a teacher is that certain times of the year are major crunch times, and this is one of them... between writing exams, grading, helping kids review, and writing the new AP audit materials for my three AP classes, I had no time this week to run, ride, or do much of anything outdoors. Which, combined with lack of sleep, left me a cranky and somewhat depressed turtle... even questioning whether it makes sense to go to Connecticut this Sunday for NIPMUCK.

Tonight I finally got out for an easy run, the last before NIPMUCK... while the weather was hot and humid and felt more like mid-July or August, it was great to be out on the trails again. My legs didn't turn to jello during my week of inactivity... the rest may have even done them some good, since they didn't feel at all tired. I ran most of the trails in the Columbia Circle section of the Pine Bush... it was a little surprising how overgrown they are. Either in the past they'd been mowed during the spring, or else that area is seeing a lot less traffic this year. In any case, it was a good run with a few short hills, lots of birds, and even a deer or two. There's no question I really needed this run...

One unfortunate "wildlife" encounter - when I got home I found four ticks on me, three crawling and one working on embedding itself. Yechh. On the positive side, at least I found them before they could do any harm... and hopefully that's all of them, so Chaos the cat doesn't end up with any.

I'm feeling much more positive about doing NIPMUCK on Sunday, though I still have serious doubts that I'll be able to finish... but I won't know unless I go down and give it my best shot.

JMH