the Way of the Turtle

5.5 Mile Run in the Pine Bush
Tuesday, May 20, 2008

I almost didn't go out today - another work day that left me pretty drained, and the weather wasn't particularly inspiring - but in the end better sense won out and I headed over to the Madison Avenue Pinelands trailhead to spend some time on some familiar trails.

I realized a while back that I have almost a year of running on my Saucony trail shoes... so even though the soles aren't looking too badly worn, the cushioning is probably shot, and I broke out another pair of Saucony's I had stored in the closet. One of the nice things about Saucony's is that they fit me well enough that they're typically comfortable right out of the box (the Adidas Supernova's I run in generally feel tight until I've broken them in.) So it felt good to be running on a new pair of shoes. I also used this run as an opportunity to test out my new GoLite Hydrosprint waist pack.

I decided to do a perimeter run, in part to see how long it is (three cheers for my Garmin ForeRunner) and also becuase I didn't want to overdo the distance and hills, seeing that I'm hoping to run the Olana Star Loop 10k tomorrow and it's a very hilly course. I got out late, which had the advantage of cutting down on the number of people on the trails (didn't run into anybody!) and the disadvantage of the possibility of my finishing in the dark (so I put my headlamp in the pocket of my shorts.)

Overall it was a good run... the new pack worked great, it was indeed virtually bounce-free and very comfortable once I got used to it. I was delayed a bit by a detour when I reached the cleared dunes in the farthest reaches of the trails - the sunset was looking pretty darn cool, so I hiked out to the highest point to get some photos. My legs felt a lot better than they did during my short run last Thursday.

At the end I was briefly tempted to extend the run by another mile or two, but the late hour and the prospect of a hilly run tomorrow won out and I settled for a relatively short 5.5 miles. Hopefully tomorrow's run will feel as good as tonight's!

JMH