the Way of the Turtle

4 Mile Run in the Albany Pine Bush
Friday, September 13, 2013


The good: I ran 4 miles on trails that are old friends in the Great Dune and Madison Avenue Pinelands sections of the Pine Bush. The rain stopped before I started and it was wonderfully cool fall weather - some of my favorite running weather. And my knee didn't blow up.

The bad: My pace is limited to slow, slower, and slowest... at best around 15 min miles. And because I was focused on my knee not blowing up, I had a lot less time to look around and enjoy the scenery - because a wrong step could have left me hobbling back to the trailhead. And the less said about the 4 mountain bikers who buzzed by me at full speed on a narrow trail (at least the first one warned me he had three buddies and two others let me know they were coming - but they still should have slowed down passing someone on foot.)

The ugly: 5 months ago I was running half marathons, now running 4 miles at a substantially slower pace is a struggle. Sigh.

JMH