Saturday Afternoon Run

Today I decided to run home after Jack’s final basketball game at the Y. They won the game, and even though he’s the smallest one on the team, he’s getting better and really enjoys getting in someone’s face after they’ve stopped dribbling (although apparently when you play 2nd and 3rd grade basketball you can start and stop dribbling as much as you want). Because I started at the Y, I had a different route than I normally do. I ran to Lincoln and around a bit before heading home.

As usual, I had to run in the road since no one seems to shovel, but I tried to pick roads that weren’t so busy so it didn’t matter. It was a nice day for a run, but since I had just run last night I was a bit tired and ended up only doing 3.1 miles. Usually just after mile 2 I’m really ready to keep going, but today I was just ready to get home.

Since I ran on the other side of town than I usually run on, I did find a place to run over the tracks that I usually don’t run over. I took a few shots from the tracks, but I really liked the long, emptiness of this one.

I also listened to Episode 518 of This American Life: Except For That One Thing. I’m almost to the end of the piece, Run On Sentence, which was interesting. It’s about a man who is arrested and needed to serve a prison term after 13 years. They never found him to put him into prison for his sentence. He turned his life around, got a good job, got married, had kids, etc. The only reason they found him and came looking for him is because the Missouri State Corrections was getting ready to “release” him since they thought he was in their system already and then they found out he actually wasn’t there. And hadn’t been there for 13 years. What a mess. As fascinating as that piece is, and it really makes me more sad than anything (our prison system is a mess and he should be left alone to live his life), I really enjoyed Act Two. Act Two, Hungry, Hungry People tells the story of the American Hippopotamus. Jon Mooallem tells the story of two men in the early 1900s who wanted to import hippopotamuses and raise them in Gulf Coast swamps so that Americans could eat them as meat. Absolutely fascinating story of American history and what was being done in the time of a meat shortage.

I love This American Life and hate that there’s only one hour a week. Now I need more reading suggestions. All in all, it was a nice outdoor run. I keep attempting to get them in since it’s supposed to get cold and snowy next week. I’m hoping I’ll still be able to get outside though. Being outside gets me at more milage. I’ve already run more this month than I did last month and I think being able to run outside this week has really helped make that happen.

Here’s my overall run info:

And here are my splits, which weren’t too bad considering I was a bit tired.

Monday Morning Run

This morning I decided to head outside since the weather was pretty nice. I finally learned that because it was so warm yesterday snow had melted, but then it had dropped below freezing so it became really slick in places. I’d run somewhere that looked okay, and it would turn out to be slippery. This caused my final route to look somewhat crazy, as can be seen here:

  

I went all wiggly and this is back and forth a little more than you can tell here. I ended up doing a few quick down and backs or would head one way and have to turn around and go another way since the roads weren’t good. I’m glad I didn’t wipe out, which was my biggest fear. It also kept my times down since I had to really slow down at times.

The first mile went pretty well, but then the rest I had to really test the waters.

I was bummed though since it was one of those days where I could have run even longer and farther. I was just ready to run. I wished I could have done more than the 4 I did, but there will be other days for that. I did take some fun pictures on my adventures. During mile one I always run to the end of Piper to West Central FS. Here’s a photo of their dock.

I crossed Piper in hopes that I could find a non-icy run (and none of my normal sidewalks were clear), so I took a railroad track photo from the side of the tracks that I normally don’t run by.

All in all, a great running day, but no ice would have been better. Nice way to start Spring 2014 semester.