Saturday is my usual long run day. Things were a little different though. I was going to the Indy Car race in Baltimore and camping about an hour away in Cordorus State Park. I had to start early to do so. Because I was at a state park, I opted for a trail run. Originally, it was 8 miles, but I figured I wouldn't go that far.
There were a lot of horse trails and would've loved to have ran them, but I didn't want to get lost and not get to the race track on time. I opted instead for the trail that the park ranger suggested. It was only a mile and a half loop though, so I wasn't crazy about doing it multiple times. At least I wouldn't get lost though.
The start of the trail was stone and I thought it would be disappointing as I like dirt much better. It turned out to be a surprise though. Early on, there was some nice elevation. It had quite a few rolling hills around the cove at the lake. Nothing was too challenging, but it wasn't pancake flat either. Most of it was through the woods, but some was through grass. The path was mainly dirt.
Early on, I picked up on some painted arrows, so I followed them. It wasn't like the trail was hard to find. I tried to venture off at one point into a narrower trail, but that sort of disappeared. At one point, I turned to follow the arrows and they ran into the lake and said "swim." So I had to backtrack to get back on the trail.
The first loop covered about 1.7 miles with the brief add on. I wasn't going very fast because it was a trail. At that point, I really started telling myself that I'd be happy to do 5 or 6 miles rather than 8. During the second lap, I opted for another spur trail. This ended up going to a gravel road. When I got to some houses, I finally turned back around. This added significant distance to the second loop. I had some chafing of my nipples going on, so I took off my shirt.
It was cloudy throughout most of the run, but I noticed it got very dark after my second lap. At this point, I figured I only had time for one more lap anyway. I cruised around nicely, although I was getting a little tired. I pushed harder though. This time I went the opposite direction. I didn't want to overstress one side of my body and I also wanted to see things differently. This start with a tough uphill climb. Things were smooth after that though, until I hit about the final half mile.
I was covered by the trees, but I could hear the rain really picking up. It got louder and louder, as did the thunder. For most of the run, it was off in the distance. Now, it was right there. It really poured within the final quarter mile. I ran around the parking lot in the storm for the final .05 mile, so I could get to six miles.
I timed it perfectly as it got even worse as I jumped in the car. The rain was the heaviest yet and lightning and thunder were really rumbling. I'm sure glad I wasn't stuck on that trail or the horse trails at that point. It was great to be done, even if I didn't get as far as I wanted. The run was better than I expected.
6 miles - 1:01:45 (10:18 pace)
No comments:
Post a Comment