Sometimes it is fun to just act like a kid again. Every opportunity I have to do so I take. Whenever it rains I love to get out and "play in the mud" with a trail run. It poured this morning, so I just had to head out to Jacobsburg in the afternoon.
Most of the trail at Jacobsburg is actually pretty good and doesn't get too muddy. It was still wet everywhere, but firm in most places. The goal was to get in a comfortable two miles. I wanted to take on some more of the hills too when I had the opportunity. I skipped on them earlier in my comeback, but now it is time to get stronger.
The GPS didn't work too well in the beginning, so I ended up walking a bit to start. Early on, I tried going uphill and actually ended up going back the same way I started. It's been awhile since I ran there much, so sort of got lost. I knew pretty quickly where I was and I backtracked to where I made the wrong turn.
I finally got onto the correct uphill stretch adjacent to Route 33. I came across a cat. That was quite interesting. I don't usually see those while trail running. I handled the uphills surprisingly well. The distance clicked off much faster than it has lately. I must've been having fun. I saw another set of footprints and I only hope he was running through there and having as much fun as me.
Once I got to the top of the hill, I knew the downhill would be a wet section. It is always like a river running down there and today was no exception. The ground was still pretty solid though. I was more concerned about not slipping on a rock than anything else. I wasn't going out far enough to hit the very muddy section. I'll save that for another day.
I wasn't exactly sure where I'd come out at, but I thought I could loop back around. It turns out I was correct. If I didn't have dinner commitments with my parents, I might've run even further since I was feeling quite strong. The second part of the run did have a lot of hills, so I'm glad I opted not to go further. I still had more left in the tank, but the hills definitely took quite a bit out of me.
I finished up after two miles and walked a bit to get back to my car. My time was right around 19:30. I was thinking about how that my 5k times used to be faster than that. Basically if I was on a track, my old self could've lapped my current self in that time frame. That's mind blowing to think how slow I am now. It won't stop me from getting back to that point and beyond, but it made me realize just how far I have to go to get there.
My recovery seems to be much better lately. I wasn't too sore during the run. I started off with little problem and ran with solid form throughout. I stiffened up a bit afterward, but that wasn't all that bad either. Icing is certainly a big help.
Overall, it was a fun day. It wasn't quite as muddy as I hoped, but I definitely did splash myself. I got a good workout in too and was sweating quite a bit at the end. My splits were amazingly similar. That's very tough to do on an uneven trail. Tomorrow and Thursday I'll be at the District track meet. I hope to run beforehand Thursday and would like to get in some hill sprints tomorrow as well.
2 miles - 19:28 (9:45 pace)
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