Run 48, 2009

My first run since my 5Peaks race last June 13th and my second since the marathon May 31st went not too badly but certainly below par. I started out pretty good but tired very quickly. I guess I have not yet recovered completely from my last two races, not to mention that rather difficult grading I went through to get my blue belt in karate last Saturday. All in all I’ve been pretty tough on myself, not letting myself heal up from those events before just diving into more.

It was a hot and windy run. The water levels at the bird sanctuary were very low. Most of the ponds were bone dry. The geese and other water birds are not very happy about it. When we first moved here 20 or so years ago there was water everywhere, lapping at the banks of the local country roads, even! Since then a long dry couple of decades has pretty much wiped out the wetlands and shrubs and trees have moved into the once too wet areas. Some old timers say it has happened before and they think it’s just part of a cycle and that the water will return to its former level, but I’m not sure about that. On the plus side there are not many mosquitoes, but on the negative side there aren’t many dragonflies either.

Still, I’m happy to be back running again. I will give myself a chance to heal by reducing my pace drastically for the next few training runs. My next race is July 25 in the Chickakoo Lake Recreational area north of Stony Plain. It is heavily wooded with hill/hole pairs of glacial lakes in an Aspen-Spruce-Pine parkland setting. From what I remember it is not as difficult as the Devon race in terms of the difficulty of the terrain, but it still has some pretty wicked hills. I will be running it once before the race but I don’t know exactly when yet. It’s close enough to home that I don’t have to worry about it.

My next training run is Saturday.