Recovery Trail Running

After taking a full day off from running yesterday following the hard effort at Decker on Sunday, I was feeling really good today. Jeff, Andy and I toured the State Capitol and walked around downtown for a while yesterday, which helped loosen up the legs. We all could tell that we had done some serious running the day before.

Today, I went out mid-morning on a beautiful day with temps in the mid- to high-forties, bright sunshine, and little wind. Just great out there. I intended to run either an hour or 7 miles, depending on how I felt. I headed through the 'Hood to the Water Tower Trail, and really enjoyed the solitude of the trail and the surface underfoot after the race on Sunday. I did a pretty good job of running nice and easy, but it was probably still a little faster than it would have been if I had been able to run with Frank and Sean this morning. Anyway, after popping out of the trailhead, I decided to go up and explore the side trail that winds down and over to St. Edward's Park, which is on Spicewood Springs Road. The brush is pretty overgrown, but I found that trailhead fairly easily and turned to explore.

I intended to maybe go for 5 minutes and then turn around, just to break up consecutive loops on the water tower trail. Instead, I found myself really enjoying the rockier trail as it wound its way down to the other side of the mountain, so to speak. I guess I was sort of lost in the music and the simple rhythms of the run, but all of a sudden, I sensed someone right behind me, and I know I jumped a bit when I saw the guy. He was just a fellow runner, but man, it got the old HR pumped up for a moment. He was faster, and soon disappeared ahead of me, but it gave me something to laugh about after I relaxed. I ended up going quite a ways down the trail, turning around after 10 minutes or so, and headed back up the rather steep and rocky return trail. I took it relatively easy coming up the trail, and even saw a big buck deer trot across ahead of me, leaping gracefully over a fence. Cool! I enjoyed this new trail so much, I think I'll do it more often in the weeks to come.

Anyway, after that detour, I did another lap of the water tower trail, and then finally, grudgingly, I got back on the pavement for the half mile or so return trip to the house. I picked it up over the last few miles after the steep trail part, but still ended up with a reasonably easy run. Did some balance drills after I finished, and then I was done.

7.17 miles, 1:06:00, 9:12/mile pace. Pace was 9:21/mile through 5 miles or so, but I had a couple of moderately faster miles to finish, bringing the overall pace down.

It was actually fun out there today. Not as much fun as running with my friends, but pretty good all the same.