I know you are thinking I ditched my long run..I didn't. I got it in, but I will tell you there is a big difference running at 6 am as opposed to 6 pm. More on that later.. I parked my car where I usually park and had my route planned in my head. I figured I could do the loop that I normally start off with and then head down towards the park that I discovered and head back towards the car..which should put me around five miles...and I can then grab a drink of some Gatorade and then head back out on my run. Sounds like a great plan right? Well the thing that I didn't plan for were the cars. I felt like I was playing frogger with them. I was on the left side of the road and I was hugging the side of the road. Cars would drive by and not move over a bit. Now if a car was coming on the right side I could understand, but nope, no other cars except me and the car coming at me. So I kept having to jump off the road. The jumping off the road was annoying but not that bad when I had a berm to jump to..but sometimes there really wasn't much area on the side of the road. I really didn't have all of these cars the last time I ran this neighborhood at 6 am. Note to self, this road sucks to run in the evening!
The one nice thing about last night's run was that it was nice and cool for the summer. I think it was mid to low 80's when I was running. Talk about some nice temps! I headed out on my loop and waved to some neighborhood people. (I know someone is bound to invite me soon to a block party) and then headed down the road to Government Island Park. I couldn't wait to run the shaded wooded area. It is located down a dead end road, so you would think not a lot of traffic. Which compared to the neighborhood was a lot less. The problem was there was no real side of the road and the road was windy..so I was always worried about not being able to be seen by the speed demon cars coming up and down the road. So that will be my last run down towards Government Island. If I want to run there I will drive there. The heart attack while running was not worth it.
I headed back towards my car and got my drink and fixed my Camel Back. I am really blonde because it took me a while to figure out that my mouthpiece had a shutoff valve. I couldn't figure out why water kept coming out. When I got to the car I also had to adjust the straps on the Camel Back because it kept bouncing and I had to get the air out because it kept sloshing. Once that was all settled I was off again. I headed off to the next neighborhood. No real issues. I did realize that the speed limit of 25 mph was apparently just a suggestion that nobody follows! 60 was the way to go!
I enjoyed exploring the neighborhood. I thought I could circle around back to my car but turned out all I found were dead ends. It was fun exploring though. As I was coming back to my car..tired and ready to be done with playing Frogger with yet more cars..btw..I apologize to the nice red car that moved all the way over for me. I thought you were not going to move at all and I was secretly cussing you out..turned out you were the nicest car of the night. Thank you for looking out for me and not trying to run me down.
Well two hours later I am almost to my car and I spot about 6 deer crossing the road in front of me. I tried to take a picture but I couldn't get my iphone fast enough. When I got to where they crossed they were long gone. I did see a random cat in the driveway though. I did not take a picture of the cat.
So my lesson on this run is that I need to get my long runs in during the morning hours when there are less cars on the road. I just do not like dealing with cars. If I put off my run until the evening I need to go to a bike/run path to run.
2 comments:
That frogger running game sounds scary!! Glad you survived!
I sort-of laughed about the camel back and the shut-of valve - I might have had a similar experience the first time I used mine!
Oh! I hate being to slow on the camera draw! Glad you survived to run another day!
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