A milestone, be it a small one...

I ran with my friend Joe again today. We decided to try the full loop in Forest Park, which I haven't done post-injury. It's around 5.6 miles and has a good amount of hills incorporated into it. I was a little nervous, as it's farther than I've attempted to run. My hope was to run the entire circuit with no walking. It was cold this morning and decently windy. It seems every time I run on a windy day, no matter which direction I run in, I'm running into the wind. It's like the wind shifts deliberately to force me to always run into it. The wind was playing nice today. We had it at our backs almost the entire run, which was preferable. The hills were tough, but I didn't feel super winded or tired during and after them. I really do partially attribute that to spending some time out at Castlewood earlier in the week. I wore my Balaclava today but once again, it still gave me some issues with my glasses fogging. I basically just alternated between keeping it over my mouth and pulling it down to my chin. Even pulled down, it really does help tremendously with keeping my cheeks and neck warm. Priceless. I made it ALMOST the whole circuit, but just over the 5 mile mark (5.08 to be exact), I had to walk a bit as I had a killer side stitch on my right side again that wouldn't quit. I had been running the last mile or so with it and tried to even out my breathing and put pressure on it a bit in the hopes that it would subside, but alas, it did not. So, we walked til about the 5.15 mark, then finished off running. Ended up being a 5.66 mile run and our average pace was 9:45, which is pretty good. I was pleased and I didn't feel wrecked at the end.
Joe mentioned that he used to go to Compton Water Tower and do stairs and that reminded me of that option. Last summer, my friend Jeff and I would go down to the riverfront and do stair repetitions at the Arch. I need to pick up with some of that too. 30 minutes on stairs is a spectacular workout.
We filled up on a really good breakfast at Southwest Diner after. Yum.

Distance: 5.66 miles  Average pace: 9:45/mile

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cold Carondelet night

This weather is killing me. We get a bunch of snow, then it melts, then we have some random weird warm days, then below zero. I don't mind the cold. I used to hate it but now, eh. I don't like this back and forth shit though. I would rather it just stays one way or the other. And the snow definitely makes being consistent with running more difficult. So this week, once again, snow was in the forecast. This meant I wanted to try to get a run in before it was too messy. I didn't really want to do a night run, but it's pretty difficult to avoid in the winter like this. My friend Joe had volleyball Monday night, so we planned to meet at the Y after his game, putting the run at about 8:15. It was very cold, and the dark made it feel even colder. We headed out from the Y into Carondelet park and did a couple laps around the park. I had woken up Monday morning feeling the results of the fall on my stairs the day before, and I was a little skeptical about running that evening,
Read more

Bringing in the New Year right

Well, here I am, two posts behind again...how time slips away from you...I made a conscious decision this year that instead of bringing in the New Year with a massive hangover and no energy that day, I would bring it in a more healthy manner. Now, last year, I wasn't TOO hung over, since I just went to my sister's and had some wine. I also went out and ran on NY day last year, albeit not until 1:30 in the afternoon. I wanted to do that again this year. On NYE, I hit up Forest Park after work and did a short run, since I planned on being out the next morning. I've realized that making my body do two runs in twelve hours is not always the best choice. It was very empty at Forest Park, and I only saw maybe 3 other runners. I assumed most people were gearing up for a night of drinking. That evening, I went to my friend Lisa's around 8. I hung out with her (she's pregnant) and her friend Aubrey and Aubrey's super adorable daughter, Ava. Ava was quite fond of me, as
Read more

Balaclava

Image
It's Christmas Eve day. Some people might have gone out this morning to run in order to counter all those calories they would be consuming later in the day. Not me. I don't have any holiday eating to do until the day after Christmas. I still went for a run though. It was 10 degrees when I left my house. It was the perfect morning to try out my new Saucony Balaclava. In case you don't know what a Balaclava is, it's very similar to a ski mask, with a cutout for the eye area and that's it. It's supposed to be awesome for cold weather running. I've never bought one before because I wear glasses, and whenever I've run with something covering my nose and mouth, my breath just ends up going up my face and fogging up my glasses. The Balaclava I found is a tighter fitting spandex-y material and it has a mouth vent. I chose a neighborhood run this morning, taking Broadway, making a lap around Jefferson Barracks park, then circling back. This route was 5.5 miles
Read more