Stop Me!

Get it? its like 'Stop Pre' except you know... okay that was pretty brutal. If anyone ever asks you to do a long run on Friday afternoon, say no immediately; learn from my mistakes, kids. It didnt help any that it was 80 degrees ether. There was some rhyme and reason to this though, believe it or not. I supposedly have a XC race on Sunday morning (assuming I can find a ride to the unspecified location its being held at) and that's usually my recovery day from my Saturday long run. If I went long Friday, I could do a :30 easy run before the race. I guess its tough training for two things at once. The course itself was really fun. I ran down Marshall, which was okay but you wouldn't want to run it after dark unless you can run well wearing a flak jacket. From there I hit up John Ireland Boulevard, then I looped around the Cathedral, then went down Kelogg and looped around Rice Park and the X, and finally back on John Ireland for a run up to the Capital. Then back Marshall to Cleveland and down to Randolph for some garbage miles. Get that? don't worry, I'll post a map-- it was a good run.

So, what else was fun? I ran past St. Paul Central High School when school was just getting out, so I had to bob and weave through all the kids getting on the busses for a couple hundred meters. Lets just say, had I been wearing spikes, there would be more than a few casualties. I was running up close to the end of Marshall, and some kids were playing on the sidewalk when I ran past them they high fived me. Pretty cool, shows its almost October. Oh, and I finally Quentin Cassidy'd some poor guys car. I felt terrible about it, but I guess running over some guys car is better than getting killed by it. I was at an intersection, and I waited for the walk signal to cross. I didn't see this car coming up the street I was crossing, and he was turning left (without a signal) while I was crossing the turn lane. He stopped, but just barely and he was pulled out pretty far. To go around him, I'd have to run in the middle of the intersection, and I wasn't about to get killed that way. So without thinking, I strided up and over the hood of his car-- probably not the best decision I've made, but I didn't really have any time to react.

I felt good, really good. It took a mile or two to shake off the soreness of yesterday's double, but then I felt like I was standing still and everything was flying by around me. The way back though was an absolute hammer fest, I mean it was brutal. Lotsa hills, I'll post the elevation chart too.