A Lovely Run

I really had a lovely run last night, even if it was a bit truncated. The weather broke on Friday night gracing NYC with another perfect weekend. Still, I managed to be pretty lazy for all of Saturday and most of Sunday. I put off going for my run until late on Sunday afternoon (of course, having been ripped out of sleep at 5 AM by my upstairs neighbors, causing me to be lethargic all day, hadn't helped matters), but I finally got my act together around 4 PM. I went downstairs to bring Lola out first before going and ran into neighbors, Kathy, Claudine & Jerry hanging out in the backyard, cooking out steaks and drinking and having a great time. They invited me to join them -- what a dilemma! Grilled steak and shrimp and cold beer outside on a beautiful day or run. hmmmmmmm, hemmed and hawed and finally said, "no, thanks I really have to run". (Can you believe it???) They said, go for the run and come back and have dinner with us anyway. Sounds good. So, I left Lola with them, so that she could enjoy being outside and could play with Jake, their dog and I went up to Forest Park. Knowing that I didn't have a lot of time, I altered the course I would have done, had I no plans. But I also ran harder than I would have too (and took fewer walk breaks), knowing that time was limited. Ran in on the Park Drive for about (maybe not quite) a half a mile, and then veered off on one of the bridle path roads (still running), ran hard in through here and up and down the small hills until the bottom of the big series of hills that always kicks my behind. I walked for a short space before tackling the hills. It's actually one, big hill that plateaus a couple of times before continuing up. I ran each section, stopped briefly on each plateau before continuing on up the hill. I reached the summit expecting another section, but I was already at the top. I thought to myself, 'that's it?' I was completely out of breath of course, but I was expecting more. It somehow seemed to go a lot easier than the last time I did this hill (which was maybe 2 weeks ago). Of course the low humidity could have had something to do with that, but I'll take it. From the hill I continued on my loop, taking a shorter route than I would have had such a great dinner and beer not been waiting for me. Still I was able to pretty much keep running, with few walk breaks. I came out of the bridle paths and back on to the Park Drive and powered up the last big hill of the Park, enjoying the treat of a nice downhill on the other side and out to where the Park exited at Metropolitan Avenue.

All in all this was a pretty good effort for me, I am beginning to feel like I used to as a runner, I can actually get out there and run more than I walk. And that's a good thing.

Oh and the steak & shrimp & beer was delicious.