Okay, I lied… I actually did go for a run

Okay, I was going to woose out today, but I didn’t.  Partly becuase DS was driving me crazy (he’s in a chatty mood and I was trying despirately to study… and I find trying to sudy while beign asked a million questions by somone who is patholicitally averse to studying very difficult… and I came home and he came down to chat again… sigh… I will never get my test taken… or at least passed) and partly becuase it is such a beautiful monring I just needed to go for a run.

I set out with my Podrunner Intervals Gateway to 8k Week 2 jumping in my brain and decided to take the road less traveled…

My Road Less Traveled

There is a dirt… (road is a real stretch… more like a dirt bike trail that sometimes jeeps and off roaders go on)… trail… that cuts off into the woods about 1/3 of the way through my daylight run trail.  I figured I would try the new way.  I couldn’t get too terribly lost, we had gone for a walk part way down the trail before… I knew the general direction… and I knew I would hit road somewhere before too terribly long… so I went the road less traveled…

It was a great workout… the different feeling under my feet… ended up on gravel, wet dirt, grass and road by the time I got home.

I chased a squirrel down the trail, flushed two rabbits, and sweated myself silly.

One of the flowers I passed

I actually ended up running as much as walking becuase of some of the terraine.  It was a shorter way to run that I’m used to… I had to add in an extra loop of the new housing area to get the whol 46 minute workout in and the cooldown stretch part at the end… I muddied my running shoes.  My calves ache right now… but I bathed off the dirt and what I’m hoping is all of the poison ivy oil that I probably got into.

I love the feeling of freedom while I run.  Today, the run was mentally as well as physically exactly what I needed.  I pushed my body, I let my mind sail free and I ended up having one of the best mornings in a long time.

Had a creek to cross

One thing I realized after I started the cooldown stretch part… I use whatever is handy to stretch.  And, I realized that I can stretch better now than I can remember being able to in years.

stretching on the hydrant

I use one hydrant to stretch my legs, I use the next one I pass to do push ups against… I’m up to about 40 pushups with my hands on the wide blue ring… except when it is cold and wet… then I seem to slip and I really really don’t want to smash my face on the hydrant… but I don’t have to worry about that so often even in the winter and certainly not now.