After much procrastination, I’ve decided to try to get back into the running habit. So, Saturday, I dusted off the old running shoes and headed out for a 6 mile jaunt. Did pretty good, but started off a little late in the day for me. Dehydration set in about 5.5 miles in, so I walked the last half mile in.
Today, however, was the big day. I started what I hope to make a trend; the pre-work morning run. Yep, breaking my habit of getting up, eating some breakfast and putting together a lunch, then going back to sleep, I got suited up and headed out for a quick run. I intended to do a 3 mile loop, but missed the turn I wanted (hey, it was 4:45am, maintaining verticality at that hour is normally challenge enough for me) and ended up doing a 2.75 mile out and back.
Since I’ve never run at this hour before, here are a few of my observations:
- Its freaking dark. Hmm, never occurred to me that it would be dark. Tried to be a little more careful than usual avoiding craters and road debris.
- There are lots of animals out at that hour. Counted 5 rabbits, 2 skunk, and some other critters too fast for me to identify.
- Its real quiet. The last few times I’ve been running, I’ve been listening to music (via an Ipod Mini) to help me concentrate on my rhythm and make the runs go faster. I didn’t bring music today and it was weird to hear myself huffing and puffing away.
Gonna try the same plan again tomorrow and see if my body likes it. Maybe stretch out to a little longer run.
My buddy Larry pointed me at a really cool mapping tool over here: http://www.us.map24.com/ Kinda like MSN maps, but it lets you pan and zoom in real time. Best of all it has a tool that allows you measure distances on the map interactively. So, with minimal hassles, you can get accurate measurement for runs. Definitely worth a look.
On my list of a million little tech thingies I’d like to do, I’d like to make an online version of my running log. My main reason is that no matter where I keep my master log, either at work or at home; it seems I’m always at the other when I remember to make an entry. If I put it on a website, at least I’ll be able to mitigate that excuse. I can also make some pretty cool graphs. Oh well, maybe some day.
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