Weekend Adventure!

Don't let the exclamation mark fool you, it isn't as exciting as it sounds.  And it wasn't this weekend, it was a couple of weekends ago when the weather was nice.

Weekend adventure

While randomly searching for something completely unrelated on the internet, I came across Wine Cellar Park in a nearby town.  It is a little park with trails and a stocked fishing pond, with a pre-Civil War stone wine cellar.  It is no longer in use (sadly), but acts as a tourist attraction.

The Wine Cellar, Very Old, Kind of Spooky 

There are a good number of trails, a few paved with asphalt leading to the pond, but many many more unpaved and randomly running through the woods.  I took the time to walk a bit farther than Kim to check a few out, and get a few pictures of the pond.  I doubt they would be much use for running (I'm not going to drive 25 minutes for a training run), but maybe we'll go fishing at the pond later this year.

Kim Being Cute on One of The Trails

 

The Pond, Seen from The Hill Top

And before we left, we found a purple travel coffee cup.  I always find the weirdest things.  When I was in Mississippi on inspections, I found a pair of hunting pants in the middle of the road, folded, that were randomly my size.

So what have my running shoes been up to the past few weeks while giving you the silent treatment?  The name of the game right now is consistency.  Rather than going too big too soon, as I am often wont to do (I don't think people use the word "wont" enough these days), I scaled back to mileage which is manageable to be done 5 or 6 days per week, and am slowly pushing it back up as my body is ready.  I just knocked out a 26 mile week, and my legs feel great.  My only hard workouts are twice weekly fartlek runs where I pick up the pace for about 20-25 seconds.  During this morning's run I finally felt the early parts of my conditioning coming together, the solid form that the fartlek gives, the added speed and power from the gym, and my aerobic conditioning helping me recover between bursts.

Eventually, when that site redesign that I've been talking about for... cough...a year... finally gets taken care of, I'm going to include something for weekly mileage.  I'm also working on my racing schedule for the year, I don't have it all figured out yet, but I am planning to try to start the year with a half marathon in late April.  I'll have more about that next time though.

A closing thought:  Experts don't know shit.  An expert is someone who knows enough to speak from authority to those who don't, and that authority is derived from their confidence.  Never let someone tell you that you should do something if they personally don't do it or haven't done it themselves, which is really the only way to know what works.  How do I know this?  I'm an expert, stop asking questions and do what I say.