The sound of rakes in the distance

It's definitely spring, based upon the number of people tinkering with their lawns today.

I went for a morning run along a standard route, looping around the neighborhood. This is usually a 4.5 mile run, but today I added an extra turn and went into a local park I've recently started exploring. It's small, but has a nice 1 mile pond loop that is quiet and shaded. The short distance around makes it pretty easy to tweak distance as needed, and it's a nice halfway point break from running roads.

I haven't run my favorite rail trail in a while, mostly because it is far enough away that I feel compelled to drive there. I much prefer taking off from the front door - driving to go running (unless it's a race) seems somehow counterproductive.

My run was a bit slower than usual today, and as I stopped to take a walk break I tried to figure out why. I came up with a number of reasons (rationalizations?) including: only having a piece of toast with butter and nutritional yeast for breakfast, not drinking a lot of water yesterday or this morning, coming off of a long work week that included less than good nights of sleep, and simply not being as frequent a runner as I was in the last few months. These days I'm happy to get out 3 times a week, as opposed to 4 or 5. With the spring here, I'll work my way back up to it. I dig it when I'm out there, but I'm not the type who has to run-or-else.

With all that said, I allowed myself a leisurely run in the sun, and tried to let all the competitive aspects of it go. After all, I was alone most of the time. I did see a cross country team running in a pack, but that was about it until I got to the park.

It's early afternoon, and I am getting set to head out for a little bit. I am in a mood to knock off some small projects (hanging things on the wall, for example), and I seriously need to go food shopping (last night's dinner was all taken from the freezer...). I'll do my best to stay away from the sports store, but it's right next to the hardware store, and it wouldn't be a terrible thing to get an extra pair of running shorts.... :)