A Walk in the Park

AM: 59 mins.
8.5 miles
PM: ~32 mins.
4 miles

Jeff had originally scheduled me for 4 miles @6:10 pace today, but amended that to 4 miles reasonably uptempo. We both know there's no chance of me gaining fitness between now and Stanford, so today's effort was just meant to wake up the legs and break up the monotony of every other day's easy runs. Because of this, and because I wanted to save time so I could meet up with my parents sooner, I opted to hit up Freedom Park and the adjacent greenway instead of driving to McAlpine. This meant I wouldn't have any mile markers and therefore no real idea of how fast I was running, but for the purposes of today's run I was fine with that.

Overall this outing was pretty fantastic. I felt great on the uptempo section, probably moreso than on the "easy" segments, and I was almost sorry to slow down when the "workout" portion was over. I would estimate my pace was somewhere in the 6:20-6:30 range, with a few minutes perhaps a bit faster, but I felt very relaxed and could've run quite a few more miles at that pace. Always nice to feel that way at the end of a harder effort.


Freedom Park fountain

This afternoon I took my dad back over to Freedom Park for my shakeout. It was a gorgeous afternoon and it seemed as though everyone from the Myers Park neighborhood was out and about. A few times it was a bit tedious weaving around dog walkers, baby joggers, little kids on bicycles, etc., but I have to say it makes me happy to see so many people outside enjoying the day. My dad was very impressed with the park and couldn't stop raving about how clean and new everything looked. I've almost gotten to the point where I take this for granted, but days like this certainly make me appreciative.